Capt. Cruz ended the formation by calling out, “Platoon sergeants!
Take charge of your Marines and carry out the plan of the day!”
All of our attention was focused on Cpl. Hoffman for direction.
He informed us that we had until 2300, approximately two and one-half hours, to get all four vehicles prepped and on the road ready to roll. Once we arrived on the Ramp, every Marine pursued his task with an inspiring sense of urgency. Marines swarmed over the four vehicles assigned to our platoon. I shadowed my sponsor, Lance Cpl. Baker, to learn the way business was conducted on the Ramp.
Within the first thirty minutes the tarps were stripped from the hulls of the vehicles, hatches were opened, gear was laid out and inventoried, and the weapons systems were inspected. I recognized that one of the vehicles had a TOW-firing system—a tank killer. It looked like the LAV on the cover of Leatherneck that Staff Sgt. Stone had shown me in the recruiting office. I was awestruck standing next to the real thing.
Lance Cpl. Baker called out, “Fire in the hole!” and the diesel engine on our LAV erupted.
Thick black smoke flowed from the exhaust pipe on the side of the hull and shrouded the vehicle in a dark billowing cloud. It was my first inhalation of LAV diesel exhaust, and it was intoxicating.
Our vehicle was one of two that included the mortar weapons system. It had a 60mm firing platform built into the center deck of the LAV, as well as a removable ground-mounted 80mm mortar gun.
I was disappointed that I was not assigned to the TOW vehicle, because it had been the object of my combat fantasies for more than a year. Until then I hadn’t known that there were different variants of light armored vehicles. Ironically, during my six years of service in the Marines I would never operate the TOW variant that had been responsible for my original fascination with the LAV.
At approximately 2130 the crewmen turned their attention to S P A R E P A R T S
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reassembling and strategically placing the gear, weapons, and supplies back on the vehicle. There were Marines hovering over every inch of the LAV. I was overwhelmed by the technicality of it all.
They worked feverishly to perform the required radio checks, engine services, hull maintenance, weapons inspections, ammunition placement, map reconnaissance, and personal gear storage. It was dizzying.
At 2230 Cpl. Hoffman ordered all hands to mount up and prepare for movement. I followed him into the darkness that was the belly of the LAV hull. It was pitch black and crowded with gear and troops. I sat sightless and waited. And waited. It was the familiar hurry-up-and-wait phenomenon that I remembered from boot camp.
The glow from my wristwatch showed the time was 2345 when I heard Cpl. Hoffman’s voice competing with the hum of the engine.
“Those fucking slowpokes in Headquarters held us up . . . but we are Oscar Mike!”
Oscar Mike represented the phonetic names for the letters O and M, which together stand for “On the Move.” Being on the move felt great, even though I had no idea where we were headed. I recalled from the CO’s briefing that tonight’s mission was to set up a base camp at a mortar firing range.
I hoped it was close. I was growing tired in the vibrating darkness of the hull.
The faint squeal of the air brakes and the deceleration of the diesel engine continued until we halted forward movement. After a few clanking sounds of metal on metal the two overhead hatches swung outboard, exposing the entire hull to the glow of the moonlight and the dampness of the midnight air. Instinctively, the Marines exploded from the vehicle into a flurry of activity. Gear and people poured from the top and backside of the LAV. I had no idea what to do in the midst of it all. I found Cpl. Hoffman just outside the vehicle, using his hands to ground-guide a five-ton truck into our perimeter.
When the truck stopped, he handed me an M16 rifle and told me to stand guard. I pulled on his sleeve to stop him from leaving.
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“Cpl. Hoffman, what am I guarding?”
He walked me around to the tailgate and showed me the stack of wooden crates that filled the bed of the truck.
“That’s our ammo for the drill—five hundred mortar rounds.
Don’t let anybody fuck with it until I get back.”
I looked down at the M16 and realized it had a full magazine clip in it. It was the first time I had held a loaded M16 outside the safety constraints of the firing range, and it was unsettling. There were no Marines checking to see where the muzzle was pointed, no one to ensure that my rifle’s safety mechanism was engaged, and nobody to watch my finger on the trigger. Cpl. Hoffman trusted that I knew what to do. I didn’t. I started to panic.
I thought about the sentry classes that Drill Instructor Sgt. Wagner had taught. I couldn’t believe I was wishing Drill Instructor Sgt.
Wagner were with me. For a moment I thought even Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley would have been a welcomed sight. Then I silently recited the words from the Marine “general orders.” They were no longer just words, the way they had been to this point.
1. To take charge of this post and all government property in view.
2. To walk my post in a military manner, keeping always on the alert and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing.
3. To report all violations of orders I am instructed to enforce.
4. To repeat all calls from posts more distant from the guardhouse than my own.
5. To quit my post only when properly relieved.
6. To receive, obey, and pass on to the sentry who relieves me, all orders from the commanding officer, officer of the day, and officers and noncommissioned officers of the guard only.
7. To talk to no one except in the line of duty.
8. To give the alarm in case of fire or disorder.
9. To call the corporal of the guard in any case not covered by instructions.
10. To salute all officers and all colors and standards not cased.
11. To be especially watchful at night, and during the time for challenging, to challenge all persons on or near my post and to allow no one to pass without proper authority.
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These general orders are tattooed into every Marine’s brain. But reciting the words and assimilating their meaning are two very different processes. I rationalized that all Marines must feel anxious the first time they hold a loaded weapon on guard unsupervised.
I recited the general orders in my head over and over. Then it dawned on me. The “corporal of the guard” provides all orders and instructions to sentries. I need to find the corporal of the guard.
I stopped the first Marine that passed.
“I need the corporal of the guard.”
“You mean Cpl. Hoffman?” he asked.
“I mean the Marine in charge of this guard post.”
I was sweating profusely and my hands were wet against the rifle.
The Marine in the shadows seemed annoyed. “You got rounds in that rifle?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then you are the Marine in charge of this guard post,” he replied, and walked away.
He was right. I was the Marine in charge of this post. I walked around the truck so that I could keep all of it in view. I walked my post in a military manner as I had been taught in the squad bays of Parris Island. It was actually more marching than walking, around a square perimeter, pivoting at each corner, with the rifle on my right shoulder. The rifle fit differently into my shoulder with the magazine in place.
At approximately 0130 the monotony of guard duty ended. I heard footsteps and voices from a distance. I could make out two silhouettes approaching on foot. I questioned what I was about to do, but did it anyway. Once I started, it was automatic and instinctive.
I called out into the darkness, “Halt! Who goes there?”
The voices stopped and the footsteps slowed, but did not stop.
A second time I commanded, �
��Halt! Identify yourself!”
The footsteps stopped. I moved the rifle from my shoulder to the port-arms position in front of my chest, loudly slapping the hand guards for the warning effect.
The body on my left started moving toward me. “You got to be fucking kidding me?”
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I gave a third and final warning, by the book. “Halt, or I’ll shoot!”
I heard one more footstep. They heard the bolt slam home, driving a 5.56 round into the chamber of my M16. I clicked the safety switch to the fire position, and sighted the muzzle at the earth in front of their feet.
A third body approached from behind the silhouettes. “Just what is the holdup here?”
“Sir, the Marine on guard just locked and loaded on us!”
Silence.
“Marine, this is Capt. Cruz . . . your commanding officer. I have placed my ID card on the deck for you to inspect.” He then backed away with the others.
I was shaking when I picked up the ID. Sure enough, it was he.
After I clicked the rifle’s safety switch back into place, I called out, “Aye, sir. All clear!”
Capt. Cruz walked right up to me and asked for my rifle. I gave it up cautiously. He emptied the chamber and performed a procedure called inspection arms to ensure there were no rounds left in the chamber.
He returned my rifle and asked, “What are your instructions for guarding this post, Marine?”
“Sir, Cpl. Hoffman’s instructions were to not let anyone fuck with this ammo until he returned.”
One of the Marines snapped, “So you’re going to shoot us over some ammo?”
“I was following orders!” I defended.
“At ease!” Capt. Cruz interrupted, extending his palm for emphasis.
Cpl. Hoffman returned just in time to hear the commotion.
Capt. Cruz turned toward him. “Cpl. Hoffman, the guard you assigned did an outstanding job protecting the mortars, but the Marines in my work party almost got their asses shot off.”
Capt. Cruz quizzed me again. “Do you know why I authorized rounds for your rifle?”
I didn’t.
Cpl. Hoffman helped me out with his explanation. “Sir, this is an S P A R E P A R T S
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open base. You always tell us any yahoo with a pickup truck could make off with a shit load of ammo if the supply point was left unse-cured . . . and that would mean a court-martial for me and you.”
Nodding his agreement, Capt. Cruz gave Cpl. Hoffman more instructions. “These Marines are going to unload mortar crates for the remainder of the morning. Post guards as needed to secure them.”
He leaned into the two lance corporals. “And the next time an armed guard tells you to halt and identify yourself, fucking halt and identify yourself!”
It was a relief to know that I had passed yet another test.
After assigning a new guard to the ammo, Cpl. Hoffman walked me back to the mortar gun position he and his crew were busy setting up. He gathered the other two Marines in the pit, a waist-deep hole surrounded by sandbags, and told them the story of how I almost shot two Marines and the CO. By daybreak the story would make its way all across the range.
It was nearly 0230 by the time Cpl. Hoffman told me to hit the rack. I had too much adrenaline in my system to sleep, so I fashioned a sandbag chair and thought about how much had happened since I left home just a few hours before. I recognized that there was still a lot of boot camp left in me, and it was confusing to figure out which parts of recruit training were assets and which were liabilities.
I would need to be more consciously selective in the future. I had already figured out that drill often required difficult choices to be made—sometimes life-and-death choices.
After the adrenaline rush subsided, I lay back into my sandbag chair and covered myself with my poncho to keep warm and dry. My slumber ended at 0445. Capt. Cruz’s briefing explained that predawn is the best time to launch an attack on the enemy. The logic was that morning light would arrive before the enemy could regroup for a counterattack. Thus, they would lose the advantage afforded by the cover of darkness. Our predawn mission was to fire mortars to support an ambush being conducted by the scouts of 70
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First Platoon. Although I knew the enemy was fictitious, nothing that I observed would make the exercise seem like a simulation.
I hated training at night. Trading the warmth of a sleeping bag for the freezing night air was miserable. Waking up after only two hours of sleep was unnatural, and fumbling around in the dark with loaded weapons was insane. We were tired, cold, wet, and blind.
There were no flashlights to assist us, and no fires to keep us warm.
Those amenities were for camping, not combat. Light of any sort would compromise our position and make us an easy target for the enemy. We relied on our sense of touch, and familiarity with the terrain, our gear, and our weapons systems.
We all hated training at night, but to Capt. Cruz it was the most important thing we did. Looking back, I realize that his emphasis on night training saved a lot of lives in the war to come. Infantrymen are told the harder they train in peacetime the less they will bleed in war—but knowing that doesn’t make it suck any less.
A crackled message on the radio in the mortar pit started the action. As the stand-to order was passed from position to position, bodies quickly sprang from their dew-laden sleeping bags. The stand-to order was the infantry’s version of full alert. It required that all Marines stand ready to fire their weapons in preparation for an imminent attack. Cpl. Hoffman leapt into the mortar pit where Baker and I huddled. He was breathing heavily from making his rounds to ready the Marines and their 80mm mortar tubes. Prior to this I had never even seen a mortar round before. With only a five-minute crash course in the dark, I was opening crates, positioning charges, and stacking HE mortar rounds for my first live-fire mission.
As I worked I listened to all of the radio chatter, which sounded gar-bled and unintelligible to me. Lance Cpl. Baker was hovering over the mortar tube, cranking and winding its parts. Cpl. Hoffman was hustling between the two mortar pits, and communicating with the radio on his back. Without warning a deafening thump vibrated my innards as the first tube fired its round, leaving my ears ringing painfully. I covered my ears and hunched over. Another thumping blast came, and another. Then the second gun exploded to life. My hands offered little protection against the thunder that surrounded. Finally, after what S P A R E P A R T S
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seemed an eternity, the mortar tubes fell silent. Before the smoke had cleared Cpl. Hoffman jumped into our pit to check us.
“I feel like my ears are bleeding!” I screamed.
He put his finger to his mouth as if to say, Be quiet! Though I could see his lips moving, I couldn’t hear his words. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two bright yellow foam earplugs. He rolled them between his fingers to make them long and thin, then placed one into each of my ears. As the foam expanded, it filled the cavities in my inner ear. The ringing was louder than ever.
The next series of rounds that left our pit still vibrated my guts, but didn’t faze my ears. I took the initiative to hand the prepped rounds to Lance Cpl. Baker, who worked tirelessly to drop them into the mortar tube. The shelling continued, with brief periods of silence and adjustment, until the sun showed on the horizon. As daylight illuminated the landscape, I could match the visual explosions of earth with the distant rumbling of the mortar-shell impacts. It was hard to believe that two mortar tubes could inflict such devastation.
When the tubes stopped firing, I removed the earplugs and was relieved to be able to hear radio transmissions. The mortarmen were silently huddled around their radios, straining to hear the FO.
The FO was the Marine forward observer on the ground positioned close enough to the target to observe the impacts of the rounds and call in adjustments as needed to destroy it. He was also the M
arine who described the outcome of the fire mission, which was called the battle damage assessment report. It was morbidly gratifying to receive the news.
“All enemy bunkers collapsed, break. . . . Vehicles immobilized, break. . . . Enemy headquarters destroyed and in flames, break. . . .
Burning bodies everywhere, over.”
The graphic details from the FO motivated us for our next fire mission. The gorier the details, the more psyched we became. I was a killer again.
The swell of pride and accomplishment washed over the Marines of Weapons Platoon. Smiles and congratulations were shared along the gun lines, and officers visited to thank the troops for a job well done.
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More missions came throughout the day, each with a delay so we could clean the mortar tube and restock ammunition. There was no scheduled personal time. We had to hope the pace of the missions provided enough time to drink a canteen of water, swallow a few chunks of dehydrated MRE, or make a quick head-call to relieve our bladder or bowels. Cpl. Hoffman visited occasionally to keep us motivated and communicate the progress of First Platoon. He never let us forget that there were Marine scouts on the ground in the val-ley who needed our support. He impressed upon us that we did not get to decide when our mortar tubes went hot. We understood that a fire mission could come through the radio at any time, and we had to be ready.
By 1300 that Saturday, Lance Cpl. Baker was growing tired, and for me the novelty of watching the mortars fire was giving way to boredom. When the next fire mission alert woke us from our dol-drums, we assumed our positions with much less enthusiasm than we had in the early morning. So when Lance Cpl. Baker asked me if I wanted to drop the mortars for the mission, I welcomed the challenge. It didn’t look difficult. I had watched Lance Cpl. Baker drop over a hundred rounds already. That simplicity changed when the next call-for-fire mission came across the radio.
Lance Cpl. Baker called out, “Hang an HE round, Will.”
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