Staff Sergeant Bryan Lockwald, one of the engineers, plops down in the sand next to me. He utters a greeting, then smiles devilishly. I’ve known Lockwald for over a year. I helped train his engineer platoon on room-clearing techniques back in Germany, and we instantly became friends. I can tell he’s excited.
He looks out over the smoke on the horizon and remarks, “Imagine what our MICLICs can do inside that city.”
“What?”
“Fire that thing down a street, and I’m talking everything three stories on down destroyed or dead from the concussion of this thing. If you wanna clear a neighborhood fast, this is the bad bear you want in the fight.”
As an engineer, Lockwald loves the MICLIC because it is the most powerful arrow in his quiver. Yet Lockwald has spent the deployment trying to avoid killing anyone. He and his engineer mates have set off explosives plenty of times back at our base, but Lockwald was not like the others. He quit smoking in Iraq. He read literature and talked about God and nature. He wears wire-rim glasses and his passion for blowing stuff up stands in stark contrast to blowing people up. He always makes that distinction. I always had him pegged as a frustrated beatnik. He loves trees and plays folk music on his acoustic guitar. With his huge, handlebar mustache and his nostalgia for the natural world, he’s long since become the spiritual leader of our engineer platoon.
Engineers usually get abused by the infantry, but the truth is they are the intellectuals of the combat arms branches. They have a million crafty solutions to problems that would make us knuckle-dragging infantry types scratch our heads and pause.
I pray he doesn’t pull his guitar out. His impromptu folk-song sessions are unbearable. Fortunately, he just sits with me and looks on at the unfolding bombardment with the same awe I feel.
“Where did you get that coffee?” he asks me.
“Dude, don’t even start.”
Behind us, Lieutenant Joquin Meno gathers up the platoon. He spreads out a map on the sand and starts to talk. I get up and go over to the huddle. Fitts reaches it at the same time. We both notice that Michael Ware and Yuri are busily photographing and filming this spontaneous gathering. This turns me off completely. Is Meno’s chalk talk going to turn into a posing session for the cameras? I stay in the back and avoid the discussion.
Meno wants to go over what we’ll do once we’re through the breach. Unlike what has happened in the past, he wants to make sure we fight as an integrated platoon, not as disparate squads. This sounds good to all of us.
Fitts says, “Alright, Bell, we’re gonna take down the first building. You bring your boys into our foothold and we leapfrog. Don’t get too far away. Then we’ll bring Lawson’s guns up and get them in the fight. We stick together, Hooah.”
“Hooah.”
“We’ll pick out some good rooftops and set up those machine guns for overwatch,” I add.
My squad is slated to make the first leapfrog after Fitts’s boys secure a foothold, and the first leapfrog usually draws the first contact.
Just as we wrap up our chalk talk, Lieutenant Meno gets a call from Captain Sims, who orders him to take a Humvee forward and recon the breaching point. Meno grabs Sergeant Knapp and climbs into a Humvee carrying Chaplain Brown, Captain Fred Dente, and our forward observer, Sergeant Shaun Juhasz. The Humvee rushes past us, kicking up a plume of powdery sand behind it.
They find a small ridgeline and stop just shy of its crest. From this vantage point, they have an excellent view of the city. As they study the breach, Captain Dente spots a flash of sunlight reflecting on glass. It is an insurgent with a pair of binoculars. He’s been watching them from the northeast corner of the city. Dente and Juhasz call in a fire mission to take him out. Binos Man has the same idea. He calls his insurgent buddies, and suddenly Meno’s Humvee vanishes behind a towering cloud of sand and smoke.
“What the fuck?” Somebody calls out.
The smoke clears. The Humvee is intact. Captain Dente and Chaplain Brown call in to say they are okay. It is a miracle—an 82mm mortar just missed their rig.
Juhasz finishes his call for fire. Seconds later, our own shells impact on a building. They’re right on target, so now they fire for effect. It is over in seconds. All that is left of Binos Man is a pink splash and a mist of blood in the air.
Meno’s rig scoots back to our formation, victors of this unusual artillery duel. I wonder what Chaplain Brown must be thinking after that brush with the hereafter.
The radio in our Bradley crackles. The marines from the battalion that will be advancing alongside us to the west want to know if we’re ready to go. We are. They tell us to button up and wait for the signal to advance.
Lockwald shakes my hand good-bye and returns to his vehicle. I watch Ware and Yuri clamber aboard Fitts’s overcrowded Bradley. The ramp goes up and shuts them inside like sardines in an armored tin. Then it’s my turn. I settle down next to Lawson.
We’re ready. Our synapses are firing; adrenaline is coursing through our systems; we grip our weapons and wait for the drive into the battle. If the Marines need us to go early, we’ll go early.
Instead, we wait. The Brads idle and don’t move. The air grows stale. It grows hot inside our metal boxes. We sweat and start to stink. Lawson mutters to himself. I grow anxious, wishing we’d just get on with it.
The Brad lurches forward a few inches, and I think we’re on our way. Then we stop again. A few minutes pass, and then we’re moving again. Is this it? Are we rolling now?
No. Fuck.
We jerk forward again and stop. Somebody grumbles, “Goddamn, it’s one dick tease after another.”
The sun starts to fade in the west. The sky turns orange, then red. Still, we sit at the edge of the attack position. We must be waiting for nightfall after all.
Thanks for telling us.
As dusk darkens the desert around us, our engine revs and our driver throws our Bradley in gear. We’re on the move.
The pre-assault area is our final stop just before the breach. Again, it is nothing more than a vast expanse of flat desertscape, perfect for organizing a massive armored assault. Every unit spreads out in a line and comes to a halt along the east-west line of departure laid out on our maps.
It is a dramatic moment, and I can see we’ve formed gigantic waves of vehicles that will soon pour forward and funnel into the breaches the engineers create for us. In the meantime, we’ve got all our fighting tracks on line. We can’t dismount, so we’re stuck inside. We face the waiting game again. It is interminable.
Off in the distance, a mortar round explodes. Another one soon follows. We’re within indirect fire range, and the insurgents are throwing what they can at us. I peer out one viewport and see a mortar explode about two hundred meters away from our Bradley. That’s not too close, but the enemy has been known to walk their fire, aiming steadily closer to a target until it gets hit on the third or fourth try.
More shells splash around us. Somebody says laconically over the radio, “I guess we’re drawing fire out here.”
“Fuck it,” comes the response.
Not far from us, Lockwald and the engineers pile out of their vehicle and start to work on the MICLIC. The weapon is carried in a U-Haul sort of trailer that the engineers tow behind them.
Thommft! A 60mm mortar explodes right next to their armored carrier. Somehow, Lockwald and his men escape injury. Amazed, I watch Specialist Michael Sievers adjust gear on the MICLIC as if nothing is happening around him.
More shells explode around us. Things are starting to get hot.
Over the radio we hear that two Marines have died when their bulldozer rolled over while moving for the breach. The news angers us. We want to just fucking go.
But still we wait, poised at the start line, engines revving. This must be what a NASCAR race is like seconds before the green flag is waved, only instead of a few seconds our wait lasts for hours.
Our asses grow sore. When we try to reposition ourselves, we squash our balls. I check my watch
reflexively. The minute hand drags.
Bombs explode. More shells fall on the city. The pre-assault bombardment swells to a climax. Every three or four seconds a 155mm shell lands. Larger, deeper thumps shake the Brad. Those are the 500-pound precision-guided JDAMs. And we sit.
The air grows wretched. Every breath is unpleasant. I’m jammed between the ramp and Lawson, unable to move more than an inch or two in any direction. In Fitts’s track, Michael Ware starts to lose it. He screams, “Drop ramp! Drop ramp!” The crew almost does it until Fitts drowns him out. When that doesn’t work, Ware pounds on the ramp and screams some more. He’s far from a coward, just claustrophobic.
We all feel the same way. Facing bullets is nothing compared to this. Another hour passes, and some of us have to piss. Our leg muscles start to spasm. Mine cramp up altogether. Still we don’t move.
Another volley of 155mm artillery explodes much closer than usual. The Brad quivers from the concussion wave. I can hear a flight of jets surge onto the scene and I picture their strafing runs along the northern edge of the city. An AC-130 Spectre gunship rumbles overhead at ten thousand feet and spits out greetings to the insurgents with its whirling Gatling guns and 105mm howitzer. There is nothing more terrifying than the sight and sounds of that gunship. With its wings banked, it unloads an unbelievable barrage of bullets and shells into its targets. “Grrrrrrrrr—Boom—Boom—Grrrrrrrrr….” The AC-130 is the closest man has come in imitation of the fist of God.
The driver shifts into gear. We surge forward. This is it. I say a quick prayer.
Ten feet later, we halt again.
Mother fuck.
The wait continues. We endure, but only barely. In Fitts’s track, Ware is completely beside himself and hammers again on the ramp. Everyone’s on edge.
And then it begins. Several of our tanks cross the line of departure and move to the berm. They volley-fire their 120mm cannon into the buildings closest to the breaching point. This is the cue for the engineers to come up. Led by Lieutenant Shawn Gniazdowski, they pass through our ranks and speed ahead.
We roll forward again. Is this it? Adrenaline surges into us. We stop. We’re here to provide support fire for the engineers. Some of the company’s Bradleys pick out targets. Their cannons bark.
We’re still trapped in the depths of our metal boxes, unable to see more than a keyhole-sized sliver of the battle raging around us. Our bodies are totally confused. Should they be relaxed or pumped? The anticipation drives us all crazy.
Finally, we’re off. Our driver floors it, and the Brad charges forward. All around us, every vehicle, tank, and track takes off in one pell-mell chase for the breach site. We have faith in our engineers. It is total chaos, a modern-day version of the land rushes of Wild West lore. As our Brad works up to its top speed, we’re thrown around like bowling pins. My head cracks against the bulkhead, then I’m thrown against the ramp. Just as I recover, Lawson’s Kevlar slams into my chin. Gear starts flying around us. A machine-gun belt lands on top of us and uncoils like a snake. More belts fall, and soon we’re tangled in our own ammunition.
Outside, the explosions grow in volume and intensity. I look out the periscope viewer in the back of the Bradley. Blurring, jarring images flash before me. I see tracers, and fire, and more lights on the horizon. I sweep my eyes left and catch sight of the Bradleys on either side of us, keeping abreast.
The engineers’ vehicles come into sight. They’re catching hell at the berm despite all the suppressing fire the task force can muster. Tracers form fiery webs over them. Bullets spark off the armored flanks of their trucks. An IED detonates. The engineers ignore it all. Sievers and Lockwald fire their MICLIC rocket carrying the long rope of explosives. An enormous series of blasts follows. The concussion waves slam into our Bradley and stir our guts. The embankment sports a gaping new hole.
The radio crackles, “Go! Go! Go!”
On the fly, we swing into a column. We close on the railroad embankment.
Wham! Our Brad rocks on its tracks. An IED has exploded close by. Another one detonates, then another. Soon, we’re engulfed in a series of near-continuous explosions. Shrapnel whines off our thick metal hides. More of it clatters overhead or strikes our turret.
Don’t break track. Don’t break track.
Flares and flashes line the horizon. Off to the west, I see a steady series of IEDs going off. The Marines are getting hit as hard as we are.
We’re in column now, my Brad in the lead. Ahead, we see the breach. We steer through it, careful to stay between the chemical lights and tape the engineers have used to mark the lane they’ve cleared. In seconds, we’re out the other side and racing for the city. Ahead is an Abrams tank, battering its way forward. Another stands to one side, spewing flames from the tube of its 120mm gun.
Lieutenant Edward Iwan’s Humvee, with eternally unlucky Specialist Joey Seyford, slams to a halt near the breach. The heavy armored vehicles have had no issues getting over the blown railroad tracks, but the light-wheeled Humvees and trucks are stymied.
“Get this fucking bitch over the berm,” Iwan says to his driver.
As Staff Sergeant Lockwald and the engineers rig up another charge to blow the gap wider, a mortar round whistles in and lands right next to Seyford and Iwan’s Humvee.
SHHH-FROMMM!
Shrapnel blisters every inch of the rig’s windshield and side windows.
“What are the odds it hits us,” Seyford shouts down in amazement from atop the cupola of the Humvee.
“Pretty good with you around, Seyford. When this calms down I want you as far away from me as possible. You are fucking cursed.”
“Cursed? We’re fucking lucky. That should’ve taken my head off,” Seyford replies with a laugh.
Boom! An RPG. Boom! Boom! Two more strike nearby. More IEDs explode. Mines, more explosions, dirt, smoke, and flames erupt all around us. We’re surrounded by detonations, and our Brads plough through squalls of shrapnel, which sound like hail on a tin roof.
A Humvee driven by the Air Force controllers pulls between two First Platoon Bradleys and Lieutenant Iwan’s borrowed rig. The sight of the Humvees unable to cross the breech encourages the enemy. They direct their fire at these vulnerable vehicles. Two RPGs scorch the night. One scores a hit on the Air Force Humvee, seriously wounding Senior Airman Michael Smyre in the foot.
Joey Seyford, standing in Iwan’s turret, takes a piece of shrapnel and his hands fly to his face.
“Fuck! My eye!” he screams. Seyford clutches his open wound with both hands. Blood pours down his face.
“You’re right, dude, you are lucky. You get to go home, Joey. You lucky bastard,” shouts Iwan over the battle’s din.
“I’m not going anywhere, sir. Fuck that shit.” Seyford wipes the blood from his face, racks the bolt on his 50-cal M2, and starts hammering the enemy with it.
Another rocket sizzles into Staff Sergeant McDaniel’s Bradley to our right. It explodes below the turret. Behind us, Sergeant First Class Cantrell’s Brad takes a direct hit and bursts into flames. Fire scorches its flanks as the vehicle lurches forward. Seconds later, it runs across an IED, which explodes with such force that the entire back end of the Bradley leaves the desert floor. It plummets back down, causing the rig to rock backward and lift the nose up.
Shit.
Our own Brad suddenly stops. We tumble against one another and curse. Our driver, Luis Gonzalez, has hit something. He backs up and floors it. We spring forward, jump clear of the obstacle and crash back down on the wrong side of the engineer tape.
Voices boom over the radio. “Oh shit! You’re out of the lane! Get right! Get right.”
We start to swing back to the lane. A shattering blast engulfs us. The back end of our Bradley is thrown upward. Dust and smoke spiral around us. I choke and gag and try to scream for my guys. All that comes out is a hoarse rasp. I can’t hear anyone respond. Lawson, just inches away, doesn’t answer me either. I wonder if I’ve been deafened by the blast. Or maybe e
veryone but me is dead.
CHAPTER FIVE
Machines of Loving Grace
Smoke. Eyes burning. I suck air, which sears my throat. I paw my eyes, smearing grime across both cheeks. I blink. The Brad’s interior comes into view. Through the smoke I see the red lights on our gunner’s panel. Gossard is firing the 25mm cannon, but I can’t hear it. All I hear is a steady, high-pitched buzz.
Lungs full of smoke, I try to shout again. All that comes out is a hoarse, “Smack my knees. Smack my knees if you’re okay!”
Lawson turns and puts his lips close to my ear. He must be okay. He’s alive, anyway. He’s shouting something, but I can’t hear any of it.
Dim shapes take form around me. I see my men, darkened silhouettes inside our titanium box. I can’t tell if anyone else is alive or dead.
The Bradley churns upward, then thumps back down. My head rebounds off the bulkhead behind me. At least we’re still moving.
The buzzing grows louder and louder. Then it starts to morph into something else. I realize I’m hearing the 600-horsepower engine that drives our thirty-ton monster screaming and whining in protest. Throttle open, our driver pushes it beyond all sensible limits to get us out of this kill zone.
As if down a long corridor, I begin to hear Lawson’s voice, still muted and hard to comprehend. For the moment, I ignore it. I yell again, “Smack my knee if you’re okay!”
A hand snakes out of the darkness and whacks my knee. Another follows. Then three more.
Lawson takes a deep breath and bellows right into my ear. This time I hear him. “We’re all okay, Sergeant Bell! You’re screaming like you’re on fire!”
How the hell did we survive that blast?
Another sound swells in my ear. Explosions. They thump through the Bradley’s hull, boom-boom-boom. Our gunner keeps up a steady rate of fire, and now I can feel the vibrations of the 25mm through the seat of my pants.
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