The second and third days in the defensive position were identical. We lived in the confines of our four-by-eight fighting holes, waiting for something to happen that was worthy enough to report, and battled the sand. Day four, however, ended the mind-numbing monotony of standing watch at the defensive perimeter. During the morning formation we were excited to hear the scuttlebutt that we were headed back to Tent City. As primitive as it was, it seemed like the Hilton compared to the field.
When the call to saddle up came, I was very relieved. After three days I felt as if we had reached our threshold of tolerance for the misery of the field. All of the telltale signs were present—thin patience and thick heads, short fuses and long stares, shallow talk and deep depression. I had no idea that those measly days in the field had not even scratched the surface of the depths of misery that we were to experience.
We were all shocked to learn that the scuttlebutt had been wrong. We weren’t withdrawing . . . we weren’t boarding the truck.
We weren’t returning to our cots at Tent City. We were advancing!
6 JANUARY 1991
When the front of our column halted at the overhead camouflage netting, the end of the column was still a mile away. The five-mile 194
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stretch of deep, loose, virgin sand between our defensive position and our new training area was unforgiving. But it was not nearly as unforgiving as the battalion officers and NCOs who waited for us under the shade of the netting.
The terms instructors and training were not even fair labels. They didn’t just teach. They abducted and dragged us, kicking and screaming, into the fiery depths of hell. They were the men on the recruiting posters who paddled stealthily down rivers, and rappelled down cliffs, and parachuted behind enemy lines. They were the heirs to swashbuckling leathernecks who protected our shores and thrashed the enemies of our fledgling country in the late 1700s. To the raging Devil Dogs of the First World War who charged into Bel-leau Wood, and who scared the piss out of the German soldiers during World War Two. To the legends of the Frozen Chosin in Korea, the rice paddies of Vietnam, and the rubble in Beirut. I wanted to be like them. I needed to be like them.
Staff Sgt. Rodriguez stood at the entrance to the E-shaped trench and narrated for us as his instructors demonstrated the procedure for clearing the trenches. A four-man fire team of Marines crouched below ground level and waited for the team leader’s signal. Each was armed with a grenade and two magazines loaded with blank rounds.
Then the point man stalked forward into the bottom leg of the E, followed by the other three. When he reached the first right turn he pulled a grenade from his belt and threw it around the corner. Staff Sgt. Rodriguez, acting as the trench official, yelled out, “Blast!” to signal the grenade explosion. Then the team leader turned the corner and sprayed the trench with several three round bursts from his M16. The next two riflemen followed with their muzzles pointed down and outboard. The last man kept his muzzle pointed toward the rear to watch for enemies approaching from behind.
The team then huddled close by the middle leg of the E, just before the next right turn. Again a grenade led the charge, and again the staff sergeant called out, “Blast!” Then the first two entered the trench while the last two covered the lane from the front and rear.
This time the staff sergeant tossed a smoke grenade into the trench and called out, “Gas!” In addition to officiating he controlled the ob-S P A R E P A R T S
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stacles and challenges that the Marines in the trench encountered along the way—in this case the obstacle was a simulated gas attack.
The Marines instinctively donned their masks, and then vanished in the green haze. When the smoke lifted I heard the team leader spray more fire, and the pair advanced to the dead-end path. After the staff sergeant called out, “Clear!” the pair doubled back to the main leg of the trench and resumed the lead to the final leg of the trench.
Before they arrived the staff sergeant screamed, “Enemy from the rear!” The last man turned and fired into the trench behind until he heard the call, “Clear behind!” Once the team leader reached the top leg of the E, he pulled a grenade from his belt and waited at the final right turn of the trench. A fortified bunker, surrounded by sandbags, lay just around the corner. The second man waited for the signal from his team leader and lobbed the grenade into the bunker. Once the staff sergeant announced the blast, the team infiltrated the bunker and assumed firing positions at all four corners.
“That’s how it’s done!” Staff Sgt. Rodriguez screamed to us.
“Who wants to get some?”
I did. This was by far the most realistic training I had ever witnessed, and I didn’t hesitate to volunteer to be part of the first four-man team tasked with clearing the trench. The team leader assigned me to the rear position and signaled to the instructors that we were ready. They were positioned strategically around the top of the trench. Staff Sgt. Rodriguez waved and the team leader’s rifle popped. The three in front crouched and stumbled through the trench. Midway to the corner I remembered to turn and cover the rear. So I pivoted around and started to creep backward, just as I had observed during the demonstration. But during the demonstration the team leader didn’t trip and the other two didn’t land on top of him, as was the case for our team. As soon as my boots hit the pile of twisted bodies I, too, fell backward onto the pile. I lay there for a moment until I heard the call, “Abort!” and I stood up. Then I felt the crushing blow of a two-by-four board to my helmet, which drove me downward onto my face.
A voice from above yelled, “You’re dead, motherfucker! Lay down! Dead men don’t walk!”
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I lay facedown in the sand, trying to spit my mouth clear of the crystals and wondering what had gone wrong. It wasn’t long before the next wave of Marines entered the trench. I saw their boots hesitate when they reached us—dead bodies littering the path.
“Move out!” The instructor commanded. “If you can’t step over
’em or around ’em, then step on ’em! They’re dead. They can’t feel it!”
I felt it. The first boot landed across my shoulders. The second hit at the small of my back. Then the stampede ensued and the so did the pain . . . a smashed ass cheek . . . a pulverized hamstring . . .
a crushed kidney . . . a squashed testicle. . . .
We were reincarnated eventually, but not before the physical and psychological damage was done. The challenge of the trench pushed some Marines away to other training areas. It lured me back for more.
Playing dead wasn’t just a minor humiliation, as it may have been intended. It was total annihilation of my civilian self, and the rejuvenation of my warrior ego. The warrior ego was something I had first discovered at Parris Island. I had rediscovered it in the mountains of Camp Pendleton. And here, in the trenches of Saudi Arabia, the beast was awakened again. I resolved then and there, facedown in the sand, that I would conquer that trench. And I had five days of opportunities to follow through.
Our trench-warfare training was only one of many stations we rotated through. There was very little waiting, because multiple training areas operated simultaneously. The desert provided unlimited space to move and fire. At the Breach station we inched along on our bellies and stabbed our Ka-Bar knives into the sand to locate mines. At the Assault Course we rushed forward with our teams, firing in concert at the metal drums, tires, and MRE boxes that littered the course. At the Call-for-Fire area we called in mortars and watched in awe as they annihilated the earth on impact. At the Enemy Prisoner of War area we intercepted, captured, and incarcer-ated each other. The battalion instructors knew exactly what would be expected, and they held us to task—sixteen hours every day.
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At the end of each day we migrated back to our defensive positions, where we bailed out the sand that had refilled our fighting holes, ate the last meal of t
he day, and attempted to sleep between in-termittent fire-watch duties and simulated chemical attacks. The first day of our precombat training was tolerable. We were fueled by eight hours of sleep and three square meals per day, which was all that any infantryman needed to keep on top of his game. Unfortunately, as the days wore on, both commodities became progressively scarcer.
We entered into the second training day with only four hours sleep and two incomplete meals. We depleted our MRE supply and were forced to rely on the battalion field cooks to prepare our food.
The food they cooked was good. There just wasn’t enough of it, so it was rationed. Breakfast was little more than a ladle of scrambled eggs and a slice of stale bread. I didn’t even bother to cover my food from the blowing sand, figuring that it would at least add bulk. The hunger in my gut, however, was nothing compared to the hunger that drove me back into the trench.
The second time in I was more assertive. I joined the team of scouts who were part of our old vehicle crew—Cpl. Shane, Haley, and Dougherty. We preplanned our strategy and selected our positions. Again I was in the rear and more determined than ever to learn from my mistakes. Rifle in hand, I stepped off with the group, spun to the rear, and stepped backward carefully, turning forward to check the progress of those in front. I gasped when the instructor affirmed our progress: “Blast!” Cpl. Shane turned the corner into the main leg and lit up the trench with a steady stream of fire. Haley followed, then Dougherty, and then I. Once we reached the second corner, my mind started to blank. At some point Cpl. Shane and Haley were going to advance, leaving us to cover. Only, I couldn’t recall who or what to cover—a type of lapse that gets Marines killed.
Permission came from above—“Blast!”—then Cpl. Shane’s rifle paved the way into the middle leg of the trench. Dougherty leapt forward through the intersection and covered us from the front. I thought he then followed Haley into the trench, so I went in, too, leaving our rear exposed to enemy fire. Again the two-by-four 198
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dropped. I was again pondering my shortcomings facedown in the sand. But I had made it to the second leg. I was halfway there. And I couldn’t wait to get back in and try again.
We limped to the ranges during day three, a little more tired and a lot hungrier. The hours of sleep seemed to shrink proportionately with the amount of food available. During breakfast I looked over at the entrance to the trench and mumbled to myself that today was my day. Then I stretched a nonthreatening yawn, looked down disappointedly at the morsels on my Styrofoam plate, and ran through the trench-clearing steps in my head.
The first leg progressed as planned. There was the blast, the spray, the forward press, and cover to the rear. The middle leg, too, went exactly as planned, except for the noticeable omission of gas.
The instructors always switched the variables to ensure that we were ready for the unexpected. The unexpected was what we got . . . and we were not ready. Instead of calling, “Gas!” the instructor yelled,
“Enemy troops from the rear!”
I flicked my thumb against the select lever of my rifle and flipped it to the fire position. Even though my magazines were loaded with blanks, I was hesitant to fire in the confines of the trench. I was conditioned for safety, not for combat. But I didn’t want to feel the con-cussion of the board split my helmet again, so I squeezed. The rifle popped a three round burst, driving the stock into my shoulder. The burst felt different from the single shots required on the rifle range.
It felt good. I aimed at the far wall and squeezed off another burst.
Staff Sgt. Rodriguez screamed down to me from the ledge above,
“Get some! Get some! Kill those rag-head motherfuckers!”
I fired again and he cheered again. It felt damned good. Then I emptied my magazine into the imaginary bodies that piled up at the end of the trench. While I switched magazines, the omnipotent voice called down to save my life, “All clear in the rear!”
With so much adrenaline, I could have charged the enemies and ripped their limbs apart with my bare hands, had they not been fictitious. Firing was addictive, and I wanted more. By now the group had advanced about twenty yards ahead. I crouched low and sprinted forward, banging and clanging against the trench walls. I S P A R E P A R T S
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was in a zone and didn’t even realize that my gas mask had fallen out of its carrier along the way.
Staff Sgt. Rodriguez saw it, though, which explained why he threw the gas canister at my feet. As the green smoke filled the trench I reached confidently into my carrier, prepared to mask like I had so many times before. The horror of feeling the emptiness in my gas mask carrier was inexplicable. My mind flashed immediately to the bleachers . . . and Capt. Ricks . . . and the horrendous sensation of fire inside my face. As the green smog engulfed me I felt the two-by-four yet again . . . another blow to the head . . . another self-inflicted funeral.
Staff Sgt. Rodriguez had seen that I had become fixated on making it through the trench, so he had committed to making the journey as rigorous as possible. Each time I drew closer to the top leg, he would fabricate some cockamamie scenario that ended with me getting clubbed in the helmet. By the time we formed to hump back to our night positions, I was thoroughly pissed off. My frustrations, fatigue, hunger, and aches had formed a bomb inside me, ready to blow. On the way back to our night position I found the match that lit my fuse.
The evening hump was always more debilitating than the morning hump, as our reservoirs of energy and patience were drained.
The only saving grace was that it was slightly downhill. That allowed us to build momentum, as long as we were able to keep a steady pace and take long strides. Neither was possible in my position behind Draper. About halfway through the hike he started whining, as usual, like a broken record.
He began by bellyaching about the long hump back, and questioned why we couldn’t just spend the night at the ranges. Then he moved on to the hunger, the thirst, the sand, the wind, and the fatigue. But mostly he complained about being on foot instead of on wheels. The quicker his mouth ran, the slower his boots did, and I found myself slowing down to keep from crashing into him. Slowing down required both energy to apply the brakes and then more energy to accelerate again. During all the preceding days I had had the endurance in reserve to muddle through. That day I did not. My 200
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patience wore thinner with every gripe. My jaw clenched tighter every time my front crashed into his back. Bitch . . . crash. Complain . . . collide. Cry . . . crash. Finally I snapped. I took a giant stride forward until I was in striking distance, reared back with all of my might, and drove my fist into the back of his neck just under his helmet.
Draper had the temperament of a toddler, but the body of a tank.
My punch didn’t pack nearly enough power to take him down. Instead of falling he absorbed the blow and ran forward a few steps.
Then he turned around and squared his shoulders. I squatted just before impact and then launched into him, shooting my open palms into his chest. He landed on his back, kicking and flailing like a tur-tle on his shell. I pounced on top and strangled him. He pulled up hard against my hands to save his throat from my grip. Then I freed my right hand and cocked it way back. I wanted to shatter his teeth, crush the bones in his nose, gouge his eyes—I wanted to kill him.
Before either of us had the chance to do any real damage, we were pried apart and ordered to opposite ends of the column.
Draper was confused. He rubbed his neck and squawked through his squashed larynx, “What is your problem, asshole?”
Sgt. Krause turned me away from him and pushed me along, so I held my tongue and rushed forward to join the faster Marines in front. Nagel wouldn’t even make eye contact with me as I approached. I wanted him to. That was all it would have taken for me to pummel him as well. I was fed up with both of them. I found my place at the front of our platoon just behind Dougherty, and coasted the remain
der of the way under the influence of my testosterone rush. When we returned to our holes, Sgt. Krause scolded me for the fisticuffs, but there was no real punishment as there would have been during peacetime. Under the current circumstances fighting was par for the course.
We awoke on 10 January, the fifth day of training, with our batteries drained. Capt. Cruz’s morning brief, however, jump-started our engines. We had only one more trip to the ranges to endure, after which we were scheduled for two days rest and relaxation back at Tent City. The promise of food, and sleep, and showers was S P A R E P A R T S
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exactly the motivation we needed. I could hardly wait to take on the trench.
The group for my last trip into the trench included my buddies on the dream team—Cpl. Shane, Dougherty, and Haley. Cpl. Shane assigned me to the rear position, as it was the role I had the most practice with. Then, on the staff sergeant’s signal, we forged into the bottom leg of the trench. Like clockwork Cpl. Shane tossed the grenade, waited for the blast, turned the corner, and showered the openness with rounds. I covered the rear and rejoined the team at the middle leg.
Again we executed the clear-procedure flawlessly. The green fog moved in and we masked. The enemies sneaked up from behind and I fired. They rushed from the front and Dougherty fired. They hid around corners and we lobbed our grenades. As we worked through the top leg of the E toward the bunker, Staff Sgt. Rodriguez pulled out all the stops and sent in enemy troops from three sides.
We weren’t fazed. Dougherty emptied his magazine into the trench to his front. Cpl. Shane and Haley both landed grenades in the bunker. And I pumped a steady stream of rounds into the embank-ment to our rear. After my rifle quieted I took a knee, aimed at the ground, and waited for the next curveball.
The sweat that pooled in my mask sloshed against my chin and lower lip. My heart raced under the compression of my flak. My elbows and knees burned from the crawling and bumping and sliding and slamming. My forearms still vibrated from the recoil of my rifle, and my finger trembled near the trigger with anticipation. But there was no need to continue firing. The last pitch had been thrown. Finally, over my pounding heartbeat and heaving breaths, through my ringing ears and the rubber covering them, I finally heard it—the all-clear signal.
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