The end of combat operations meant that most Marine Corps units would leave Kuwait soon. There were rounds of high-fives and jokes about lusty girlfriends waiting stateside. For me it was the answer to private prayers for a chance to make it home in time for the baby’s arrival.
After a short briefing, a group of us was sent on a routine task—escorting a Red Cross team to a small village nearby, where a local doctor claimed to have diagnosed a breakout of cholera. Turned out to be a lie, intended to lure us into a trap, but we didn’t realize it until it was too late.
Our destination was a local health clinic. Only eight of us went on this supposedly peaceful errand. We travelled in a small convoy, with the Red Cross truck between two Humvees.
The clinic was a one-story building marked with a spray-painted red crescent. It was located on a dead-end street, blocked by a roundabout in front of a school. We stopped at the curb by the clinic. On the opposite side of the street was a gas station, which at the moment was being supplied—or so we assumed—by a fuel truck. The driver was busy with pipes and spigots, and we didn’t pay much attention to him. What did attract our attention was the sight of many women in head-to-toe black burkahs, sitting on the doorstep at the entrance and on all the windowsills, practically blocking every opening that faced the street. A few held infants in their laps.
This odd reception must have seemed normal to the Red Cross team. They proceeded to get out of their truck and unload the medical supplies.
Our commander, a young second lieutenant from Nebraska, took their cue and ordered us out of the armored Humvees.
We were going to set up defense positions on the street, but as soon as we were out in the open, the shooting started—not a few random shots, but a barrage of bullets that rained on our vehicles and hit the road around us. I still remember the initial shock of seeing all those fiery barrels sticking out from the windows of the health clinic over the shoulders of the cloaked women, who remained seated, except that now their hands were pressed to their ears.
Chapter 13
Keera ran into Starbucks barefoot and turned to look out through the glass door. The motorcycle was gone, the street outside dark and quiet. She waited, expecting it to reappear, but it didn’t, and Ben was suddenly beside her, holding her, talking to her. Everyone else—baristas and customers alike, circled her with worried faces. Catching her breath, Keera told them what had happened.
Despite urging from the concerned baristas, she refused to let them call the police. “He didn’t touch me,” Keera insisted. “Some ass, showing off, that’s all. And I’m almost sure I got him with my shoes.”
After a cup of hot chamomile, they got into the Mustang and drove back to the club. Ben found her shoes on the street. One of them had a broken heel, which was nowhere to be found.
Back behind the wheel, he said, “We should call the hospitals in the area, check if a biker came in with a stiletto stuck in his chest.”
“I hope it’s in his eye,” Keera said. “He was waiting there, engine running, and I thought it was you. I was going to kill you!”
“I know you too well to try something that stupid.” He glanced over his shoulder and pulled into the road. “And speaking of stupid, this job isn’t for you. I want you to quit.”
Keera buttoned up her coat. “And how am I going to pay for med school? And my half of our expenses?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
She was quiet for a moment. “We?”
“I’m making good money.”
“Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.” Keera fiddled with the radio controls, trying to clear up the static noise. “Besides, I like my job.”
“You call that a job?” Stopping at a red light, Ben turned to her. “Dancing in your underwear in front of horny men?”
“A few women too. Good tippers.”
“I’m happy for you.”
The light turned to green, and he threw the clutch, making the Mustang squeal off the mark, racing through the next light as it turned yellow, and making 70 mph on the on-ramp to I-95. The convertible top rattled in the wind.
She reached across and rested her hand on his knee.
Ben merged into the late-night traffic on the highway and slowed down to match the going pace. “Was it a BMW like mine?”
“The jerk at the club?” Keera shrugged. “Couldn’t tell in the dark. All motorcycles look the same to me.”
“Did you get a closer look when he passed you?”
“Barely. He went too fast. But I think it was white, not yellow. Same with the guy’s riding suit and helmet. He flew by like a—”
“Ghost?”
“Exactly! How did you know?”
He hesitated. “A good guess.”
At home, Keera went upstairs to change and Ben turned on CNN, which was showing snippets from the presidential candidates’ debate earlier. A quick post-debate poll showed Joe Morgan six points ahead of the incumbent Democrat. A proven record as a successful business leader gave Morgan advantage over the president’s muddled economic record during his first term in the White House, and his frequent references to his deep faith resonated with church-going voters troubled by the secularist worldview of the liberal president. Noting the polarized electorate, the moderator asked whether this election, like the previous one, would come down to voters’ participation rather than preferences among those eligible to vote.
A writer for the Wall Street Journal, who often participated in CNN political shows, predicted that even Christian Evangelists would come out to vote for Joe Morgan despite their ambivalence about his Mormon faith. “Listen carefully to his subtle message about Christian interdenominational brotherhood!”
A clip from the debate showed Morgan responding to a question about the Middle East. “Our spiritual roots,” Morgan said, “reach all the way to that troubled region of the world. Like all Americans, I’m enraged by Islamic fundamentalists’ attacks on our fellow Christians.” He pressed a hand to his heart. “When a Muslim Brotherhood mob burns down a church in Egypt, I feel as if my own church was torched. When Hezbollah fanatics detonate a bomb during Easter mass in Lebanon, I feel as if my own Easter was blasted. When Palestinian terrorists shoot at Christmas pilgrims in Bethlehem, I feel as if my own family’s Christmas was fired upon. Every attack on our Christian brothers and sisters makes me feel as if our Savior Jesus Christ is under attack. As president of the United States, I will end the current administration’s failed policies of appeasement and dishonor.”
“He’s smooth,” Keera said from the staircase. “All those Catholic, Protestant, and Lutheran brothers and sisters now know that Joe Morgan is a fellow believer in Jesus Christ.”
“It’s not so simple,” Ben said. “Mormon beliefs are quite different.”
She cuddled next to him on the sofa. “How do you know?”
He held up Zachariah’s iTouch. “The veteran who died today was a Mormon. I’ve been reading his journal.”
“What?” Keera sat up straight. “You can’t do that! It’s private!”
“Dead people have no privacy. His organs are probably floating in pickle jars at the pathologist’s office right now.”
“That’s disgusting!”
Ben laughed. “Don’t be so sanctimonious. I know what you guys do in medical school to those poor cadavers.”
“That’s totally different!” She picked up the green-cased iTouch. “You’re not going to publish it, are you?”
He shook his head.
“Then why are you reading it?”
“He wrote it to ensure that his story is known in case he dies.”
“Then give it to his family. It’s none of your business!”
“It might be.” Ben took Zachariah’s iTouch from her hand. “It might very well be my business.”
“Internet voyeurism business? More traffic for
Ray?”
“Fancy words, but her fees pay my bills—”
“You’re too talented to have to stoop like this, make a buck on the back of this poor dead schmuck. That’s not business. That’s…I don’t know. Greed!”
Ben held up the iTouch. “This is important for me. Way, way, way more important than money, okay?”
There was something in his voice that made Keera pause and peer closely at him. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure yet.” He got up from the sofa. “I need to read the rest of it.”
Chapter 14
Z.H. Journal Entry # 5:
Being under fire wasn’t new to me after fighting Iraqi forces throughout Kuwait. Conditioned by training, my mind tuned out the noise and fear, and I began to follow the set routine: Seek cover! Check self and others for injuries! Return fire!
Without thinking, I dragged the injured lieutenant with me behind one of the Humvees. Seven of us made it to this temporary shelter. The eighth was dead on the street, together with the five bodies of the Red Cross members.
I checked for injuries. There was a bullet in my thigh, another had passed through my left arm, which was still functional, and a third had put a hole in my right boot, clear through my foot.
But I felt no pain.
The others were all injured as well, and the Humvee shook as hundreds of bullets continued to hit it on the side facing the clinic.
It was time to return fire. I dropped down and rolled on the ground to the front of the Humvee, next to its oversize tire, and peeked out until I had the first window of the clinic in my gun sights. But all I had to aim at were black-clad women sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, shielding our attackers, whose guns protruded through the windows between the women’s heads.
I tried to shoot, but couldn’t. My old demon—the mental block against killing—returned to paralyze me. I tried harder, but my eyes were drawn to a girl, maybe two years old, who rolled off her mother’s lap. Her face turned toward me, twisted with screaming I could not hear.
Beside me, one of my buddies yelled something. I glanced and saw him claw at his neck, his hands red with blood. We were running out of time!
With my gun aimed at the women, I ordered myself: Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!
The Arab women looked at me through the slits in their burkes.
It was useless. There was no way I could make myself shoot at these women.
Giving up on forcing my finger to press the trigger, I rolled back behind the Humvee. None of my buddies could do much more than keep their heads down, bite their lips, and attempt to tie tourniquets. Three seemed unconscious. I had to do something.
Reaching the radio inside the vehicle involved maneuvering my body to remain as low as possible, and that’s when the pain really hit me. It was a shocking sensation, to be torn like this with overwhelming hurt, like a deafening voice that reached every corner of my brain, ordering me to lie down, curl up, and cry.
And I did cry, loud and bitterly while I grabbed the radio and dropped down to the ground, the spiral cord extending to its max.
Regaining a measure of self-control, I started calling for help. I kept repeating the name of the village and our unit number, but my voice didn’t even reach my own ears in the middle of this firestorm, let alone hear if anyone responded.
I kept at it until I realized that the radio had died.
Sitting with my back to the Humvee, I aimed my gun upward and pressed the trigger, emptying the magazine so that the enemy would think we were shooting back. It was then that I noticed that the fuel-truck driver at the gas station across the street was busy with some kind of a contraption under the rear of the tanker. My first instinct was to yell at him to seek shelter before he got hit by a bullet, but then I realized what he was doing.
Explosives!
I felt cold fear. It was one thing to get shot. Either you die immediately or get fixed up by surgeons. But to be burnt alive meant torture, often months of slow, horrible death, or a life of deformity and pain that was worse than dying.
The driver was done with his preparations and sprinted away from the tanker.
I prepared to launch myself in a mad dash across the street to defuse the explosives. My chances were slim—the area was exposed to the gunmen in the health clinic who, I now realized, were careful not to hit the tanker. How long did we have before it went off?
The sound of helicopter rotors penetrated through the racket.
Someone had heard me!
It appeared over the school at the dead end. The Seahawk was a common navy chopper that could do reconnaissance and transportation pretty well, but its weapons weren’t the best choice for urban combat. The pilot must have been in the area and heard my radio transmission.
A single gun began blasting from above, and the fire from the health clinic declined.
I rolled back to my position by the front tire and saw that the chopper was spraying the clinic with great accuracy, the rounds poking an almost straight line of holes just above the windows. Not a single Arab woman was hurt, but they all jumped out and lay on the ground in front of the building, and the gunmen were no longer shooting.
The Seahawk hovered above us, releasing an occasional burst of bullets toward the clinic, while we scrambled to get into the Humvee, the three unconscious Marines thrown in unceremoniously. We had to get out of here before the tanker exploded!
Our driver had been hit in the head. The helmet had saved his life, but he lay groaning in the back, pressing a rag to the wound. No one else seemed in better shape than me, so I climbed behind the wheel and lifted my immobile left leg over the door sill.
The engine was off. I tried to restart it, but nothing happened.
I tried again.
And then the explosives went off under the rear of the tanker.
The blast threw up a small fireball, but it failed to rupture the tanker. Flames engulfed the rear section. The driver must have left a fuel line running, and I could feel the heat on my face.
“Get rolling, soldier!” The order came through a loudspeaker from the helicopter above. The voice was commanding but even, not anxious. He repeated, “Get rolling now!”
There was nothing I wanted to do more than obey the order, but the starter revolved freely, the engine not catching.
“It’s dead,” I yelled. “Can’t get it going!”
As if he heard me, the voice from the chopper said, “Try the other vehicle. Tanker’s about to blow.”
Moving myself over to the other Humvee wasn’t easy, but I made it, only to find that its cabin was totally destroyed, the dashboard and steering wheel in pieces. Someone must have left the armored door open on the side of the clinic, allowing them to shoot up the inside.
Back outside, I looked up at the chopper and passed a hand under my throat. To my right, the fire under the tanker raged audibly, as if exerting itself to melt through the steel tank and ignite its content. There was no doubt that the ensuing inferno would turn us into living torches.
Throwing open the Humvee’s doors, I yelled, “We’ve got to walk out of here. Right now! Let’s roll!”
There was no response. My buddies were either unconscious or incapable of moving.
Behind me, the Seahawk descended.
I gesticulated frantically. “Get away!”
“Take cover,” said the calm voice on the loudspeaker.
Hovering low over the front of the tanker, the chopper’s door opened, and boots appeared. Right above the truck’s driver cabin, the pilot maneuvered even lower, and a slim-built man in Marine uniform jumped to the cabin’s roof. He looked toward me, our gazes met, and I recognized the dark-eyed captain from last year’s beachfront drill, who had shown us his Jewish tzitzit.
My automatic reaction was to salute him.
He nodded and slipped into the cabin of the tanker t
hrough an open window.
A few seconds later, the tanker jerked and began to move forward, at first slowly, then gaining speed as it roared out of the gas station and up the street, the rear end trailing flames. I followed the truck with my eyes, expecting to see the captain jump out, but the tanker suddenly exploded. Hot air blasted my face, followed by a thick cloud of bitter smoke.
Chapter 15
Ben dropped Zachariah’s iTouch on the desk. He got up, ran out of the study, and pulled open the glass doors to the balcony. Leaning against the doorframe, he gulped in the cold air, inhaling as deep as he could.
In a second-floor window of a townhouse across the way, the blue glare of a TV was a lonely sign of life. Otherwise the street was quiet, the air still.
But in his mind, there was no peace. The fiery images from Zachariah’s journal replayed—the last salute to the Marine captain, the gasoline tanker blowing up, the dark smoke taking over everything.
Back inside, he opened the contacts folder on his iPhone, searched for mother, and clicked on her e-mail address—[email protected]. He typed a short message:
Hi Mom,
I heard you’re making soup. Just what I need!
We’ll be at your place around 6 p.m. or so.
Love,
Ben
Chapter 16
Z.H. Journal Entry # 6:
Writing about it now, two decades later, the events of February 28, 1991, are still fresh in my mind. The skeletal remains of the gasoline tanker were still burning when an infantry company evacuated us after setting up a perimeter to keep off the Arab insurgents, who tried to come back at us with renewed vigor after the tanker failed to incinerate us.
I woke up three days later in a field hospital. Army surgeons had removed three bullets from my body, screwed together various bones, and put my shattered right foot in a steel contraption. I asked about the captain who had saved us, and a nurse told me that nothing was left of him—not even his dog tags. She had heard that he was awarded a second Medal of Honor in recognition of his bravery.
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