Victory Point - Ed Darack [62]
“Listen, motherfuckers,” he finally said. “I love you all. But if you didn’t want to worry about twisting your ankles or getting fucked-up knees and backs by the time you’re twenty-five, then you shouldn’t have joined the fucking Marine Corps. Understand? I’m tired of hearing Bradley and Fisher have to tell you how to act like Marines. Let’s rest for five, then when we step off again, stay fucking dispersed and keep up with me!”
Burgos, who’d kept up with Kinser for the entire movement, proclaimed during the break, “Sir, I think we’re gonna have to start calling you the centaur.”
“The centaur, huh?” Kinser responded. “Fisher, gimme another cigarette.”
“What the fuck is a centaur?” “Red” Davidson asked.
“It’s one of those white horses with a horn sticking out of its head, runs out of crashing waves with twinkly stars and a rainbow in the background. My ex-girlfriend’s little sister used to have posters of them all over her room,” Fisher stated with a wry grin as he handed the lieutenant a cigarette.
“No, dumb-ass, that’s a fuckin’ unicorn,” Bradley interjected. “A centaur’s a—”
“Half man, Half stallion,” Kinser roared as he exhaled a long plume of smoke from atop a boulder, then broke a huge grin—causing everyone else to fall down in laughter. “Now let’s get movin’ ” But while Kinser time and again showed his bravado in a joking, almost self-effacing way, he knew from Officer Candidate School and now in the field that great leadership stemmed in large part from physical ability. The dysentery had thrashed the young lieutenant from the inside out. He’d lost nearly twenty pounds, and could easily have just lain in bed for much of his days. But as an infantry officer, he didn’t just have to keep up, he had to set the pace—a strong pace, no matter how difficult the terrain or weakened his condition. He had to charge ahead not fearlessly, but with honest confidence and deliberateness, never revealing even the slightest hint of discomfort, pain, or trepidation. Marines watch their commanders, they pick them apart, notice their weaknesses, and Kinser valued stalwart leadership of grunts in the field above all else.
“Oo-rah.” All nineteen Marines sounded off in consonance.
“Hey, Bradley. Just to let you know, I know what a unicorn is. I was just jokin’ around.” Fisher enlightened his close friend.
“Sure you do, Fish. I’m sure you’re a real expert on unicorns.”
“Hey, sir, how do you know that the shepherd back up there wasn’t a Taliban or al-Qaeda supporter?” Burgos asked as the group neared the floor of the Pech Valley, now cloaked in the shadow of dusk.
“Well . . .” Kinser thought as he bounded onto easier terrain, sighting the Pech Valley Road a few hundred meters ahead of him, “I suppose since we can’t read minds, we don’t really know. But we didn’t find any weapons caches in the little storage house, and there was no dunnage [leftover material from rocket or mortar attacks] anywhere on the mountain, and the guy’s little one-room house had nothing in it any of us could see, so then he’s just a regular Afghan, living his life.” The lieutenant, who, like many of his peers, possessed wisdom years beyond his age, continued: “I mean, look, we got bum intel, and you have to remember that the only real intelligence is gathered once boots hit the deck, and we get eyes on. Our boots hit the deck, we got eyes on, and the guy was clean—even gave us some kick-ass goat milk. We’re deep in the counterinsurgency part of this war. We can’t treat every Afghan like a bad guy. Far from it; it’s all about restraint. We can’t be pissing off the locals who the bad guys are tellin’ that they’ll be around long after we leave, and to trust them and not us. Read your ROE [rules of engagement] card. Read it, memorize it, and read it again.” Kinser was referring the “CJTF-76 Operation Enduring Freedom-VI Rules of Engagement Card,” a three-by-five-inch document published on 15 March 2005 detailing how all forces under CJTF-76 (both conventional as well as SOF) could and couldn’t engage known