“OOOHRAHHH!” Every Marine on the bus returned the same call to affirm our support. It shook the bus—and rattled the driver.
After his rabid display Gunny Brandt took his seat right behind the driver. I sat directly across the aisle and watched him, frothing at the mouth, stare at the Arab through the long rectangular mirror overhead.
The driver, ignoring the gunny’s antagonism, honked the horn once to signal the first bus, and the engine rumbled to life. The buses in front kicked up massive clouds of dust as they moved off the tarmac and onto the unpaved desert road. As soon as the bus picked up speed, nervous chatter started. I sat backward in my seat and listened to the threads of conversation. Sgt. Krause reminisced with Sgt. Lopez about their days as infantrymen training in the Mo-jave Desert. Dougherty lectured a small group of Marines on the historical hostility between the Middle East and the West. Haley taught his fellow scouts some basic words in Arabic. And Nagel and Draper huddled behind their seatback and indulged in their good-ies. Then the boom box came to life.
I recognized the long, drawn-out guitar note right away. So did many others, whose ears perked toward the back of the bus. Then came the crunchy guitar riff and telltale cymbal taps. Everyone in First Platoon recognized it: Black Sabbath’s antiwar anthem—“War Pigs.” It was a popular song among the Marines in Draper’s head-banger clan. He had blared it routinely in his room back at Lejeune, while he and his buddies had sung along. They sang along on the bus, too, partly to express their objection to killing, but mostly to rebel against the Saudi ban of American culture.
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The Marines’ thundering chorus was so loud, it startled me, and I knew it was coming.
“Gen’rals gathered in their masses. Just like witches at black masses . . .”
The Arab’s eyes snapped upward toward the mirror, where they met and locked with Gunny Brandt’s stare.
Even more Marines joined in for the next lines.
“Evil minds that plot destruction. Sorcerers of death’s construction . . .”
Suddenly there was nothing on the bus but the driving rhythm, the ear-piercing vocals, and the showdown in the mirror.
The crescendo continued to build with progressive intensity, like a volcano headed toward eruption.
“In the fields are bodies burning. As the war machine keeps turning . . .”
What had started as a spirited sing-along quickly became a cultlike incantation. The chant’s synergy grew exponentially, and the Arab driver must have felt the rage directed against him on the back of his neck. His focus switched from the gunny to the possessed mob in the mirror. It looked like the front row of a rock concert.
Heads bobbed back in forth in unison, fists punched upward toward the ceiling, and boots stomped violently on the floorboards.
Then came the most salient lyrics of the song.
“Death and hatred to mankind. Poisoning their brainwashed minds. Oh, Lord, yeah!”
I wasn’t sure if the Arab was distracted, offended, or just plain afraid for his life. Whatever the reason, though, he had apparently had enough. We felt the forward jolt of deceleration as the bus swerved to the shoulder. The dust trails of the forward buses continued onward, without us. I glanced out the window at the nothingness that surrounded our bus and anxiety settled in. At best Draper could turn off his radio so the driver would drive on. At worst the driver could snap, pull out a gun, and start shooting. Or he could just abandon us in the middle of the desert, leaving us sus-ceptible to attack or ambush. Anything was possible in the Middle East. But Gunny Brandt had an insurance policy.
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The next time the Arab looked into the mirror he saw the barrel of a 9mm pistol pointed at his head. His eyes widened at the image in the mirror—black steel in a madman’s fist . . . his finger on the trigger . . . and shit-eating grin. This time he didn’t need Haley to translate.
As the steel pressed his temple, the driver closed his eyes and prayed. Fortunately, Allah’s answer made it easy on us all.
Without further delay the bus reentered the road, and the pistol reentered its holster. As I resumed breathing I sat back and closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe what had happened. I had never seen a gun pointed at anyone’s head before.
I was relieved that the gunny had the balls to protect us if the shit had hit the fan. At the same time I was appalled by the thought of possibly killing another human being over a rock song. I played out the ambush scenario in my head, and considered how I might have reacted if the Arab had pulled a gun from his robe. At that moment I couldn’t answer for sure whether I would have had the presence of mind to pick up my rifle, or to point it at him, or to pull the trigger.
It was a reality I would have to face sooner or later.
The lines were already blurring: the lines that separated training from fighting . . . practicing from playing . . . killing from being killed. I opened my eyes and looked over at the gunny, poised at the edge of his seat. He nodded as if to say, I won that one! Then I sat back, closed my eyes again, and attempted to rest.
My mind took me back to Camp Upshur, and the comment by the wiseass admin clerk. We were definitely not in Kansas anymore.
“Where are the LAVs, sir?”
Capt. Bounds offered no more information than Sgt. Krause had.
“At ease, Williams! We’ve been in-country five minutes. You know as much as I know right now.”
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the LAVs I spent the rest of the evening obsessing about the construction of our platoon tent. To call it a tent really understated its size. It was more like the circus than the camping variety, and would serve as home for me and the other twenty Marines in First Platoon.
Our tent was one of eight that collectively formed our company area: six platoon tents, a staff NCO tent, and an officer tent.
Once our platoon tent was erected, Sgt. Krause released us to walk around and check out the area. The most impressive thing about our base at Jubail was the sheer acreage. Our eight tents formed a block that occupied about as much space as a football field. Each block was outlined with roads, which were actually nothing more than sand-covered paths, packed hard from vehicle traffic. About every quarter mile more prominent roads separated the blocks into communities. Each community had its own public works resources, like water tanks, outhouses, and electric stations, that served its member Marines. Some of the more established communities had leisure and recreational resources like volleyball nets, weight-lifting equipment, and video theaters. There were dozens of such communities that stretched for miles around, creating a sea of canvas as far as the eye could see. We called it Tent City.
We spent the last three days of 1990 becoming familiar with the amenities of Tent City. Beyond the creature comforts of our platoon tent there was not a lot to it. The two most prominent features were the chow hall and the heads. Although centrally located on the base the chow hall required a thirty-minute hike to get there. And because it was a shared facility, the line of Marines waiting for food stretched for hundreds of meters. Our wait lasted anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. It was worth the wait, though. The chow hall was a social mecca, like an enlisted club without alcohol. Every visit was an adventure. There were farewell celebrations for units leaving and welcome-home parties for those returning. There were reunions of long-lost buddies and introductions of new-joins. There was talking, and laughing, and yelling, and brawling—and sometimes even eating.
Half of each day revolved around chow. Each meal consumed two to three hours, factoring in the walk to and from the chow hall 180
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plus the long lines. That didn’t leave much time in between meals to train, so we usually didn’t. Sometimes the only productive thing I did in between meals was vi
sit the head to make room for more food.
The heads of Tent City were a phenomenon in and of themselves. I use the plural term, heads, because there were two. They were identical and impossible to tell apart from a distance, except for the crudely spray-painted labels on the outside walls—PISSER and SHITTER. But your nose was all that was necessary to differentiate one from the other upon closer inspection.
I had never once, in all of my twenty-two years of life, considered segregating the two processes. It didn’t seem biologically normal, and was anything but practical, to piss in one structure, and then walk next door to shit. The explanation for such an absurd rule was that there were two different machines for sucking the waste from the holes in the ground—one for liquids and the other for solids.
While there was no practical way to enforce the rule, most of us bought into the explanation. So we did our best to comply, believing that it somehow helped the poor bastard whose job it was to extract the excrement.
The pisser was no problem. I stood, popped a few buttons, emptied, refastened, and then left. It didn’t matter to me who was coming in, standing behind, or going out. Shitting, on the other hand, was a whole different story.
For me, and many others like me, as I later discovered, the act of moving my bowels in front of another man was repulsive and way beyond the bounds of fraternal conduct. Yet there was only one shitter, three plywood holes, to serve our entire community—several companies of Marines. So the shitter was almost always occupied.
Despite the odds I convinced myself that I could time my visits to the shitter such that I could be alone. All that I needed was a minute or two of privacy. Inevitably, though, no matter how much I preplanned, I always wound up sharing the bench. Not even Parris Island had prepared me for this the first time it happened.
After thirty minutes of surveillance I finally recognized a window of opportunity. The shitter was vacant! And so, too, was the pisser.
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Serendipity! I sprung into action and walked quickly to the small wooden structure. Before entering I gave one final 360-degree scan, and then pushed open the screen door. Once inside I carefully positioned my gas mask and rifle on the floor at my feet, and then raced the clock to drop my trousers. As soon as my bottom was bare I leaned back onto the sand covered plywood seat and . . . nothing.
Despite the fact that I had waited until my intestines were ready to burst, my bowels were now locked . . . a mental block. I tried rocking and bending and twisting and bearing down. Finally I resorted to self-talk. No one is watching. It’s completely private. Just relax.
Nothing worked. The clock was ticking and it was only a matter of time before the next patron visited. My anxiety grew with each second. Relax, goddammit!
Then my time expired. The screen door slammed open and in he came.
The crash of the door startled me and instinctively I looked up.
He wasn’t from my company, and I assumed by his disheveled appearance and rank odor that he was just returning from the field. He didn’t look at me on his way in, and that was a good thing. Eye contact was taboo in the shitter. There were no words exchanged between us either. Talking was second only to eye contact as forbidden acts while on the pot. I considered my options as my constipation continued. He didn’t have that problem, unfortunately.
He recklessly dropped his gas mask and rifle on the deck, plucked the buttons on his fly, and forced his pants to his ankles. As soon as he touched down a nuclear explosion detonated beneath him. Things didn’t just fall, they shot out. There was a nauseating combination of gas and fluid and droppings that splattered, plopped, and splashed. The stench rose instantaneously. He moaned and groaned and pushed like a mother giving birth.
It was bad enough to have a bare-assed man sitting next to me within arm’s reach, but it was horrific to have him there during the explosive throes of projectile diarrhea. I quickly considered my options: wait him out, or return to my reconnaissance position and standby for another moment of opportunity. At first I intended to 182
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wait him out, but then he broke rule number one. He was looking over at me!
Why in God’s name is he looking at me! I thought. I considered telling him off . . . or reporting him. Yeah, right. Then I considered throwing a right hook. But my pants are around my ankles. His gawk was too much. It was burning a hole in my side. Enough was enough. I shot a pissed-off look his way, hiked my trousers, collected my gear, and absconded to my surveillance spot.
The Marine left the shitter after an ungodly interval, and this time I stared. I had never seen such a cruddy uniform, or such a filthy body, for that matter. He looked like walking death . . . so crude . . . so nasty. Where could he have been, and what could he have been doing, to get to that deplorable state? Would I ever go where he had been? Do the things he had done?
31 DECEMBER 1990
Sgt. Krause’s evening brief marked the turning point for us at Jubail. Our first four days in Saudi had been threat free, and consequently carefree. But those days were the exception, not the norm.
Our sense of security ended as soon as Sgt. Krause took center stage. He looked serious, somber, and pale. Sgt. Krause’s brief was not actually a brief at all. It was a warning. It was a wake-up call. It was a very personal soliloquy laced with self-disclosure, and advice, and anxiety. But first came the warning.
Our intelligence officers had received word that Iraqi forces were preparing to launch long-range Scud missiles, fired from Iraq at American bases like ours in Jubail. Sgt. Krause explained that the Scud could deliver explosive ordnance, as well as biological or chemical weapons. Then he added the clincher—we expected an attack that night. When I heard the words, I reached down and pulled my gas mask carrier close to my side.
Sgt. Krause’s demeanor was different than I had ever seen it before. I was used to seeing him present himself like Clint Eastwood’s S P A R E P A R T S
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character in Heartbreak Ridge. What we got that night was Clint Eastwood in The Bridges of Madison County. Sgt. Krause was compassionate, sensitive, and thoughtful. This made me really uncomfortable. He reminded us of the importance of the buddy system, and being there for each other. He talked of how proud he was to be our leader, and how confident he was in our abilities. There were pats on the back for select individuals and generalized praise for the entire platoon. It was the first time I had ever experienced the warm and fuzzy Sgt. Krause. Before I had a chance to fully appreciate it, though, the speech took a morbid turn.
Sgt. Krause appeared especially grave when he spoke about the likelihood of casualties in the event Scuds hit our base. The dark reality prompted us to play out gruesome scenarios of death and destruction. We talked about the significance of each of the items stamped onto our ID tags—our name, rank, social security number, branch of service, gas mask size, blood type, and religion. I understood the purpose for everything but the religious denomination.
Dougherty chimed in that it would help the chaplain give the appropriate last rights if we were killed. Then Sgt. Krause directed us to thread one of our ID tags onto our left bootlace, and keep the other one around our neck at all times. Again Dougherty offered up the rationale: The tags were kept apart to increase the odds that we could be identified if our bodies were blown apart. The one around our neck could be thrown and lost if we were decapitated, but the one in our boot would remain tied within the laces.
Draper broke the tension with his dark humor. “What if you lose the head and the leg?”
A few of his cronies chuckled, as Sgt. Krause removed his skivvy shirt and lifted his arm.
“That’s why I have a meat tag.”
I had never seen one. It was a tattoo on the skin over his rib cage with the same information contained on a metal ID tag. Everyone went gaga over it. I finished lacing my tag into my boot, and wished I had my own meat tag. Even after the brief I thought about it. It wasn�
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metaphysical implications of it. I imagined that the ink would provide a sort of supernatural life-insurance policy against being killed in combat.
Logic wasn’t a prerequisite for thinking at that point for me. I was scared, and searching for some sense of security. Eventually I found it. But not in a Bible, or a tattoo needle, or a bottle, or a pipe.
That night I found my security in a song.
I recognized it right away—“Unchained Melody,” by the Righteous Brothers. The ballad penetrated the canvas wall of our tent, transporting me in spirit right back to Gina. It played on the sound-track of the movie Ghost, which was the video we had watched during our last evening together. I ran across the road and into the tent where the song was playing, sat next to the radio, and closed my eyes. And for a brief moment I was back home, on the couch, holding Gina close. It moved me to tears. Right there in that tent I resolved to make it our wedding song. When it ended I made a beeline back into my tent to write Gina a letter to tell her so.
As I began to write, I became overwhelmed with emotion. I thought about the brief, and the Scuds, and the ID tags, and I started to question whether I would make it through the night. The thought of dying led me back to the idea of the meat tag. Then the idea popped into my head. I would propose in a letter, then wait for the response. I couldn’t die if I was waiting for her answer. And if she accepts, then I can’t die, period. That superstition was my security. That was my guarantee for survival. At the time it made perfect sense to me . . . absolute sense.
The lights never went out in our tent that night. Sgt. Krause’s speech, combined with the imminent threat of attack, left us all wide awake. Nothing I had experienced in the Marines, to that point, had been quite as intense as the tent’s atmosphere. Few of us talked. Most just focused on preparing our gear for whatever might happen that night. I knelt beside my cot and worked on my gear like a surgeon over an operating table—inventorying my supplies, inspecting my gas mask, and cleaning my rifle. When I finished, I placed everything in its place, as it would be when I slept. Then I pretended that the NBC
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