House to House

by David Bellavia

“Hey.”

  “Sergeant Bell, Sergeant Bell, where are you?”

  It’s Lawson.

  “Up here,” I manage.

  “Sergeant Bell, are you okay? Why didn’t you stay downstairs? Are you okay, man?”

  “Yeah, I’m good. I’m good.”

  It’s a lie. I wonder if I will ever be good again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Nut to Butt in Body Bags

  Afternoon, November 17, 2004

  Cloverleaf east of Fallujah

  Seven days later, we emerge from the Battle of Fallujah filthy, encrusted with dirt, and stinking. We are less than human, just ragged outlines of what we once had been. Ten days of constant house-to-house combat, no showers, no respite. Here at the cloverleaf, we are anomalies among the tidy uniforms and polished boots of what the late Colonel David Hackworth once called Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers, REMFs.

  Our uniforms are covered with dried gore, blood, grime, concrete dust, and smoke stains. All of us have brown slicks of diarrhea pasting our pants to our backsides. We’re so sick that some of us can hardly walk.

  We haven’t shaved since November 8. We look like bedraggled castaways with whiskers and wild, red-rimmed eyes. Fitts is the hairiest; he looks like an unwashed and blood-spattered Grizzly Adams.

  As we exit our Bradleys, every step is a challenge. You’re not going to keel over in front of all these REMFs, are you?

  Our stomachs churn. Our asses feel scorched. We have gouges and cuts and nicks and bruises one atop the other. Our faces are a swollen mess. We’ve got infections everywhere and the pus to show for it. We are done.

  First Sergeant Peter Smith of Alpha Company has arranged hot chow for us. We have been longing for a warm meal, craving it. We don’t even care what it tastes like. Our last hot meal was on the eleventh, and we need to fill our bellies. Our stomachs gurgle and spin. We are simultaneously famished and nauseated, and even though we know whatever we eat will just feed our diarrhea, we don’t care.

  We stagger toward the mess area. Our reeking funk sends all REMFs swinging from our path. At least it’s good for something.

  The last few days have been brutal on all of us. Our executive officer, Lieutenant Edward Iwan, is dead. A rocket almost tore him in two at the stomach while he was bending down in his Brad’s turret to hand a reporter his equipment. At first he was somehow able to cling to life. First Sergeant Peter Smith, Sergeant Eric Dove, and Lieutenant Colonel Newell helped medevac him to our battalion aid station, where our surgeon, Major Lisa DeWitt, personally drove him to the Marine hospital at our base in Fallujah. When she got there, the surgeons said his type of wounds were always fatal. She begged until they agreed to look at him. Though his vital organs were crushed and bowels ruptured, Iwan still had a pulse. That galvanized the Marine doctors, who wheeled him into surgery and fought frantically for forty-five minutes to save him. Lieutenant Iwan’s sheer force of will kept his heart beating long after anyone else’s would. But in the end, there was no hope. Our beloved executive officer died on the operating table.

  Even though Iwan was gone, his Bradley crew’s firepower was desperately needed back into what quickly became a full-blown battle after they left on November 12. Sergeant Tyler Colly, Iwan’s gunner, was only inches away when the horrific scene played out in front of him. He was the first to render aid to our mortally wounded executive officer, and now had begun the unenviable task of cleaning the gruesome aftermath from the inside of the turret. Colly was preparing to do this when an arm grabbed him and pulled him from the back of the Bradley. Soapy water splashed over the Bradley’s floor panels and back troop bench. Chaplain Ric Brown placed the bucket down and looked into Colly’s eyes, instantly recognizing what this young NCO had been through.

  “Come on, Sergeant. You got enough to deal with. You can get back out there. Just let me do this for you,” he told Colly.

  For the next thirty minutes, Iwan’s driver, Private Matthew Car-swell, and Tyler Colly reflected in complete silence on what had just happened and the unknown of what would lie ahead. In the distance they could hear the familiar clamor of a street battle and the near tinny scrub of the interior of their vehicle, as Chaplain Brown chose the most ghoulish task for himself, so that young men could focus on the difficult mission at hand. Ric Brown, the only semblance of decency in a city surrounded by misery.

  Chaplain Brown now walks over to talk to Colly and the rest of the crew as they park next to the rest area of A company as they wait to eat. The mess area is just a big open stretch of desert next to the cloverleaf. The REMFs beat us to our food. They stand happily in line, chatting and gossiping and laughing. Their uniforms are meticulously clean.

  We stare in hatred as they eat the meals prepared for us. None of us has the strength to protest. Morosely, we flop into the powdery dirt. I lie on my back next to Ruiz, whose hearing is totally gone now as a result of all the AT4s he’s fired these past days. I doubt he’ll ever get it completely back. He pulls off one gunk-and-shit-smeared boot. His sock radiates a stench that should be banned by the Rules of Land Warfare. He peels it off and casts it aside. His feet are black and speckled with angry red sores. Yellow-orange fluid leaches from under his toenails. We haven’t been able to take our boots off for days.

  A few nights ago, we’d just fallen asleep when Misa started screaming to someone outside our commandeered building. In broken English he shattered the silence of the night with, “Put your helmet on, dude. Your helmet!”

  Just as Fitts was ready to shut him up, AK rounds zipped in and around the room we were in. Misa answered with an exaggerated belch from the M240 Bravo machine gun we had set up for overwatch. Four insurgents, dressed in American uniform tops and blue jeans, had actually stacked up on the outer wall surrounding our house. Using a preparatory hand squeeze signal, they charged into the courtyard, rifles blazing.

  Misa quickly shredded one. The others paused, then fled back into the street where Sergeant First Class Matthew Phelps’s tank cut them down with his .50 caliber machine gun.

  The incident underscored our constant need for readiness, even when we had the opportunity to grab a few minutes sleep. This meant sleeping with our boots on, no matter what damage it caused our feet over time.

  It isn’t too much to ask for hot chow, is it? We’ve been reduced to viewing life’s basic necessities as precious luxuries. These REMFs don’t understand. Nobody who hasn’t been through all this with us ever will. The gap between those who fight and those who support has never been wider.

  Sergeant First Class Cantrell storms past on a mission to raise hell over the food. These last seven days, Cantrell has fought with unique fury. I respect him now as never before. He may scream and yell during a firefight, but he proved he’d do anything for us when the shit is on.

  The morning after my house fight, as we faced yet another dug-in position, this time a factory complex, my squad stood on the roof of a garage under heavy fire. Cantrell came to our rescue. He handled his Bradley like a battering ram and smashed right through the exterior wall of the factory. He drove into the heart of the complex, Bushmaster belching high-explosive rounds. The big gun raked the buildings we would have otherwise been forced to assault in close combat. A flame bloomed, then another. In seconds, the entire complex was ablaze, thanks to Cantrell’s strafing run.

  From the rooftop, we listened to the screams of insurgents as they burned alive. We stayed there and listened until the flames finally drove us off the rooftop.

  Now while Cantrell looks for someone to yell at for the sake of our food, one of our guys gets to his feet and half-runs, half-staggers to a nearby Bradley. He gets behind it, and I hear him dry heave. I look over to see who it is, but I can’t tell. As I’m craning, somebody else loses control of his bowels. When I turn back, there’s a puddle of pudding-like diarrhea, slick with bloody mucus, steaming in the dirt next to me.

  I’m too exhausted to move away.

  We’ve been shitting like this for days. For me,
it started after the house fight on the tenth. My groin burned from my injuries there, and I alternated between covering the wounds with Neosporin and wiping my leaking ass with strips torn from my T-shirt. Finally, desperate to stop the dripping, I tore another strip off and stuffed it into my anus.

  At times, the diarrhea left us so dehydrated that Doc Abernathy had to give us IV fluids between firefights. He had us swallow all sorts of pills to stop us up, but nothing worked.

  Doc’s lying limp on the other side of Ruiz now. He looks around and reminds us, “Remember to wash your hands before you eat.”

  What the hell for? Could we get any sicker?

  Doc, too, had proved himself to me in the past few days.

  On the twelfth, the insurgents nearly annihilated us in a six-hour gunfight. J.C. Matteson, one of our scouts, died when an RPG hit him in the gunner’s hatch of a Humvee. Not long before, Lieutenant Iwan went down. As the fighting raged, our platoon took down another large building and moved to the second floor. Once we got up there, we found that most of the exterior walls had been blown away. We were exposed from every direction, and the insurgents quickly capitalized on our mistake. Machine-gun and sniper fire hit us from two directions. We fought back with every weapon, but we had no hope of gaining fire superiority. The insurgents overwhelmed us and pinned part of the platoon down.

  Doc had a lot of medical work to do that day. Tristan Maxfield had just wounded an insurgent when an RPG nearly tore his foot and ankle off. Without missing a beat, John Ruiz jumped up and dashed to Maxfield’s side. As bullets flew all around him, Ruiz shielded Maxfield’s head with his own body. A split second later, Doc slid over and started to treat Maxfield. He exposed himself repeatedly to the incoming fire while he worked.

  Maxfield ignored the pain, ignored the fact that some muj shithead had just changed his life forever. All he said was, “Doc, roll me over! Roll me on my stomach!”

  Puzzled, Doc eased Maxfield onto his chest. Maxy grabbed his weapon and returned to the fight, even as Doc Abernathy fought to staunch his torn and bleeding wounds.

  These men look like average guys. On November 12, I saw the greatness of their spirits. They rose to the challenge and they fought selflessly for one another. Despite the terror of those long hours trapped on that building, I have never felt closer to a group of human beings. We stood together, and we shined.

  Now, as I’m still pondering Doc’s polite suggestions that we wash our hands, a staff sergeant I’ve never seen before strides up to our platoon. He’s got more cool-guy shit dangling off his uniform than a Navy SEAL. He raises his hand and beckons to us. I see he’s wearing a Nomex glove with the trigger finger cut out. His nails are clean.

  I’ll be stunned if this bag of shit has fired a weapon since boot camp.

  An advanced combat sight sits atop his M4. We could have used more of those, especially during our battle on the second floor of that ruined building on the twelfth.

  He regards us through brand-new Wiley X ballistic sunglasses; the holy grail of combat gear. His face wrinkles with disgust when he catches a whiff of our stench. A brand-new pair of metal handcuffs dangles off his belt. The cuffs catch the sunlight with bright gleams.

  “Who is this? Billy the fucking Kid?” I whisper to Fitts.

  “What unit is this?” he demands harshly.

  Nobody responds. This pisses him off.

  “Soldier!” he barks at me. “What outfit is this?” He sounds like a tough-guy wannabe.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What outfit you in?”

  “That’s fucking Staff Sergeant, guy.”

  He ignores that. “What unit is this?”

  I’m ready to bitch-slap him until he squeals. Instead, Lieutenant Meno stares at this turd and says, “Sergeant, this is 2-2 Alpha.” Our platoon leader talks like a badass now, which, after the second-floor battle, he is. Meno killed more than his share that day. The divide between officers and NCOs is usually impenetrable, but Meno broke it. He is one of us. A brother.

  Billy the Kid refuses to fuck off. Fitts sits up, and demands, “Hey dick, what do you need?”

  “General Batiste is coming. Danger Six wants to thank each of you personally for what you’ve done.”

  Outstanding. Somebody cut my face so I’ll have a scar and will always be able to remember this day.

  He waits for a reaction. I suppose he wants a cheer, or an “Oh boy!” from us. We’re not having any of it. All we want is chow and a few hours of sleep. Our lives have whittled down to these two needs. Anything else is simply an obstacle.

  Knapp speaks up next. “If Danger Six brings tacos, I’ll carry him around this bitch like we just won the Super Bowl.” We all break out laughing. Our visitor is not amused.

  Billy the Kid tries again. He takes a few reluctant steps toward us. His handcuffs jangle on his body armor. “Danger Six is coming. You men need to get cleaned up for him.”

  Does this mean I need to put a fresh strip of T-shirt up my blistered ass?

  The soldier behind the Bradley dry heaves again. Fitts lies back down into the dirt. We ignore our visitor. The breeze blows the stench of fresh vomit over us, and Billy the Kid makes himself scarce.

  Ruiz starts powdering his mangled feet. I’ve got shit on one side of me, puke on the other. And our general wants to come and talk to us.

  I can’t take this anymore.

  I close my eyes and lie back in the morning sun. In the distance, the REMFs smoke and joke while eating our food. They seem to be talking about some NBA basketball game highlights on ESPN’s SportsCenter.

  A figure blocks my sun. I open my eyes to an upside-down silhouette of a man. I cannot see who it is.

  “What’s up?”

  The man bends forward to look down at me. I see he is a major.

  “Danger Six is in the AO (area of operation),” he says dramatically. I notice he’s got his rank on the front of his pristine helmet. He also has the classic mark of an REMF: there’s no night-vision mount on his Kevlar.

  “You men need to get up and shave. He’s got the Army Times with him, and he’s got Stars and Stripes.”

  We gawk at him like he’s a martian. He sees our reaction and decides to scold us, “I know you men have been in the bush, but we’re all in the army and we need to uphold the standards, Hooah?”

  Nobody responds. In the bush? Does this fucker think we’re in Vietnam?

  The major opens his mouth to say something, but Fitts cuts him off. “What the fuck? You’re fucking kidding, right?”

  I’m so congested and my hearing is so bad that I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or the entire platoon. I sit up and look around, trying to contain my fury.

  Then I see him. A hundred meters away, Staff Sergeant Lockwald, our guitar-strumming, berm-blowing engineer, is talking with General Batiste.

  Lockwald looks freshly shaved.

  You’ve gotta be kidding. We spent last night sleeping nut to butt in body bags to stay warm. Now we’re supposed to shave so the general can have a photo op?

  Lockwald isn’t the same man who opened the breach at the start of our assault. For one thing, the man who never wanted to take a human life found himself covering a road when a wave of insurgents rushed past, on their way to our precarious second-floor position. He faced a choice. Should he abandon his principles or let the Third Platoon’s dismounts get blindsided by thirty insurgents?

  He racked the bolt on his Ma Deuce and knocked them down like bowling pins.

  For another, the next morning, his half-joking wish came true. Captain Sims was done fucking around, and he ordered Lockwald and his band of engineers to fire a MICLIC down our target street. For blocks in all directions, windows shattered, buildings shook. Debris fell. The concussion wave killed dozens of insurgents. When we went through the neighborhood, we found them twisted in awful ways. In one house, I discovered a man who succumbed while clawing his own face and eyes. The concussion wave turned some of them almost inside out.

&
nbsp; Lockwald shakes hands with General Batiste. They share a few words before the general moves on to another engineer.

  “Hey, Fitts?”

  “Yeah, bro?”

  “They made all the engineers shave.”

  Fitts spits a wad of chew into the dirt. “I can’t fucking take this shit.”

  The major rejoins General Batiste’s brass-heavy entourage.

  My stomach is grumbling. I look down and my belly is inflated with gas.

  If I stand up, I’ll blow through the T-shirt strip and it’ll be Mount St. Anus again. I will coat my boots with a lava flow of feces.

  We are all giant germ bombs. We detonate periodically. None of us has the strength to do anything more than lie in the dirt in our own filth.

  “Fitts.”

  “Bell.”

  “All I want is some fucking Imodium or Pepto or something to clog me up. Then I want some food and sleep.”

  “With ya.”

  Behind us, the soldier dry heaves one final time, then collapses back into our group.

  Knapp blows a wad of snot into the dirt. He’s got a fever and his throat is a bright crimson.

  Our new sergeant major walks up to us. “What did that major want?” he asks.

  When we tell him, Sergeant Major Bohn looks at us with incredulity. “He didn’t really say that, did he?”

  “Yes he did, Sergeant Major.”

  First Sergeant Smith gets wind of this as well. He comes tearing across the mess area cursing in German. His entire bald head is bright red. I’ve never seen him so livid. Sergeant Major Bohn goes to intercept him, but Captain Doug Walter collars him first.

  Captain Walter. Our old Alpha Company commander.

  He’s one of us again because of yet another loss. On the day after our second-floor siege, Captain Sims moved up to the next block and entered a house. We heard shots ring out. Sims went down. He’d walked into a prepared ambush. Two others were hit as well: at point-blank range, Joey Seyford took an AK round in the shoulder and another in the leg. Seyford stayed in the fight and drove off two insurgents. Air Force Staff Sergeant Greg Overbay, assigned to Alpha Company as a Joint Tactical Air Controller, was also shot in the house. Sergeant Travis Barreto pulled the men to safety and one of our interpreters, Sammy, ended up shooting an insurgent during the fray.