Marine at war
For my family
The mediterreanean ocean
aboard the uss bataan
We do not do these things because we wish to. We do them because we are compelled.
-Alan Moore
ONE
I am the age of old dead rock stars. I am Twenty-Seven, and looking to join their club. I am staring at the wallet photo of the beautiful black woman I have married. I am staring into her tan skin, into her long straight hair, and I am waiting for the world to end.
I have been on another world, the grey aircraft carrier world of the USS Bataan. There is a vast hanger bay here, we all are standing in. I am on my pack, the tan ranger pack rucksack I will carry to war. Next to me is the true love of my life. Sweetness, My M16 rifle. Atop a red dot sight blinks. I am a true American baddass here, done up in flak jacket Kevlar and with night vision goggles strapped to my helmet.
“We wont go anywhere, dude.” Bill tells me. “You’ll get back to Turq soon enough. What the hell kind of name is that for a chick?”
“Its short for Turqious.” I tell him.
“That’s a California sort of name.” I say.
“Arent you from Virginia?” He says. “Oh yeah, that’s right. The internet.”
A reporter lady comes up to us in a blue pants suit, a stark contrast to our desert battle dress uniforms. She smiles around gold hoop earrings shaped in convex curves vaguely reminiscent of sea shells. “Do you have any good luck charms?” She asks us. A cameraman appears behind us. I hold out the wallet photo of my wife. “How did you two meet?” She asks.
“The internet.” Bill tells her.
The camera flashes. She scribbles on her pad. I go back and sit down on my pack. Sargeant Rielly comes over.
‘What did you tell the reporter, Mikey?”
‘That were going to rape Bin Laden up his ass, Sargeant.”
“With a rusty spoon.” Bill adds.
“That’s good shit.” Rielly says. And goes back on his pack. “How old do you think Rielly is?” Bills asks me.
“Thirty-something, I guess.” I respond.
“Nope. Hes twenty-nine. Two years older than you. Isnt that fucking crazy?”
“Lots of things are fucking crazy.” I tell him. I am looking around the vast hanger bay of the USS Bataan, trying to cement the moment in my mind. The Harrier jet in the corner, being taken apart by crew chiefs. The cool sea breeze outside, December in the Mediterranean. The look of grey piping on every wall, the feel of black tarmac anti skid under my feet. Things that I will, never, ever, experience again, when I finally leave this and I am once again human. The look of all the marines around me, most of them the same age as my little brother, at least half of them not old enough to drink. The premature age on the faces of the Non-commisioned officers like sergeant Rielly. The weight of it. After today, will I feel the weight?
Crates are suddenly being pried open. Reilly speaks. “Listen up, first.” He says. “Line up for ammo.” The brass rifle bullets, Nato standard 5.56 millimeter are passed out. Six magazines of thirty, a combat load. My thumb works quickly from repetition, stripping each one from the feeder clip, reveling in the ra-chink of the bullet meeting its kindred. A soft noise of the spring depressing. As I work, a sudden paralysis grips me. Will this be the one that fails me? Will this be the bullet that fails to fire, that double-feeds inside the chamber of my rifle, the bullet that gets me killed? Will this be the bullet that I fire by accident, the bullet that wounds another Marine? The bullet that haunts me for the rest of my life? The bullet that slowly kills me? Each round has a green painted tip. Every fifth round is painted red, for a tracer. I try to imagine dualing lightsabers, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Battling for my very soul.
Someone sets a long green tube next to me and says. “Strap it on your pack.” I look at my present. I have received an AT-4 rocket launcher. Next on this ammunition Christmas, and it is indeed December, I am given two live hand grenades. I place them in their pouches, next to my heart. I have had nightmares of this moment for years. Since Saving Private Ryan. I knew then that it would be my destiny to go through this. To live this nightmare. To follow in not my fathers footsteps, of the air force. Nor my grandfathers footsteps, of the Navy reserve. But instead to walk in my own shoes, down the bloody path of an Infantry Marine. I had signed up right after being laid off from my last shit retail job. This was it. Here I was.
“Do you got a dip, dude?” Bill asks me. I bring out a borrowed can of Copenhagen. Bill grimaces. “Formaldehagen again. This is some nasty shit. Did you get this from Schueher?” I nod. Hearing his name, Ryan comes into view.
Corporal Ryan Schueher. He of the non-infantry. He of the pretty boy Marines in the barracks in Washington DC. He of the four sets of dress blues and perfect drill, he who carried dead bodies and marched in perfect rhythm to the sound of taps. He who shaves his head and speaks in constant jock-macho-preppie bullshit. He who is my superior, and is in constant control of my life.
“Mikey.” He says. “your not going to fuck this up, are you?”
“No Corporal.” I respond.
“That’s good. If you make me look bad when we get to war, things are fucked for you. Im going to go to your house and sleep with your wife. No, not really, but just so you know, the ideas there.”
‘Yes Corporal.”
“So don’t fuck up. Nerd. Did you set your watch?”
“No Corporal.”
“Set it to zulu time. One-oh six A.M.”
My dressing down finished, I grab the can of snuff from Bill and replace it in my pocket. “Why the fuck do you let him talk to you like that?” Bill asks.
“I don’t know. Hes in charge.”
“He doesn’t talk to Me like that. He doesn’t talk to Cory of Jimmy like that. He only pushes you around, cause you let him.”
‘I guess so. I kind of see it all as a joke, really.”
“Your three years older than him, dude. He needs to stop.”
“Im just trying to remember the significance of zulu time, again.”
“Mission time, dude. Mission time. The time zone all missions are held in.”
“But all its basically doing, is making my watch worthless.”
“Pretty much. But still, its mission time. So you should do it.”
“Because Im such a good Marine?”
“Because you less-than-three Scheuher.”
“ALERT SPARROW HAWK ONE EIGHTY. ALERT SPARROW HAWK ONE EIGHTY.”
“On your feet, India Company!’ The first sergeant says. I imagine him in Vietnam, his tall and wrinkled near- corpse leading patrols to snuff out gooks in the wire. We stand up as a unit, all of us. It’s a fearsome sight. A hundred Marines, fully equiped for war. “Up the ramp!”
Up the ramp. Up the far side of the hanger bay is a long ramp, and we march up. The sea air mixes in my nostrils with the ozone smell of jet fuel. The ramp is large enough to pull a helicopter down, yet somehow small enough to induce claustrophobia. My ranger pack strains on my back. Sweat drips down the sides of my face, under my Oakley sunglasses. Will I fall out here? Here, not even close to the war? Not even a fraction of the way toward my destiny? Again, I dismiss the idea. I am at the top of the ramp. Ahead of me is Rielly, then Scheuher. I am at the tip of the spear. From here I can see the flight deck of the Aircraft Carrier.
The V-22 Osprey is a strange beast. A mix in between a helicopter and an airplane. Pure sex from an episode Of G.I. Yo Joe. Knowing is half the battle. Only it will have the long range capacity to take us far enough in country to drop in a hot LZ, in Afghanistan. Afghanistan. What do I know of the place? What do I even know of the word, a foreign word, a meaningless term for just another shit-hole. The power of television has gotte
n me to this moment. The power of television, with its sight of two buildings falling, in a state I have never visited, in a city I only know from its significance in Marvel Comics. The power of television had blessed me now with this, in this moment in time. Would Turquoise understand? I think of that last phone call. “Let me know when you get there,” She said to me. How would I do that? The Osprey’s rotors are tilted up, and the blades are whirring up. The noise is the beat of an enraged hummingbird. Schueher turns back to me, his face a huge grin. “This is it, Mikey.” He says. “Are you ready to become a man?” The crew chief taps me on the shoulder and I start to move forward.
On this walk, I will look back someday, and think to myself, on this walk I am forever preserved, on this walk I do have a story to tell. The pack strains my back, the flak strains my chest, the helmet strains my head. The rifle is surprisingly light in my hands. In the corners of my eye I see the entirety of the flight deck, with its many grey osprey’s and its black tarmac and its yellow lines, and beyond it, the entirety of the sea, a thing too large to truly be named. It stretches in every direction, forever and eternal. I march in my ant-line to the back of the mutant helicopter. On its side I see a little cartoon bald eagle painted, sitting on a stool and sharpening his talons. Inside the whine fills my head. A wheeeee more than a whiiiiiiiiiir, inside the bird forsakes its sleek grayness for more ugly metal, with visible lines running around the top and sides for fuel and hydraulics and electrics and brakes. I scoot in as far as I can, placing my pack on the floor, the barrel of my M16 facing down. Next to me is Bill, across from me sergeant Reilly. I sit and for moments, think of nothing. I feel as though I am locked into this position due to my proximity. At the side the crew chief performs his checks. Most of First Squad makes it into the bird. Brief dizziness encroaches on me. A wave of nausea. The whine grows louder. The back ramp closes.
It is a funny thing, to take off in a helicopter. There is no sudden push of acceleration, as in a jet. Instead, there is simply a lifting away of the earth from beneath you. As if a hand had picked you up and plucked you from the ground, into the sky. I think how Turqious would understand this feeling if she could, and compare it to a ride at Disneyland. I look out the back of the ramp, and watch it fade away. The boat shrinks to the size of a bathtub toy. Is this what it feels like? To assault the beaches of Normandy? To charge across the no mans land? To fight the Persians at the hot gates? Is this what it feels like? To be a man? To leave your wife, and child behind? To leave your country, and go to war?
The ospreys circle around in the sky. Around and around, and then they head out.
Two
I wake up and I am freezing cold. I do not know how I have managed to fall asleep.
Next to me Bill is awake, his hands in his armpits, a gout of steam coming out of his breath. Cory is snoring. I wonder how I can hear it over the propeller whine. I sniffle, and a small stream of mucus runs down my nose. Outside it is still daylight. It was morning when we left, so this must be afternoon. I think about the reasons behind the cold. The osprey flies high, higher than the regular helicopter, and the cabin isn’t pressurized.
I wonder how far out we are, and then I see Rielly pass the signal. Five. Five minutes out. The bird starts to dip. We are lower now. We are low enough to the point where I can see the sand. I think of Frank Herberts book. Dune. Dunes. I only have five minutes. From behind the loading ramp, green tracers fly. Something hits the side of the osprey with a rat tat tat.
The Crew Chief springs into action, seizing the fifty caliber machine gun and responding back. The fifty goes buudda buuda bow. I see a camel, and then the camel disappears, into red and purple puddles of dust.
I am squeezing the pistol grip on Heather. Everyone is awake now. Magazines are slapped into chamber. Charging handles are racked. Rielly gives the signal. Two minutes. The osprey dips lower. I can hear a challenge to us, and out the window I can see what looks like an ancient fortress. A prehistoric castle. Castle Greyskull. The challenge is the harsh, foreign talk of an AK-47. I think of Schuehers words. I am ready to become more than man, to become pre-man, to follow older rules, the oldest rules……
We land hot.
The four Marines ahead of me break into a run from aboard the helicopter. I hear bullets whizzing in the air, and then I hear them cracking. There is the sound of meat being slapped and someone falls in front of me. He simply jerks to the ground, as if his strings were cut. Everything is more real than it ever could have been. The blue sky is the most intense blue. The tan below is a torment of dust. The stones of the castle are carved from myth itself, birthed from the forehead of Zeus. More likely Allah, that dark god of terrible judgment. Allah, who’s name we sneer at every September. I run ahead, to where Schueher is pointing. The objective.
The objective is a two foot high berm in the sand. Next to me Bill is aimed in with his 203 and firing. I feel hot brass slipping down my shoulderas I focus in. Beside the objective is a large rubble field. I aim in behind the red dot. There are many women, bowing down, wearing blue burqas and praying. There is a rifle between them. Someone is hiding, behind the burqa woman. Scheuher leans in my shoulder. “Mikey.” He says. “I want you to fire.”
I aim in behind my red dot. I slowly squeeze the trigger. And I fire. I fire my first shot, out of anger. In the beginning, nothing happens. I fire again. A woman slumps down. I fire again and again. Bill is firing next to me. Someone opens up with a M249 SAW. The woman are all falling down. I do not see anyone with a gun.
Rielly grabs the back of my flak jacket. “Mikey.” He says. “I want you to put that AT-4 right through that doorway. You think you can do it?”
‘Yes sergeant!” I tell him. I throw down my M16 and take the tube off my pack. Bill looks behind me and yells. “Backblast area all secure!”
“Backblast area all secure!” I repeat. It is odd how the rocket launcher is fired. There is no handle. One hand grips the sling, and one hand simply flips a little safety and presses a little red button.
“ROCKET!” I yell. My voice is drowned out by the boom. Behind me spurts a cone of fire.The rocket races out, with a white streak, in a tight little mini spiral, and explodes in the way real explosions go, with smoke and dust, and not any fireballs at all.
“GO Go Go!” Rielly yells. We are sprinting for the front door, weapons at the ready. The yards here are the longest yards, longer than any high school football field. One eye is free, one eye is looking down the red dot sight. Inside the doorway I see the effect of my missile. A man lays on the ground, in traditional rag head clothing.. His right arm is missing and there is a neat hole cut out of him I look at his black beard. For the first time in my life, I smell the death-stink, the stench of bowels empty of their shit. We sweep and clear every room. I hear sporadic fire. We hold positions, but the fight is over.
I am taking a knee in the middle of what I think of as the castle courtyard. An engine is running on a large truck, painted blue and pink and covered with golden bells, beside it is a large bale, and a pile of RPG’s and AK’s. Rielly is one the radio. “falcon actual this is falcon one.” He is saying. “Alternate sight secured. Ready to proceed to mission point.”
I feel my head spinning. “Sargeant.” I ask. “What does that mean? This isn’t the objective?”
Rielly takes a swig of water from the tube of his water bladder and spits. “We had to land hot, Mikey.” He says. “The birds were taking to much fire. Get a couple of hours sleep. In a little bit, we’ve got a five mile hump.”
I stand up and stagger for a little bit. I am dizzier than I realized. Without warning, bile fills my throat and I vomit. I hear a buzzing noise by my feet, and start to think of flies.
Three
We carry Pfc. Almodovar and place him aboard the helicopter for evac, the green camouflage poncho covering the ugly hole in his head. The ugly hole seems to place itself in my mind with the question, why wasn’t that me? What prevent me before running before him? Almodovar was no faster than I
was, and he was possibly as alert as I was. The only thing I can think of is the seating arrangements. The seating arrangements saved my life, and sentenced him to death.
The enemy dead we cover with some found wool blankets, but otherwise leave where they lie I spread out my pack and start to clean my rifle. That is what needs to be done, after the weapon is fired weapons maintenance must be maintained. As I scrub out the carbon residue I tell myself lies to maintain the rest of the Marine weaon:
There was nothing you could have done.
Anyone else would have done the same thing.
After a while, you’ll forget about it.
When I remember to drink water I find that the afternoon sun has turned it warm in the bladder of my pack. Bill is inspecting his bare feet, gingerly poking a blister.
“Are you alright, dude?” I ask.
Marine at War Page 1