For the Love of a Marine

by Sharon Kimbra Walsh

  Joe remained uneasy and restless. He couldn’t put a finger on what the problem was, but he knew that he was becoming far too distracted by the weather and not focusing on the patrol. His radio kept issuing short bursts of hissing static and he hoped that whatever inclement weather was approaching and creating the interference would hold itself at bay until they could finish the patrol in safety.

  Unimpeded, the marines continued silently on with the patrol at a steady four kilometers per hour. There was no sign of the enemy, no distant noise of trucks or voices. Nothing stirred, neither animal nor human.

  The patrol had been moving for about thirty minutes when Joe’s radio suddenly spat out a small burp of static. Joe immediately raised a clenched fist to head level, the signal to freeze, and each member of Echo squad immediately dropped down to one knee, facing outward either to the left or right.

  “Kite E6 to Eagle E1,” came a murmured radio transmission.

  Dropping to one knee, Joe thumbed the button on his PRR. “Eagle E1 to Kite E6, receiving,” he murmured, barely moving his lips.

  “Eagle E1, movement east ninety degrees, ten meters.”

  “Eagle E1 to Kite E6, roger that. Proceed,” Joe responded calmly. He turned immediately to his point man and raised his hand, palm down, and gestured in a throat cutting motion across his throat from left to right. At this signal, which was the signal for a danger area, Lance Corporal George Westerman repeated the signal to the man behind him who signaled to the cover man and so on down the patrol. The marines immediately raised their weapons to a firing position, pointing them out into the dark desert, safety mechanisms off, ready to fire if any enemy approached from the darkness.

  Joe strained his ears to see if he could ascertain what his right flank security team had heard but he could hear nothing. Everything was deathly quiet. Five, then ten minutes passed with no sitrep from the squad’s security team. Joe was prepared to give them a further five minutes when suddenly his radio squawked quietly.

  “Kite E6 to Eagle E1.”

  “Eagle E1 to Kite E6, receiving.”

  “Eagle E1, nothing found. Must have been an animal.”

  “Roger that, Kite E6.”

  Joe tapped the back of his helmet twice with his open hand, the signal asking for a head count and immediately received, via his radio, each member’s call sign. He then pointed the index finger of one hand at the palm of his other hand and immediately the navigator, Corporal Wayne Fitzimmons, hurried over to him, withdrew a folded map from a pouch on the front of his body armor and dropped to his knee beside Joe.

  “Position, Corporal,” Joe requested quietly.

  “Coming up on five clicks, Staff Sergeant. We turn west to two hundred seventy degrees and hump two clicks to our ORP,” Corporal Fitzimmons explained.

  Joe looked at the map and nodded in agreement. “Excellent, Fitz,” he said quietly. Rising to his feet, he raised his hand and gestured the squad forward. The men rose to their feet and continued a further hundred meters before turning west to venture away from the road, deeper into the desert on the second leg of their patrol.

  After one click, Joe brought Echo squad to a halt. Corporal Fitzimmons was now pacing alongside him, making it easier to relay coordinates and distance to the ORP.

  An ORP was an easily recognizable land feature and set up in case somebody from a patrol became separated from the group. If that happened, all the lost individual had to do was go back to the ORP and wait. In addition, if the patrol came under fire from artillery or mortars, an order could be given and everyone could break up and make their way back to the ORP.

  Joe planned to leave the main body of the squad at a designated place of concealment. He and two marines would continue on to the ORP and carry out a recce of the area before allowing the rest of the squad to proceed. Once posting the ORP, they would set up a secure perimeter and sleep for a few hours before proceeding on with the patrol.

  Joe ordered the men to take a rest in the shadowy lee of a shallow crevice, which was protected on three sides by large boulders and rocks. Three members of the squad were stationed in a secure perimeter on the fourth, unprotected side. The marines took drinks from their bladders of water, opened some MREs or lit up cigarettes.

  Before proceeding on to the ORP, Joe spoke briefly to Sergeant Eastman. “Better transmit a sitrep to base, Sergeant,” he said, “and request a weather update.”

  Sergeant Eastman nodded and spoke into his radio.

  Joe gestured to two marines, Lance Corporal Mike ‘Wolf’ Winters and Corporal James ‘Mattie’ Matthews, to join him, then waited for Sergeant Eastman to complete his radio transmission to the base.

  “Nothing about the weather that’s definite, Joe,” Sergeant Eastman eventually reported, “but there’s a bit of a crapshoot going on back at base. They do think that there’s something nasty brewing weather-wise as well, but the Met Office says there’s nothing showing up yet.”

  “All right, Sergeant,” Joe replied, slowly. “We’ll carry on as planned. Stay frosty for the bad guys as well as the weather. We don’t want to be caught on the hop.”

  Gesturing to the two marines to accompany him and leaving their bergens with the rest of the squad, Joe jumped down into a narrow wabi that ran through the area. Shallow as it was, it would provide some cover from possible spying eyes.

  Joe, Lance Corporal Winters and Corporal Matthews began to move slowly in a crouch along the bottom of the wabi. Thick sand and dust had accumulated at its bottom, together with small stones and rocks. Their progress was an uncomfortable process. Dust swirled up into their faces, and although their eyes were protected by their night vision goggles, they eventually had to stop and wrap scarves around their noses and mouths to filter out choking particles of sand. The wind had become stronger, turning from short, sharp gusts into an almost constant flow of stinging, sand-laden heat.

  The wabi went on for a distance of a click until it abruptly ended at the ORP, a flat area bordered on the north side by a low outcrop of rock approximately three meters in height. The rest of the ORP was an arid wasteland of tumbled boulders and small sand dunes.

  The three marines froze, listening intently for any noise ahead of them. Joe raised his head to peer over the slightly raised stony lip of the stream bed. For five minutes he strained his hearing, however all he could distinguish were the sounds of the wind howling across the clearing, creating fluting sounds in the hollows of tumbled rock as it went and a constant hissing sound as waves of sand blew across the hard ground.

  Joe lifted his night vision goggles, scrunching up his eyes to prevent particles of sand, dust and soil from getting into them, and surveyed the sky. It no longer resembled a normal night sky. A writhing dirty yellow mass of clouds was piling up from the south and curtains of sand and dust swept and billowed across the ORP, reducing visibility to a few meters.

  Joe replaced his goggles, raised a hand and gestured the two marines forward. Slowly and carefully, they climbed out of the wabi, weapons pointing forward and to the left and right. Joe silently pointed in each direction and the two marines split up, spreading out to a distance of five meters from each other to patrol the area while Joe moved forward. Each man paused every few seconds to listen for any suspicious movement and sound, inspecting the ground as best they could for telltale signs of mines. There was no sign that anyone was present in the area but Joe wasn’t happy. This whole patrol was beginning to feel like a clusterfuck, not least because the weather was beginning to take a major turn for the worse.

  Joe paused, glancing around him through the swirling screens of sand, thinking. Should he radio back to base asking for a mission abort or continue on with the weather becoming increasingly worse and the foreboding in his gut becoming a constant gnawing?

  Eventually, he gestured to the two marines and silently pointed back the way they had come. Once again, using the wabi as cover, they made their way back to Echo squad. Once they arrived back, Joe briefed Sergeant Eastman. “The O
RP is clear,” he announced quietly, raising his night vision goggles and lowering his scarf. “We’ll move forward slow and easy. But I have to say, Louis, I ain’t happy. None of this feels right but I can’t place my finger on what’s wrong.”

  “Copy that,” Sergeant Eastman responded. “What do you want to do?”

  Joe paused. “I don’t have anything to go on except this crappy weather,” he explained. “I can’t see us getting the okay to abort the mission based on my gut feeling. We should just carry on, see what kicks us in the butt.”

  Sergeant Eastman nodded. “It’s your call,” he replied.

  “Let’s get the men geared up and we’ll move out,” Joe ordered.

  Sergeant Eastman strode off to where the men were sitting among the rocks and gave the order to collect their equipment in preparation for moving out. Joe collected his own bergen and shrugged into the webbing. When his men were ready, he lowered his night vision goggles, raised his hand and gestured them forward. The men spread out instinctively, their slow, stealthy nonchalance belying their constantly moving eyes, their weapons raised to shoulder level, feet slowly and carefully placed on the hard ground, always aware that the enemy could have been there before them and planted mines. The patrol was silent, their progress barely disturbing the dust and small piles of rock littering the sand. The tension in the patrol intensified as they investigated the area for any signs of enemy presence.

  On reaching the ORP without incident, Joe immediately ordered a secure perimeter set up, placed some of the squad on watch and let the remaining men take time out against the rocky outcrop where they waited for further orders. All the men had now wrapped their faces in scarves and were shielding their weapons to prevent dust and sand from getting into the barrels. The wind had become strong enough that it was now buffeting them from all directions and sand and earth had begun to infiltrate their clothes and penetrate its way up beneath goggles and through the weave of their scarves, chaffing and grazing the skin of their faces.

  Raising his night vision goggles again and taking a drink of water from one of his water bottles, Joe joined Sergeant Eastman in the center of the ORP and surveyed the area. Glancing up at the turbulent sky above the rocky outcrop, he noticed a slight glow that seemed at complete odds with the writhing yellow clouds. He quickly identified what he was seeing. Something similar could be seen in a city or town. Above the rock, the sky appeared lighter, as though there were lights shining upward, creating a glow on the underbellies of the fleeing clouds. Joe tensed. Apart from the lights of Base Independence, which could not be seen from their position, there should be no other lights in the desert. Joe turned to Louis Eastman. “Do you see what I see, Sergeant?” he asked and gestured with his head to the glow in the sky.

  Sergeant Eastman looked in the direction where Joe had indicated. “Looks like there might be some lights there,” he answered. “What do you think?”

  Joe continued to gaze at the sky, debating on whether what he was seeing was a natural phenomenon or something was throwing up light, causing the uncharacteristic glow. “I think we need to take a look,” he finally replied. “I’m going to take four men and we’ll take a recce. I want you to stay here and move the perimeter away from that rocky outcrop. It’s too risky to set up there. Someone could come over the top and land right in the ORP. I’m going to radio base and run the recce past them.”

  “Okay,” Sergeant Eastman agreed and strode away to gather the squad around him to brief them.

  Joe thumbed his microphone and gave the call sign and password to speak to his squad leader at the base. After he had spoken at length, he terminated the transmission and walked over to the sergeant. As he reached them, four men detached themselves from the main group and came to stand behind him.

  “It’s a go for a recce,” Joe explained to his assistant patrol leader. “Stay extra frosty, Sergeant. Visibility is getting bad and we don’t want something nasty creeping up on us.”

  Joe turned to the four marines. “Have you all been briefed?” he asked.

  “Yes, Staff Sergeant,” the marines answered together.

  “Excellent,” Joe responded. “Okay, let’s move out.”

  Holding his M4 with his finger lying across the safety catch and the butt of the weapon supported by the front of his thigh, he strode out of the ORP, the four marines falling into step behind him. He led his men back the way they had come when entering the ORP, using the rocky outcrop on their left as cover. Joe had no intention of scaling the three-meter climb, as they would be in full view of any enemy on the other side that might be scoping out the terrain on the lookout for them. Instead, he was hoping that the outcrop would decrease in height, eventually allowing them to climb over it.

  They proceeded slowly until, after about twenty minutes, the rocky wall did indeed begin to diminish in height, eventually petering out into uneven terrain consisting of tumbled rocks and stones interspersed with sand and dust. Joe signaled left with his hand and they clambered as quietly as they could over boulders and crumbled sandstone until they found themselves on the other side of the rocky outcrop.

  Before stepping out into the open terrain beyond, Joe glanced up at the pale glow in the sky then crouched down on one knee to carefully survey the surrounding ground stretching out in front of them. It was uneven, littered with rocky screes and large boulders. The wind was now almost gale force and screens of sand and dust blew in heavy curtains across the open space ahead of them. It howled and whined among the rocks and boulders and it was becoming increasingly difficult to speak in a normal tone of voice. The sand had begun to settle into sand dunes and rippled mounds, infiltrating their uniforms, causing acute irritation of their skin.

  Some two hundred meters from their position, there was another rocky promontory jutting up into the night, outlined in a deeper black against the glow in the sky. Joe gestured again to move ahead, and using the cover of the rocks and the boulders, they headed in a stooped crouch toward the second rocky outcrop. Twenty-five meters into the march across the open ground, Joe suddenly held up his hand. The four marines behind stopped immediately and dropped to their knees.

  Thinking that he had heard a noise, Joe listened carefully. He waited, hearing only the sound of the wind and the rustling and pattering of shifting dust and minute particles of rock against rock. He was unable to hear anything out of the ordinary, so he gestured for the men to move forward again.

  The slow walk across to the second rocky outcrop was tense. It was difficult to see the telltale signs of mines and every second was fraught with the possibility of a boot stepping on one. However the careful walk across the open ground went without incident and on reaching the promontory, Joe and the four marines crouched down in a group while Joe surveyed the escarpment, trying to discover a way they could climb up to the top and survey the terrain on the other side. He finally noticed that part of the rock to the right had crumbled away, leaving a steep but accessible slope to the top.

  Turning to his men, Joe lifted two fingers, pointed to two of the marines and gestured them to stand at the foot of the slope that he intended to climb. He then lifted two fingers again, pointed at the two remaining marines, and gestured for them to follow him. Silently, they moved to the slope created by the crumbled rock.

  With the two selected marines remaining at the foot of the slope, weapons at shoulder height and aimed out into the desert, viewing overlapping fields of fire across the terrain they had just crossed, Joe and the remaining two marines shouldered their weapons and began to climb.

  The rock was loose and powdery in some places, and although they moved carefully and slowly, they could not prevent small rocks and sand tumbling noisily down behind them. Their boots, although ridged, had not made for climbing and they slipped constantly, gloved hands grasping for handholds that came loose under their grip. Each footstep upward involved digging the toe of one boot into the sand, waiting until they were assured of a firm foothold then thrusting upward to dig in the ot
her boot. The wind threatened to push them backward off the slope and every now and again they had to pause, clinging to their precarious positions, waiting for a lull in the wind. After what seemed like hours, they eventually reached the ridge of the escarpment. Joe unshouldered his M4 and slowly raised himself up to peer over the ridge.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Joe immediately saw the source of the glow in the sky. Through his night vision goggles he observed—at a distance of five hundred meters—a Taliban camp. The source of the light came from the blazing headlights of at least six trucks parked in a circle. A large fire was burning in the center of the circle of vehicles with a group of blanket-covered figures seated around it. Joe counted at least two dozen people. He also noted two rocket propelled grenade—RPG—launchers, and he was sure that each person below carried an individual weapon.

  “Blatant bastards,” one of the marines commented quietly.

  “They are that,” Joe murmured. He shifted his position and studied the surrounding terrain. “It’s pretty protected here. I bet they didn’t think they’d be discovered.”

  “Fucking dickwads,” Corporal Matthews exclaimed. “What are we gonna do about them, Staff Sergeant?”

  Joe remained silent, thinking. Then he answered the question. “I think we need to get back to the ORP and get the fuck out of here. There’re at least twenty-four of the motherfuckers down there. We don’t have the firepower. I need to make a sitrep to base, get their feedback. Let’s go.”

  Joe and the two marines carefully moved back down off the ridge, turned onto their backs and gently but quickly slid down the slope of the escarpment back to lower ground. From there, the five made their way back to the ORP, where Sergeant Eastman immediately joined him.

  “We have a problem, Joe,” he announced. “Base radioed and advised that there’s a frigging great sandstorm coming our way. Not one of the biggest but it’s gonna be big enough to keep us pinned down out here for a couple of days. The base have already battened down the hatches there.”