by Jim Proser
* * *
The Marines of Bravo Company have been sitting in the invasion traffic jam in total darkness for three hours. Evan Wright reports from First Platoon’s Humvee, “Unlike the Humvees used by elite Army units, which have armor and air-conditioning, most of First Recon’s Humvees don’t even have doors or roofs. Some teams modified them by welding in extra racks for ammo and removing windshields so they can fire their rifles through them. The Humvees are so stuffed full of weapons and supplies, the men hang their rucksacks filled with personal gear on the sides of the vehicles.”11
For the next few hours, First Recon stops and starts, zigzagging back and forth just south of the border beneath the lightning flashes of streaking rockets and thunder of Saddam’s artillery. Just as Mattis feared, oil facilities have been set on fire near Rumaylah, creating a glow on the eastern horizon.
In the command post, Mattis calmly suits up for battle. He puts on his flak jacket, which he prefers to wear backward, with its Velcro opening, two-star insignia, and name patch on his back. This may be a precaution against enemy snipers, who might pick out the two stars on his chest through a high-powered rifle scope. Since he is frequently inspecting the most forward positions and facing the enemy as he scans their positions through binoculars, it is certain that they are looking back. But no one really knows why he wears his “flak” backward, and no one seems to care. He checks his pistol, mission-oriented protective posture (MOPP) suit, and gas mask that will protect him from toxic chemicals as he continues to direct and advise his commanders through a mobile headset. He speaks evenly, calmly, with no hint of tension.
New information—from jet and helicopter pilots, satellite data, human intelligence (spies) in Baghdad, allied commanders, and policy guidance from Washington, DC—floods into the command post, to be acknowledged, prioritized, routed to the proper commanders, and relayed out to the troops in a constant flow of orders, advisories, and alerts. Mattis smiles and pats a few colleagues who will be staying behind on the back. He’s completely relaxed among the commotion.
Osowski launches into rapid-fire chatter, advising Mattis on the likely disposition of enemy forces between them and their first destination, the oil and gas separation plant about twelve miles east of Basra. Mattis smiles and nods, giving his eager, brilliant, and slightly eccentric chief intelligence analyst his full attention. Osowski amuses the general, who marvels at the young man’s nearly complete lack of conversational skill. Osowski might continue talking until everyone was asleep if Mattis didn’t interrupt him with a gentle assurance, something like, “That’s fine, Ski, that’s fine, son. I got it. We’ll be okay.”12
Mattis sometimes listens to Osowski like a favorite news radio station as he eats his one or two meals a day from an MRE foil pouch. The general rarely bothers to heat or hydrate the freeze-dried meals inside. He drinks only water. Osowski will lay his battlefield map on the floor as the general eats, placing force indication icons on the map to make his points, rarely looking up to see if the general is listening.
For time by himself and to keep up his energy level, Mattis relies on push-ups and brief runs around the command post. Recently, the fifty-three-year-old commander completed a division-wide 5K run in just over twenty-one minutes, a blazing pace for any age. For his four hours of nightly rest, called “maintaining sleep discipline” in Marine-ese, he joins dozens of other Marines of all ranks, rolling out his sleeping bag on the plywood floor of a nearby tent. To settle and clear his mind, he reads passages from Roman emperor and general Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, which he keeps in a collection of books he takes on every deployment. For the past thirty-six years, he has contentedly lived this Spartan warrior’s lifestyle, asking for no special treatment or comfort for himself that is unavailable to the lowest-ranking Marine.
Mattis has been on duty now with only latrine breaks for the past fourteen hours and will continue for the next twelve, at least, until his jump platoon and the last American and coalition units are through the berm and on their way toward their objectives. He straps on his Kevlar helmet. These are his last moments of close control over the largest allied invasion force since D-Day. He has let slip the dogs of war on Saddam’s Iraq, with unpredictable consequences for both sides. With a wave to his fellow warfighters in the command post, he turns and walks out to his waiting jump platoon.
* * *
First Recon is redirected toward several different breach points at the border until 0400 hours, when commanders finally decide on which breach they should use. They have been in traffic now for eight hours. As they crawl toward the designated breach, the fog of war has begun to thicken around the men of Bravo Company when Fick’s immediate superior, Bravo Company’s commander, disrespectfully nicknamed “Encino Man”13 clusterfucks the entire company by making a wrong turn in the dark. The commander’s nickname refers to a movie character, a dimwitted caveman who thaws out and comes to life in Encino, California. Encino Man has an easygoing personality that makes him personally liked, but as a commander, particularly now that they are facing battle, the men of Bravo Company are concerned about his leadership. Their fears are again justified as they wait to get their bearings among the tens of thousands of other heavily armed vehicles moving toward the Iraqi desert.
The sky flashes and fades as artillery and aerial bombardment rain down on Iraqi positions near the border. Jet engines, attack helicopters, rockets, and artillery shells whistle, whomp, and whoosh overhead, the horizon flashing with each impact. The past ten hours of amped-up “Get some!” excitement eventually gives way to the mind-numbing boredom of being caught in traffic, lulling Corporal Trombley to sleep. He slumps over his squad automatic weapon, or SAW—a thousand-round-per-minute machine gun—snoring.
“Wake up, Trombley,” Sergeant Colbert says. “You’re missing the invasion.”14
Bravo Company finally unfucks itself and crosses the border into enemy territory. After a few minutes heading north, they roll through a desolute border town, where smashed and abandoned vehicles sit alongside the road. As morning light begins to glare through the dust-caked windshield, black smoke from Rumaylah’s oil fires lies atop the horizon like Saddam’s greasy thumbprint. Colbert’s first impression of Iraq is that it looks like “fucking Tijuana.”15 Colorful handmade signs mark the abandoned shops that line the empty central street. Steel shutters are padlocked in front, protecting the shops until the owners return. Wild, feral dogs nose around the alleys for scraps of garbage.
* * *
At 0600 hours, Mattis’s rolling command post halts near the gas and oil separation plant outside Basra, a critical facility. Mattis and his platoon dismount the vehicles and greet Colonel Joe Dunford, the commander of the 5th Marines’ Regimental Combat Team 5 (RCT-5). Dunford has secured the plant after encountering light resistance. On the way here, they have all seen piles of Iraqi uniforms and small arms cast off by the roadside, and dozens of military-age young men in civilian clothes walking away from them.
While Mattis and Dunford discuss the next objective after the gas plant, a call comes in from division command post. The Iraqi general that Mattis had been desperately emailing to surrender has complied, and is asking to be taken into custody at the border. The general’s summary execution may have been ordered from Baghdad, and he no longer trusts his subordinate officers.
Mattis and Dunford plot Dunford’s next objective, a bridge over the Euphrates River, fourteen miles north and west of Nasariyah. The wind kicks up dust and sand, making the commanders’ conversation more difficult. They huddle closer together next to a Humvee. Osowski attempts to spread out his battlefield map and place his indicating icons on the hood of the Humvee as he starts his characteristic rapid-fire briefing on the opposing forces, terrain, and commanders Dunford will face on his advance north. The map flaps in the wind, scattering the icons. Osowski picks up his icons, drops a few, grabs them again, and attempts to hold the map and icons in place without stopping for a breath. Finally Mattis and Dunford sto
p talking and look at Osowski, who, deep into his analysis, is unaware that he is interrupting the commanders. Mattis and Dunford eventually look at each other, shrugging and shaking their heads as Osowski rattles on.
Finally, Mattis stops his young corporal. “Ski. Ski!”16
Osowski looks up from his map, startled. Mattis indicates a gaggle of embedded reporters with cameras who are gathered nearby, interviewing a junior officer. “Why don’t you put on my flak and go over and talk to those reporters?”
Osowski looks over at the reporters and back at the general. “For real?”
Mattis shakes his head, and returns to his discussion with Dunford.
* * *
By late afternoon, First Recon has rolled north on unpaved trails in convoy with Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) and Marine Task Force Tarawa, which leads the way. Other Marine combat forces skirt the eastern border, leaving the convoy on its own as it heads north through open desert. Once Task Force Tarawa clears the first large town, Nasariyah, RCT-1 will race northwesterly to Baghdad on Highway 1 while First Recon continues due north on Highway 7 toward the city of Al Kut.
South of Nasariyah, the convoy travels north from Kuwait on Highway 8. This is the infamous “Highway of Death,”17 where Operation Desert Storm mercilessly set fire to Saddam Hussein’s retreating army. Now the occasional rusting tank or truck half buried in the sand along the road is the only reminder of the American “turkey shoot” that destroyed the heart of Iraq’s fighting forces. The highway and the surrounding area is once again the province of advancing US and British heavy armor, again on their way to Baghdad, but this time with orders to finish the job.
Passing through scattered desert towns south of Nasariyah, Bravo Company’s First and Second Platoons—call signs Hitman One and Hitman Two—keep up a constant chatter as each man scans his sector to the left, right, front, or rear, calling out everything he sees while trading information with the other Humvee teams over the radio, and receiving reports and advisories on enemy movement in the area.
They receive reports from battalion command of Iraqi tank units operating somewhere around them, but none appear. Instead, small groups of shepherds and women in black robes stand outside square mud huts, most staring but some waving to the “liberators” of Iraq, calling “Bush! Bush! Bush!”18
These Recon Marines, whom Mattis refers to affectionately as “cocky, obnoxious bastards,”19 wave back while keeping their eyes glued to rifle scopes and binoculars to scan the locals for weapons, mindful of another Mattisism: “Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”20
There are only about a thousand Recon Marines in the entire Marine Corps at any one time. They are, first, supreme athletes. They can run twelve miles wearing 150-pound packs, then jump in the ocean, wearing boots and fatigues and carrying their weapons, and swim several more miles. They can deploy and fight on any terrain or body of water. They train in snowshoes, mountain boots, and scuba gear using parachutes, inflatable boats, and wheeled vehicles. They can rappel from hovering helicopters. Only 2 percent of all Marines are ever selected for Recon training, and half of those wash out. They are the best of the best, the toughest of the tough, and Mattis’s personal tribe.
The convoy halts just south of Nasariya. The Marines dismount, stretch, and relax in the sand alongside Highway 8. They take off the tops of their MOPP suits, dripping with sweat, and feel the warm, gentle sun of the desert spring on their chests. They expect that soon they will roll into the shaded farmland and flowing canals of the Fertile Crescent, above Nasariyah, the land once called Mesopotamia.
They’ve seen pictures of an oasis. Towering palms heavy with sweet dates grow along canals carrying water from the Tigris River, forty-five miles to the east. Earthen berms ranging in height from two meters to several stories line the sides of dry and flowing canals. Berms are everywhere, facing all directions. They serve as walls to contain pastures, or protect crops as windbreaks, as well as potential military fortifications.
The berms can hide tank revetments, deep bulldozed pits intended to conceal tanks, artillery, or even ground troops that may be camouflaged from aerial surveillance by the canopy of palm and fruit trees. Along some berms are ten-foot-high conical towers capped with sandbags—potential machine-gun emplacements.
Evan Wright in his book Generation Kill reports:
Saddam had viewed this route, with its almost impenetrable terrain of canals, villages, rickety bridges, hidden tar swamps and dense groves of palm trees, as his not-so-secret weapon in bogging down the Americans.
When Saddam famously promised to sink the American invaders into a “quagmire,” he was probably thinking of the road from Nasiriyah to Al Kut. It was the worst place in Iraq to send an invading army.21
Tactically, Mattis sees the Iraq invasion as the coup de grace, a quick spear thrust through the heart of Saddam’s defenses, already weakened by decades of war. This would be followed by the movement of massed coalition forces into the occupation of Baghdad. Because of their defeat in Desert Storm, Mattis knew Saddam’s surviving commanders would be cautious when facing US forces again. They would hide their heavy armor during the day to protect it from air attack, never permitting themselves to be caught out in the open desert as they had been on Highway 8. He also guessed they would be dug in and heavily camouflaged to avoid detection by American night vision capabilities. These restrictions to their mobility would leave them few options outside of ambush, and make them the perfect enemy for his type of maneuver warfare blitzkrieg.
At least that’s the way it looked on paper. Mattis is well aware that control in battle is an illusion. That’s why he values initiative and aggression over all other traits in his field commanders. They will ultimately be the ones to redeem the situation when his plan falls apart, as it is beginning to do now. He is on comms (secure radio communication) to Colonel Joe Dowdy, commander of Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1), as the first reports of a halt and casualties come in from Nasariyah.
Mattis’s plan calls for his shield, in the form of armored coalition battalions, to secure Iraq’s southern oil facilities. That part seems to be working, except for the oil wells Saddam has already ignited in the oil fields. With his trident, a three-pronged spear, using First Recon in RCT-1 as the center prong, they will slice up the middle through the Fertile Crescent, flanked to the east and west by thirteen thousand more Marines in Regimental Combat Teams 5 and 7. Any one of the prongs might be stopped; RCT-1 is right now in Nasariyah, and has become entangled in the “quagmire” Saddam promised, but Mattis plans to impale Baghdad with at least one prong.
To get the plan back on track, Mattis focuses on pushing RCT-1 through Nasariyah. Casualties are mounting quickly; something has gone very wrong. Osowski sits next to Mattis in the close quarters of a light armored vehicle packed with communications equipment. The LAV has no air-conditioning, and the powerful equipment is adding heat on top of the heat from the midmorning desert sun. Mattis’s frustration builds as he speaks several times with Dowdy, whose failure to clear the way through Nasariyah has stalled the advance.
With his tanks mired in Nasariyah’s unpaved streets, which also serve as open sewers, Dowdy prepares but then changes his plan of attack several times. First, his six thousand Marines will execute a frontal assault through the center of the city. Then he decides to hold his position and divert part of his force toward other bridges to the east and west. Then he decides to divert some and attack with the rest. Dowdy’s indecision is costing lives and pushing Mattis to the boiling point.
The central prong of Mattis’s attack force is now a sitting duck, lined up on the highway south of the city in broad daylight. Saddam’s artillery could break cover at any moment and rain shells of sarin and VX gas on the exposed convoy. Marine air scours the terrain north, east, and west of Nasariyah, looking for any sign of heavy weapons capable of the range to the convoy. But they are blind inside the dense neighborhoods of Nasariyah itself. Any number of wareho
uses or factories could be camouflaging enough artillery to cover the entire convoy in poison gas.
In the jump command post, Mattis has heard enough from Dowdy. He calls Lieutenant Cook in his lead vehicle. They are going north to Nasariyah now. The platoon pulls out and races north, passing stalled tanks, supply trucks, and Humvees, hatches open, Marines out of the vehicles. Mattis orders Sergeant Ryan Woolworth, his communications specialist, to get First Recon commander Colonel Stephen Ferrando on comms. Some changes are going to be made; the mission itself is now threatened by the delay at Nasariyah. And above all else, even above the cherished lives of Mattis’s Marines, is the mission. Mattis’s beloved First Recon, the best of the best, are about to take their positions at the tip of the spear earlier than he planned, in the very teeth of Saddam’s army. They are the price he is now prepared to pay to take Nasariyah.
* * *
Eight months earlier, in August 2002, Mattis and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, having worn down the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were cleared to execute their plan. It would be the first large-scale trial by fire of maneuver warfare. Mattis then set out to motivate his Marines to execute the nation’s new shock and awe war strategy against Saddam’s army.
Mattis briefed his First Division in the chapel of Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California—an unusual spot for the briefing, but perhaps appropriate, since everyone knew that a desperate Saddam Hussein was likely to use chemical weapons. In that briefing was Lieutenant Nathaniel Fick, who had also served under Mattis in Afghanistan the year before.
Fick writes, “Good afternoon, Marines,” Mattis said. “Thank you for your attention so late on a Friday. I know the women of Southern California are waiting for you, so I won’t waste your time.”22
He wasn’t ready to discuss operational details at this time. Instead, he began his Marines’ mental preparation for this new type of warfare. As he often said, “The most important territory on the battlefield is the six inches between your ears.”23 His first directive was “Be able to deploy without chaos on eight days’ notice.”24