One Bullet Away

by Nathaniel Fick

  “Gents, when you get back over there, tell the class I had to counsel you for failing the last written test.”

  I must have looked surprised.

  “You didn’t really. I have a secret task for each of you. Your squads will be operating independently out there this week. Starting tomorrow, each of you will become progressively more withdrawn. You’ll be uninvolved, uninterested, and, eventually, uncooperative. The missions culminate on Thursday with a night attack. Confusing as hell. By then, you have to be in full revolt.”

  A lieutenant asked Novack why we would be doing this.

  “Feigning psychiatric casualties. Giving your buddies a taste of the chaos of not being able to trust one of their own. They’ll think you’re an asshole, but we’ll debrief it Friday afternoon with Dr. Death, and they’ll understand you were playing a role.” He glanced up at the approaching helicopters. “Here come the birds.”

  I sat near the door, enjoying the cool slipstream and dreading our plunge back into the steamy woods. Our acting squad leader, VJ George, gave the two-minute warning, and I clicked a magazine into my M-16.

  I had first met VJ on the pull-up bars outside Graves Hall during TBS. He had been shirtless, cranking his arms like hydraulic pistons. A lieutenant next to me had turned and whispered, “That guy’s the best athlete in Alpha Company.” Big praise in the Corps. VJ was an unlikely Marine. His parents, Indian immigrants, wanted him to go to med school, and his brother was a Silicon Valley programmer. His main interests were classical music and libertarian economics. VJ had gone to the Naval Academy, where he competed as a powerlifter and developed a distaste for military customs such as short hair and addressing people by rank. After IOC, we were going to the same infantry battalion in California and planned to be roommates.

  VJ led us off the landing zone and through our first two days of patrolling. I tried to distance myself slowly from the work of the squad — carrying less of our common load of radio batteries, ammunition, and water; participating only halfheartedly in digging our defensive positions when we stopped; and abstaining from conversations and decision making. On Wednesday, just before sunset, we halted on a hillside above a gravel road. It was a bad position, visible from the road and at the mercy of a commanding ridgeline above. A voice was screaming inside me to move higher on the hill, to get into a defensive position where we would be less visible and more able to control the ground around us.

  “So, Nate, I’m planning to stop here for a few hours. What do you think?” VJ crouched next to me, eyes lost beneath the brim of a floppy bush hat.

  I shrugged.

  “Man, I’m asking your opinion.”

  He was testing me. The position sucked. He knew it. I knew it. He knew I knew it.

  “Whatever. Your call.”

  VJ swore under his breath and moved back to the rest of the squad, leaving me sitting alone next to a fallen tree. I could hear them speaking together in low voices. About me. About what an asshole I was. Unreliable. Self-centered. Dead weight. VJ moved the squad to a better position, and I followed silently.

  By dawn on the day of the final attack, the distance between me and the rest of the squad had become personal. I could tell they were questioning how they could have misjudged me, concerned that we had orders to the same battalion in the Fleet. The squad took a security halt, dropping quietly to the ground for fifteen minutes to make sure we weren’t being followed, and I refused to go any farther. The other Marines stood to keep moving, but I stayed on my stomach.

  “Yo, Nate.” A scuffed boot kicked me gently in the hip.

  I looked up but didn’t respond.

  “C’mon, man. We’re moving.”

  I kept quiet. VJ walked back to me, half-stooped under his heavy pack.

  “What the fuck, Nate? Are you sick?” I shook my head. “Then why are you being a bitch? I thought you were a fucking Marine, a fucking infantry officer.”

  I no longer cared about Captain Novack or the training. VJ plucked my strings, appealing to my duty and my pride. I couldn’t let my friends down, couldn’t be seen as the weak link, even knowing it would all be cleared up on Friday afternoon. My will collapsed.

  “It’s an act. Dr. Death set me up to be a psychiatric casualty. I was supposed to be withdrawn, give you guys a chance to deal with someone losing his shit. I can’t take it anymore.”

  They looked as if they didn’t believe me.

  “Goddamn it. I’m telling the truth. Give me some of the extra batteries and water. We’ve got a long way to go still.” I opened my pack to fill it with gear. “And VJ, that position yesterday fucking sucked.”

  VJ’s smile glowed white from his dirty, black-painted face. “Good to have you back, man.”

  But I was less enthusiastic. The more I thought about it, the more unhappy I was with what I’d done. Captain Novack had given me an order. I understood it, acknowledged it, and disobeyed it. In doing so, I chose my short-term emotional comfort over the long-term benefit to my buddies of dealing with a psychiatric casualty in training. We never talked about it again and slid through the debrief with everyone implicitly knowing what not to say. But it gnawed at me. After a full year at Quantico, impulse could still overcome training.

  We graduated from IOC on a Friday morning in September. My father came down to Quantico for the ceremonial breakfast, and I was proud to have him sitting there next to me. Camouflage poncho liners covered the tables. We ate steak and eggs, the traditional preinvasion breakfast. In slow succession, each of our twenty-eight men shook Captain Novack’s hand, received his diploma conferring the coveted 0302 MOS — Infantry Officer — and faced the room to deliver a martial quote.

  I chose the creed of the Spartan infantry: “When you return from battle, you will either bear your shield or be borne upon it.”

  VJ picked a line from former Navy secretary and Marine infantry officer James Webb: “I wouldn’t cross the street to watch Jane Fonda slit her wrists.”

  After coffee, Captain Novack rose. He congratulated the class on completing one of the most challenging small-unit leadership courses in the world and passed on some last-minute advice. “Your Marines will expect four things from you: competence, courage, consistency, and compassion.” Taking a notebook from his pocket, he flipped open its spiral-bound cover. “Historically, about four of you will one day be colonels, and point-five will be a general.”

  Novack paused, looking to the empty place setting at the head table. Every Marine dining hall keeps an empty place in honor of Marines missing in action. “One of you will die in the line of duty.

  “No more blank ammunition, gentlemen,” he continued. “From now on, when this country dials 911, it’s calling you.”

  7

  STARING AT MY REFLECTION in a car window, I straightened the shooting badges on my chest and wiped fingerprints from the gold bars on my shoulders. I’d worn this uniform only once before — at the tailor’s shop. After IOC graduation, I drove across the country to Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego. VJ and I rented a house near the ocean and got ready to report to the First Battalion of the First Marine Regiment, known as 1/1. Being “the first of the first” sounded good to me, but I was anxious. This wasn’t just another school. It was my first command in the Fleet. I hoped I knew enough to avoid embarrassing myself or getting someone hurt.

  I walked across the gravel parking lot, dust settling in a thin layer across my spit-shined shoes. A sign over the door of the battalion headquarters proclaimed: FIRST BATTALION, FIRST MARINES — FIRST ON FOOT, RIGHT OF THE LINE. “First on foot, right of the line” was the position of honor in a military formation, so I guessed it was an accolade bestowed on the battalion for some past triumph. A list of those exploits hung next to the door, a series of red wooden slats painted with yellow names. I stopped on the steps to read them. Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Okinawa, Inchon, Chosin Reservoir, Da Nang, Dong Ha, Hue City, Quang Tri, Khe Sanh, Desert Shield, Desert Storm. Empty hooks, ready for the next addition, hung from the
lowest slat and reminded me of the Marine Corps War Memorial’s blank granite.

  Marines in boots clomped back and forth down the halls. I tried to blend in, but a cherry lieutenant is obvious. Their eyes rolled from my shoes to my hair before settling back onto my face with a reserved “Good morning, sir.” I found the battalion’s admin office and dropped my stack of records on a desk just inside the door. “Good morning, Sergeant. I’m Lieutenant Fick — new guy checking in.”

  “We have you slated for Bravo Company, sir.” He tore the orders from my record book and handed it back to me. “Captain Whitmer. Downstairs and to your left.”

  I took a deep breath and rapped three times on the cinderblock wall outside the door marked COMPANY COMMANDER.

  “Come on in.”

  “Good morning, sir. Lieutenant Fick, reporting as ordered.” I snapped to attention in front of the metal desk, with my eyes locked on the rear wall.

  Captain Whitmer stood to shake my hand. He looked like the actor Ed Harris, chiseled and gray.

  “Rich Whitmer. Welcome aboard. Grab a seat.” He pointed to the small sofa in front of his desk. A helmet and flak jacket lay on the floor next to it, and I tried to absorb other details in the room without his noticing my wandering gaze: a Michigan State mug, a photo of a little boy, and engraved awards from an infantry platoon and a counter-narcotics unit in Thailand.

  Captain Whitmer’s defining feature was calm. He spoke slowly, choosing every word, asking about IOC, my family, my background. His office felt soundproof, and the bustle in the hallway receded. Answering his questions, I thought I sounded loud and inarticulate. But it wasn’t an interrogation. Whitmer laughed easily and soon put me at ease.

  Once we got down to business, he seemed to know exactly what was on my mind. Each of an infantry battalion’s three rifle companies has a primary means of getting to and from its objectives: helicopters, amphibious assault vehicles called “amtracs,” and rubber Zodiac boats. At IOC, we’d learned that most Marines go ashore by helo. Our consensus was that if we were stationed near the relatively warm Atlantic, boats would be impractical but fun. In the cold Pacific, boats would be miserable. Now Whitmer said, “Hope you don’t mind freezing — Bravo Company is boats.”

  Next he told me that I would command Bravo’s weapons platoon. Each infantry company has four platoons — three rifle and one weapons. Leading a rifle platoon, forty Marines with M-16s, is a new lieutenant’s typical first job. But weapons platoon is different. Its forty-five Marines are divided into sections for machine guns, assault rockets, and mortars, the bulk of the company’s firepower. Since employing the weapons platoon is complex, its commander is usually a senior first lieutenant who’s already led a rifle platoon. Captain Whitmer asked if I was comfortable taking weapons on my first day in the Fleet.

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely.” In fact, absolutely not.

  Whitmer nodded with a smile that said he understood my reservation but expected me to figure it out. “Go ahead and get settled. The company’s in the field until this afternoon.” Standing to shake my hand, Whitmer said, “I do things a bit differently, as you’ll see.”

  Bravo Company’s four platoons shared an office down the hall from Captain Whitmer’s. Lockers filled with tactics manuals and gym clothes lined the walls, and Marine posters covered the empty spaces between lockers. The smell reminded me of my high school football coach’s office — rancid sweat, stale coffee, and disinfectant. Eight desks were pushed together to make an island in the center, one each for the four platoon commanders and platoon sergeants. I carried my gear from the supply warehouse and piled it in an empty locker. Then I grabbed a manual about weapons platoon from a shelf near the door and sat down to read.

  IOC primarily trained rifle platoon commanders. Weapons platoons, unlike their rifle counterparts, don’t fight as units under a single commander. The machine gun and assault sections frequently beef up the rifle platoons to augment their firepower. The mortar section provides mortar fire for the whole company, usually controlled by the company commander and the rifle platoon commanders. With all his Marines working for other people, the weapons platoon commander serves as the company’s fire support coordinator. This means controlling artillery, air strikes, and bombardment from naval ships — complicated missions I had never practiced; missions that would kill many people if I screwed them up. I had a lot to learn and little time to do it.

  When Bravo Company hiked onto the parade deck that afternoon, I went outside to watch. I hoped to catch a glimpse of my platoon, but the Marines were indistinguishable in two long lines of dusty green. A lieutenant smeared with camouflage paint separated from the mass of troops and walked toward me. He stooped beneath body armor and a vest festooned with smoke grenades, flares, a knife, and canteens. His rucksack stuck out on both sides of his body, and a whip antenna swayed above his head.

  “You must be the new weapons guy,” he said as he lumbered right past me. Without stopping, he added, “I’m Patrick English, First Platoon commander. Come into the office. I have to drop this gear.”

  Inside, Patrick’s ruck thudded onto the floor, and he shrugged out of his web gear. Sweat soaked the uniform beneath. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.” He stuck out his hand. “Welcome to Bravo Company.” Patrick cracked open a Gatorade bottle and sat on one of the desks. He was a New Yorker, sharp-featured with close-cropped hair. Patrick had played lacrosse at Holy Cross and worked in the district attorney’s office in Manhattan before starting OCS.

  It seemed as if we should be talking about work, but I barely even knew the right questions. “So what’s coming up on the calendar?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  He replied that the company would spend the next four months on conventional infantry skills such as shooting and patrolling. Then in February, the battalion would be attached to the Fifteenth Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) as its ground combat element. A MEU (SOC), I knew from TBS, is a seaborne task force of two thousand Marines built around an infantry battalion and a helicopter squadron. At any given time, one is deployed from the West Coast and one from the East Coast. We would hone our MEU skills for six months, mostly raids in the boats. Then in August 2001, the Fifteenth MEU would sail from San Diego to cruise the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf for six months, training with foreign forces and acting as first responders in case of a crisis.

  Every few minutes, Marines came into the office to update Patrick on the count of his platoon’s weapons, the status of missing equipment, or the progress of paperwork for people’s promotions and other training exercises. He bantered with me and gave them instructions without even pausing. I was surprised to learn he’d been at 1/1 for only two months.

  He talked fast, describing the battalion and its key personalities, and starting with what I most wanted to hear: “Captain Whitmer’s fucking solid — best CO in the battalion.” He then assured me that “the LPA gets together for beer and tacos every Thursday night up near San Juan Capistrano.” I knew about this venerable tradition: every unit has an informal Lieutenants’ Protective Association. “Some guys,” Patrick confided, referring to the battalion’s other platoon commanders, “have to lean on each other since they have weak platoon sergeants. I don’t have that problem, and you won’t either.”

  Every young lieutenant remembers meeting his platoon sergeant. The relationship between a fresh officer and his salty second-in-command is almost as mythic as boot camp. Patrick and I were still talking when Staff Sergeant Keith Marine walked into the office. The first thing I noticed about him were his ears, sticking out from his regulation haircut like fins on a fish. The second thing I noticed was his remarkable name. I didn’t comment on it, figuring he’d heard too much already on that score.

  Marine quickly dispelled any mythic overtones our first encounter might have had: “Sir, you’re sitting in my chair.” He insisted we go out for coffee — “it’s a tradition for officers to buy” — to talk about tactics and training plans for t
he platoon. We traded autobiographies on the walk across the parade deck to the chow hall.

  Staff Sergeant Marine had grown up in the coal country of West Virginia. Even without his name, Marine’s background seemed to destine him for the Corps. His grandfather had served as a Marine in the bloody campaigns of Bougainville, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. His grandfather’s brother had been killed at Leyte Gulf, where my grandfather had fought. Marine had already served ten years in the infantry. Before that, he had been stalking deer with a rifle while I had been playing with blocks. He had spent the last year working for the gunner, the battalion’s weapons expert, and knew every detail of every infantry weapon in most of the world’s militaries.

  “So,” I asked, “how do you think the M-16 stacks up?” Most Marine grunts carry M-16s. The Corps instills in a young Marine an intense, almost obsessive attachment to his rifle.

  “I don’t know what dickhead designed the M-16, but it shoots a varmint round. You don’t want a fucking squirrel gun in your hands in a firefight.”

  I paid for our coffee, and we slid into a booth near the window. Marine took a can of Copenhagen tobacco from his pocket and snapped it between his thumb and forefinger. After cramming a wad inside his lower lip, he offered the can to me. “Dip, sir?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I won’t hold it against you.” Marine sounded as if it was a major concession. “At least you’re drinking coffee. Your illustrious predecessor didn’t even do that. He was a shitbird.” Marine paused, lost in thought, and shook his head. “The road to hell is paved with the bleached bones of second lieutenants who didn’t listen to their staff NCOs. The one before him got shot in a porta-shitter out at the rifle range. So at least you got small boots to fill.”