I grew cold. It began on my palms, spread up my arms and down my legs. “Pederson is coming back today?”
“Yes. Of course,” Hani said without concern. “He came back here yesterday, after you had left with your father and brother. He said he would be using our beach cabana to meet with soldiers of the new army and others. Merchants and sheikhs. Like a shura, I think.”
“When?” I grabbed him by the shoulders as I asked this.
“Very soon. Morning, he said. Why do you ask?” Hani furrowed his brow, puzzled.
I left him and ran around to the front of the farmhouse, where I found Haji Fasil smoking and drinking tea.
“Haji,” I began, out of breath. “You and Abu Abdul must leave.”
“Why?” he asked, as calmly as Hani but not so stupid. “Are your brother and father on their way to kill us?”
“No, but the Americans are coming back today . . .”
“Yes, I know. Men passed by here late last night. I saw them planting the bombs, Kateb.”
“Where?!”
“On the highway. Two bombs. One north and one south. I think they plan to trap the Americans with the bombs, and then attack with bullets and rockets from across the desert.” Haji waved his hand about the air, as if we were discussing a football strategy. “I saw the men early this morning. Placing their machine guns in the dark. Hiding their cars in the desert. Preparing for a quick escape, if God wills it.”
I became angry with him for sitting so calmly, for smoking his cigarette and drinking his tea. “Then why do you stay? Run away! Go to Ramadi or Fallujah and come back when it is safe.”
“Because, Kateb,” he sighed, “if we are not here, the Americans will know that there is a trap. They will pass quickly, and men like your father will be disappointed that they could not kill them as planned. They will blame me, Kateb. And finally they will kill me.” He lit another cigarette. “No. No, you see, the thing to do is stay. Let these things happen as God wills and try to survive the bullets when they come. Let some Americans die if they must, let them kill your brother and his people if they can, and we live until tomorrow, Kateb.”
In that moment, as Haji Fasil finished his tea, I heard the American engines. Pederson and his men were coming from the north. I went to the dirt path stemming off the highway and saw them in their Humvees, getting closer. I wondered where the bombs were hidden.
“Hmm. A little early,” Haji Fasil considered as he stepped back to his spot in the shade.
I watched Hani venture out to wave and greet them, with not the slightest notion of the danger. Senseless as a rock, Hani.
“Where are Mundhir and Abu Abdul?” I asked Haji Fasil.
“Fishing.” He sat with his back against the wall of his farmhouse, putting out his cigarette. “They will be safe on the water, God willing.”
Pederson’s marines parked their Humvees and searched around for bombs and dangers, as usual. But with far less concern than the day we first met. They had grown to trust us. Grown to enjoy Tourist Town in a way close to how Hani had intended.
Pederson came walking toward me on a direct line. “We missed you when we came back yesterday, Kateb.” He shook my hand, smiling behind his helmet and sunglasses. “We had an Iraqi Army terp with us, but he wasn’t as good as you.”
I swallowed. “Of course. I was required to make a quick trip yesterday afternoon. I am back now, however.”
“Glad to see it, glad to see it.” Pederson motioned for me to walk with him to the fire pit. “So, today we have a little sit-down with your neighbors to see if we can make things safer around here. I appreciate you helping with that.”
I heard more engines. This time from the south. Rough engines, without good American parts. It was the new Iraqi Army coming to talk.
Pederson sat down on a log, looked up, and smiled. “Good deal. Right on time.”
I could feel the bombs that would kill them in their flimsy pickup trucks. Curbstones, which I had seen the day before in my father’s backyard factory, waiting for them with artillery shells hidden inside.
“Tell them to stop,” I heard myself say.
“What?”
“Tell them there is a bomb on the road, but do not cry out or become excited. There are people watching us.”
He calmly nodded his head. Knowing. He put the radio to his lips. “Break. Break. This is Actual. We have intel on an imminent ambush. Raise that adviser team and tell them to halt. Push security west, over.”
Then he sat still and looked at me, sweating and breathing hard but hiding his fear admirably.
“One bomb to the north for you. And a bomb to the south for the jundis.”
“And then what, Kateb?”
“Bullets. From the desert.”
He nodded, like this was all no problem. “Okay, then.”
I looked down at my feet and shivered.
“You’re doing the right thing here. We can handle this for you.”
I believed him. As he stood and walked away to prepare his men to fight, I believed in the American with such confidence. Because he liked me. And I thought, for those few minutes only, that we could all escape. That when the fight was over, the Americans would take us somewhere safe.
Even when the bombs inside the curbstones exploded, one and then the other, while I dropped into the sand to protect my face, I believed for a few minutes more. Hiding behind the fallen tree and listening to the bullets snap over my head, I believed that everyone was going to live until the next day. Mundhir and Abu Abdul, safe on the water, would find a place to go and fish every day. Hani and Haji Fasil, pulled to the ground for cover by some dedicated marine, would be kept safe by American courage until they could go to Ramadi and open their own shop in the Grand Souk. Even when the weight of a knee fell into my back and pushed me deeper into the sand, I believed. Not until I felt the American tightening plastic cuffs onto my wrists did I begin to doubt.
They pulled me to my feet and I understood, for the first time, how good my father and brother had become at their war. The marines gave me a tour as they hauled me toward their Humvees.
I saw the Iraqi army truck to the south, smoking and ruined, with the dead pieces of men all around it.
I saw Haji Fasil’s limp figure in a pile near the farmhouse, a jagged hole in his forehead and a splay of blood and gore against the wall behind him. Who had fired the bullet that killed him? An American? A jundi? My brother? Who could say?
I saw Hani scrambling to get away from the marines who wanted to cuff him like they had cuffed me. He wanted to reach Mundhir, who was swimming away from the stricken kitr, returned from its morning fishing excursion a few minutes too soon. I saw Hani break free and reach Mundhir in time to help him drag ashore Abu Abdul’s broken corpse.
They put me in a vehicle with Pederson, who told his marines to remove the cuffs. “Get those off him, right now,” he screamed, before turning back to me, suddenly gentle again. “Sorry there, bud. We put the cuffs to guard against the chance that someone is still watching. We’re waiting for a postblast team, and then we’re bringing you back to Government Center for a debrief with our intel guys . . .”
I stopped listening to him then. I watched from my window as Mundhir cradled Hani’s head in his powerful hands and smoothed our friend’s hair as they both wept.
“Of course,” I said to Pederson. “Take me wherever. I do not care.”
I acknowledge this nonpunitive letter of caution.
Though not directed at a military superior, and therefore not governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, my disrespectful remarks toward a member of the U.S. Foreign Service brought discredit on the Marine Corps and the United States naval service. My actions showed a lack of judgment and were unbecoming of a gentleman and officer of Marines.
This letter, though nonpunitive in nature, will nonetheless be taken as a corrective measure. I will exercise greater care in the performance of my duties, both in garrison and in combat.
Respectfully submitted,<
br />
P. E. Donovan
Unbecoming
I hail a cab on St. Charles Avenue at eleven thirty on New Year’s Eve and ask the driver to take me to the French Quarter. He’s justifiably annoyed, but eventually agrees. I’ve decided on a whim to drift into Molly’s on the off chance that I’ll find Paige there. Without the courage to call her, it’s the best I can do.
The crowds become impassable when the cab reaches Canal Street, so I throw the driver a big tip to compensate for leaving him stuck without a ready fare or an easy way out. Molly’s is on the far side of the Quarter, almost to Esplanade. It’s a mile to walk, down streets packed with drunks, meandering en masse toward the river in an effort to catch the last of the fireworks.
I pass through Jackson Square as the fireworks reach their crescendo, and trudging through the crowd with my hands in my pockets, I try not to notice the couples gliding off into dark corners.
A sense of embarrassment catches me off guard, as I become suddenly aware that I’m underdressed in my jeans and boots. Everywhere I look, young revelers are dressed to the nines. Women brave the cold night in their shiny party dresses by cozying up to men in slacks and high-collared sweaters. I bow my head and try to hide inside my canvas bomber jacket. I worry about running into a classmate, alone as I am on New Year’s Eve, lacking the self-respect to even dress for the occasion.
I miss Paige in a way I didn’t expect. I feel the urge to call her, but at midnight on New Year’s Eve? After I’ve stood her up five days running? I can’t. It would be worse than desperate. It would be desperately selfish.
Even if Paige isn’t working, even if she happens to be at Molly’s, it’s hard to imagine how she’d have an interest in seeing me. Maybe I’m looking for Paige so she can tell me to my face that I’m an idiot. I need to grow up, and a midnight phone call isn’t the place to start. I should bear things for what they are. I should take responsibility.
The brass buttons had hurried back to Ramadi to spread the story of our dustup. He must have told anyone who would listen because it became the talk of the Ramadi chow hall that night. The lieutenant with the nerve to tell off a diplomat. A decidedly junior diplomat, but still. All the regimental staff officers had a good laugh, I’m sure. But not the commander.
We pulled into the marshaling yard just after dark and I stood aside while Gomez and Zahn supervised the breakdown of the convoy and the cleaning of the vehicles. They pushed the Marines to hurry so they could get some chow before the dinner line closed.
Cobb, in the marshaling yard to prep his platoon for an overnight construction mission, pulled me aside. He’d been on watch in the operations center when Major Leighton got the late-afternoon call. Because I hadn’t reached Taqaddum in time to warn him, Major Leighton was blindsided. Regiment learned about the dustup before he did, which was unforgivable. I’d made it look like he couldn’t control his lieutenants or even stay up-to-date on their antics.
My stomach dropped. I imagined him bursting into the company offices in the morning, wheezing fury and letting it spill over the plywood walls so everyone in the company could know how incompetent and clueless I’d made him look. I decided that hiding from him wouldn’t help me. I wanted to get it over with first thing, so I went over to the operations center and volunteered to take Gunny Dole’s overnight watch shift. Gunny Dole smiled, thanked me, and hustled out before I had time to change my mind.
I didn’t even bother to shower or change out of my stinking flight suit. The overnight shift would keep me awake, as would the quickly healing but still painful blisters under my eyes. I’d stand up from the watch officer’s chair around six o’clock the next morning, set myself by his office door, and present myself for a dressing-down as he came in from breakfast.
I collapsed into the watch officer’s rolling chair and pulled myself up to the desk, drawing a line in the logbook and writing in block letters, “I, Second Lieutenant P. E. Donovan, have relieved the watch. I have nothing significant to report at this time.”
The sergeants stood, looking confused by my filthy uniform and wafting stench. They took turns briefing me. Intelligence. Movement control. Logistics tasking. They each issued a crisp, well-prepared update on the operational picture.
Most of our convoys went out at night. The watch officer represented the company while Major Leighton slept, responsible for all vehicles and personnel on the road, and ready at any time to update higher headquarters on the company’s current operations.
The sergeants finished briefing me and returned to their routine. They’d been forced by Gunny Dole’s empty uniform to run the overnight shift on their own and had consequently developed a tight system. Information packaged in clipped speech moved around the room in choreographed bursts. I didn’t have much to contribute, so I leaned back in the tall chair and listened to the hum.
Computer screens, scattered at watch stations around the room, burned out my night vision. I rubbed my eyes, avoiding the sore patches where the blisters had been, and blinked away the spots. Printed banners came into focus. Over the intelligence desk, a banner read WHAT DO I KNOW? WHO NEEDS TO KNOW IT? HAVE I TOLD THEM? And over the door: COMPLACENCY KILLS.
Field telephones with ringers more grinding and caustic than any in the civilian world rattled folding tables against stone floors. Sketchy rumors of enemy activity flowed through the intelligence clerk to the movement-control sergeant, who used the information to alter convoy routes over the radio. Notations appeared in grease pencil on the laminated wall map.
A stack of radios, mounted to a table in the corner, squealed with transmissions from convoys and dismounted patrols moving under cover of night. Reports of small-arms fire and suspicious vehicles came through the speakers in snippets, breathy and rushed. A lance corporal from the communications section struggled to write it all down on yellow slips. Each slip had a box for the date and time, the sender’s call sign, and the message description.
The lance corporal sweated over the details. The kid didn’t understand friction, yet. How chaos in the field distorted everything. How it made every message irrelevant before it ever went out over the air. Still, he tried to understand it all. He massaged scratchy transmissions into coherent, if contradictory, exchanges and meekly offered me a stack of yellow slips every hour or so.
I’d thank him and give each message a glance, but only because he had worked so hard. The real story always came through the computer. We had a chat room set up on the classified network. Watch officers from around the battle space used it to coordinate operations in real time. The watch officer in Ramadi, a nameless major responsible for all of western Iraq, demanded status updates at random intervals. He used the same, easily overlooked message each time: “MNF-W_Watch Officer: All stations, update status.” He did it that way, subtly, to ensure that the junior watch officers didn’t fall asleep. If a subordinate station didn’t reply inside thirty seconds with a curt “NSTR”— nothing significant to report—the next grinding ring on the tactical line would be an unpleasant, accusative call from regimental headquarters in Ramadi.
On the other side of the desk, a blue force-tracker terminal showed convoys and dismounted patrols as icons moving along the highways, or stationary at intersections. When a blue force tracker somewhere outside the wire reported an IED attack or a snap vehicle checkpoint, the terminal gave a beep and the icon flashed.
I selected the icon representing Cobb’s platoon and checked how long he’d been sitting still. He and his Marines had set a cordon at an intersection north of Fallujah and were working through the night to build a vehicle checkpoint for the Iraqi Army. They arranged Hesco baskets in defensive positions on either side of the road and used front-end loaders to fill them with dirt. They set steel traffic barriers in the asphalt and strung them with razor wire.
When finished, the barriers would force approaching cars and trucks into slow, serpentine turns, making it harder to charge the checkpoint with a vehicle bomb. But until then, Cobb’s platoon was
a target, ripening with each passing hour they remained stationary.
Three times, Cobb’s Marines sent up flares to warn off traffic. Kinetic events, like flares and escalations of force, triggered official reports to regimental headquarters, due within an hour of the event. So, each time it happened, Cobb called on the satellite phone to walk me through the sequence of events. The type of car. The provocative behavior. We called the assembled details “the word picture.”
Most on-scene commanders used the radio to pass reports, but Cobb liked the satellite phone. It made him feel like a world traveler, a young adventurer. On the radio, he would have to speak in short bursts while the whole battle space listened in. Cobb didn’t have the patience for that. He liked to tell stories and infuse each narrative with stock characters and surprise endings. Somehow, he always managed to make the story about himself.
Cobb’s Marines finished their work around five o’clock, and their blue force-tracker icon started moving half an hour later, just as the watch shift changed. Wong took my chair and made a note in the logbook. The outgoing shift briefed him as they’d briefed me the night before.
Properly relieved, the sergeants shuffled off to the chow hall, but I spent thirty minutes sitting next to Wong. When it became palpably awkward, I ambled to the back of the room and hung around Major Leighton’s office door.
The adrenaline of the watch drained away. My legs and eyelids went soft and I struggled to stay alert. I stopped myself from leaning against the plywood wall, afraid I might fall asleep standing up. My cheeks felt rough, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t shaved in two days. The flaw in my plan came into focus. Not only had I humiliated him in front of the entire command, I now had the gall to appear before him unshaven while wearing a soiled uniform. I wanted to run, shower, and shave and come back in half an hour looking refreshed. But Major Leighton stepped into the operations center before I had a chance. He looked anxious and distracted, clutching his coffee mug and classified briefing folder.
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