One Bullet Away

by Nathaniel Fick

  Gunny Wynn and I spent the afternoon cleaning our weapons. I sat in the sunlight next to the Humvee and took off my boots for the first time in two days. My feet were white and shriveled. They smelled like something between cheese and roadkill. I spread a dirty rag in my lap and pulled my M-16 apart. First I wiped down the receiver with oil and set it aside. Then I popped off the plastic hand guards and cleaned the barrel with the rag. I punched a cotton swab down through the chamber; it emerged black with carbon. Tapping the bullets from each magazine, I wiped the dust and grit from every round and then stretched and cleaned the magazine springs. Staff Sergeant Marine had taught me that most weapon failures were due to problems with the magazines. After reassembling the rifle, I pulled my Beretta from its holster and unloaded it. Racking the slide to the rear, I took it apart, laying the pieces in my lap. One by one, I cleaned them, turning them over in my hands and watching the sun glint off the dull blue steel. There was comfort in doing this; it gave me time to think without appearing to daydream.

  When Doc Bryan returned, I called the Marines together. Platoons are families. In the worst platoons, the Marines love one another. But in the best, they also like one another. We had one of the best. I couldn’t bear to see it destroyed. Conflict and disagreement had to be aired, or they would fester, simmering below the surface and corroding the relationships on which our combat effectiveness was built. We had to talk about what had happened. I had to be psychiatrist, coach, and father, without anyone suspecting I was anything but platoon commander.

  “Fellas, today was fucked-up, completely insane. But we can’t control the missions we get, only how we execute them,” I said. I explained that the battalion had an obligation to General Mattis, an obligation to provide him with options instead of excuses. We were at war, and a different set of rules applied. There was no way to eliminate all the risks, either to ourselves or to the people around us.

  “I failed you this morning by allowing that ‘declared hostile’ call to stand. My failure put you in an impossible position.” Tragic as it was, shooting the two boys had been entirely within the rules of engagement as they had been given to us. There would be no command investigation into what had happened. Investigations exist in a narrow sense to assign blame, but they also serve to propagate lessons learned. I tried to draw out those lessons for the platoon.

  “First, we made a mistake this morning,” I said. Technical details aside, we were U.S. Marines, and Marines are professional warriors fighting for the greatest democracy in the world. We don’t shoot kids. When we do, we acknowledge the tragedy and learn from it. Unfortunately, I didn’t think it was the last time we’d have to make those kinds of decisions.

  “Second, I need you to compartmentalize today.” I told the guys to tuck the experience away in their brains, way back there with their wives and their girlfriends and their dogs. It wouldn’t help them survive tomorrow. I needed every one of them to learn from it and put it away.

  “Third, no second-guessing and armchair-quarterbacking.” We made fast decisions all the time. Sometimes we were right, and sometimes we were wrong. We couldn’t hesitate tomorrow because of a mistake today. That could get us killed. Come what may, we were a team, and we’d stay a team.

  When the Marines went back to their places on the line, they walked in groups of two or three. They would stand watch together, eat together, and joke together. But I was alone. I sat in the cab of the Humvee and watched them go. In Afghanistan, I had had Jim and Patrick, my fellow lieutenants. Recon was different, more independent, and combat forged bonds within platoons, not across them. Gunny Wynn and I had passed the stage of purely professional teamwork and become friends. I confided in him my doubts about the war, the company, and members of the platoon. But never about myself. The events of the day overcame me all at once, and I struggled to breathe without crying.

  As darkness fell over Qalat Sukkar, I sat alone in the dim green light of the radios. I felt sick for the shepherd boys, for the girl in the blue dress, and for all the innocent people who surely lived in Nasiriyah, Ar Rifa, and the other towns this war would consume. I hurt for my Marines, goodhearted American guys who’d bear these burdens for the rest of their lives. And I mourned for myself. Not in self-pity, but for the kid who’d come to Iraq. He was gone. I did all this in the dark, away from the platoon, because combat command is the loneliest job in the world.

  28

  A FLASH OF LIGHT burned through my closed eyelids and snapped me from my first deep sleep in days. I poked my head from the sleeping bag and squinted as columns of sparks rolled into the dark sky. Concussions shook me as more blasts rocked the ground beneath my back. Purple and orange flames lit the platoon, now a mass of supine sleeping bags scooting like inchworms behind and under Humvees. Incoming artillery rounds hit so quickly that I thought they must be from an MLRS. No conventional Iraqi cannons could mass firepower so well. March 30 was our eleventh night in Iraq and the first night we had not dug ranger graves to sleep in. I rolled under the Humvee, cursing the predictability of my impending death: if the surest way to get rained on is to forget your umbrella, the surest way to come under artillery barrage is to neglect to dig holes.

  We had departed Qalat Sukkar that morning after a three-day stay. While welcoming the break as a chance to rest and resupply, we were concerned by the need for it. Rumors spread of the Army requesting a thirty-day pause for the Third Infantry Division to consolidate its supply lines. Even to tired Marines starved for real news, this sounded unlikely. Waking up more than once in the same place was real enough, though, and fueled the rumors. I tried to think of each day at Qalat Sukkar as another day of American airpower pounding Iraqi forces, and I was content to use the time to rest and prepare for the inevitable call ordering us forward once more. When that order finally came, it sent us only a few miles west to the intersection of Highways 7 and 17, where we joined the headquarters of RCT-1. The morning was bright and cool, and I was excited to be on the move again.

  After so much time alone, the regimental command post looked like a metropolis. Hundreds of tanks, amtracs, trucks, and Humvees stretched down both sides of the highway. Cobra and Huey helicopters squatted in the dust next to their fuel tankers. Thousands of Marines wandered past tents and antenna fields. We drove into this makeshift city and parked in the defilade of a tall sand berm, feeling content within the outer security cordon of infantry Marines and satisfied that holes were unnecessary that night.

  An hour later, I ducked into the battalion headquarters tent for a brief on the next morning’s mission. Colonel Ferrando stood at the center, with his staff and officers arrayed around him on MRE boxes, ammo crates, and the ground. Before turning to the mission, he spoke briefly about combat and our execution over the past ten days.

  “Gents, a bad attitude spreads like a yeast infection. I need you to set the tone. You are the ones who set the example, who lead by your example. We just had a short reprieve, but we’ll be moving again tomorrow, and there will be more fights. Luck is not a method, and neither is hope. Hard work is.”

  The mission called for First Recon to attack north up the highway before crossing a small bridge over the Al Gharraf River and screening to the west of the road as the RCT advanced. We’d be on our own, moving through the countryside and small villages, protecting the flank of the larger force. Our goal was to reach the town of Al Hayy by nightfall, a distance of about fifty kilometers. We would have no tanks and only limited airpower. In military jargon, it was a “movement to contact.” When I returned to brief the platoon, their interpretation was more direct: “So, sir, we’re gonna drive until we get shot at.”

  Shortly after midnight, the artillery hit. We had finished the brief and looked forward to a full night’s sleep before stepping off. In a show of true combat jadedness, heads came up to watch the explosions, but not a single Marine chose to leave the warmth of his sleeping bag. After all, we couldn’t fight against a distant missile launcher. The artillery battery next to us use
d its radar to locate the source of the enemy barrage and lobbed volley upon volley of counterbattery fire. I slipped back to sleep beneath a comfortable blanket of outgoing death and destruction.

  Our march north started uneventfully. The battalion attacked up the highway and crossed the bridge as planned. We entered a bucolic world of farms, rivers, and trees. Farmers drove their cattle, and kids waved as we passed. “Go America! Go George Bush! Give me money!” I fought the temptation to see the day as too beautiful to be dangerous. We moved slowly along dirt roads, keeping Highway 7 in sight across the river to our east. Trees lined the riverbank, and freshly dug fighting positions were hidden beneath them, providing clear shots at the American forces moving on the highway. All the new bunkers and holes made us wonder what had happened to their occupants.

  “Mish, go talk to those guys and see what you can learn,” I said, sending the translator to a group of Iraqi men on the roadside. He grumbled and grunted at them while they shifted from foot to foot. They began to speak, but Mish ignored them and returned to my Humvee.

  “They say they’re farmers, but they’re lying.” I already knew that. Iraqi farmers wear sandals and traditional robes. These guys wore leather shoes and were dressed in natty Western-style shirts and trousers. Their hands were soft and uncallused.

  “Regular army or fedayeen?”

  “Regular army, I think. Local guys — like your National Guard — who saw us coming and took off their uniforms. They don’t have that radical militant look.”

  Ahead of us, Third Platoon’s commander made a radio call. “We have eyes on a dozen men throwing bags in the river. They’re running from us. Moving forward to investigate.”

  We accelerated into the dust clouds thrown up by Third Platoon’s vehicles. They could probably handle this on their own, but we fell back on the golden rule of the infantry: guns are good, and more are better.

  The Iraqis stopped and stared sullenly at the machine guns surrounding them. I joined the Marines fishing burlap sacks out of the river. Cutting them open, we found bales of Iraqi currency, dinars bearing Saddam Hussein’s portrait.

  “Well, goddamn. Look at this.” A Marine held up a green military uniform, its underarms still wet with sweat. “National Guard, my ass. These fuckers are Republican Guard.” He pointed to a red triangular patch on the shoulder, the symbol of Saddam’s elite force.

  “Cuff them. They’re coming with us.” The Republican Guard wasn’t supposed to be this far south. According to all our intelligence reports, they were in defensive positions north of the Tigris. The Iraqis wore Saddam mustaches and stood with hands thrust into their pockets. One sat on the ground with his legs crossed, fingering prayer beads and sipping from a Pepsi bottle. Third Platoon bound their hands behind their backs and lifted them into the bed of a truck.

  Across the river, the infantry advance caught up with us while we were stopped with the prisoners. Two Humvees, armed with antitank missiles in their turrets, prowled side by side up Highway 7. We watched as Iraqi pickup trucks screeched to a halt in the southbound lane ahead of the Marines, then turned around and raced back north. Because of the turns and rises in the road, the Marines across the river couldn’t see them. Each time they spun around, the pickups flashed their headlights. They were signaling to fedayeen along the highway. I radioed this assessment to the battalion, and they passed it over to the infantry. The next pickup to spin around and flash its headlights disappeared in a fireball when one of the Humvees launched a missile into its cab. The Humvees rolled slowly past the wreckage, which sent plumes of greasy smoke into the sky.

  Small-arms fire erupted on our flank, and a squad of Marines jumped from their amtrac to move into an enclosed courtyard. More firing followed.

  “Frag out!” a Marine yelled, then pitched a hand grenade through a door. Smoke and dust poured from the building’s windows. Two Marines emerged on the roof seconds later, flashing a thumbs-up to their comrades on the highway and yelling, “Clear!”

  The advance continued for the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. We moved forward and to the flank of the RCT, protecting it from attacks launched from our side of the river. The heavy armor and infantry moved methodically up the highway, clearing resistance as they went and marching ever closer to Baghdad.

  Around one P.M., my platoon took over point for the battalion and immediately ran into a village straddling the road. It hugged the riverbank, just a small collection of mud-brick homes and a few abandoned cars. Laundry drying on lines provided the only color. We had learned our lesson about rolling through such obvious ambush points, so half the platoon moved into the village on foot while the other half supported them with the heavy machine guns on the Humvees. The surest way to protect vehicles in a town is to put troops around them. Gunny Wynn controlled the vehicular force. I joined the Marines on foot, passing quick instructions over my headset radio.

  “Vehicles, move just forward of the foot squad and be prepared to suppress so we can maneuver or break contact,” I ordered. “Foot mobiles, clear each building, collect all weapons and paperwork. Be alert for booby traps. We’ll link up on the north side and continue. Let’s go.”

  Jogging across the field in a cautious crouch, I tucked my rifle into the crook of my shoulder. I felt safe there, on my feet, in the dirt. I never got used to sitting in a Humvee on the highway, waiting to be ambushed. On foot, I was in my element: man, boots, rifle.

  Marines clambered over irrigation ditches and moved stealthily into the collection of mud huts. Chickens scattered, squawking, as we stacked against walls and burst into rooms. Most of the village was deserted. The squad collected two AK-47s and an RPG launcher, along with a pile of military uniforms bearing the Republican Guard’s red triangle. I walked one over to Major Whitmer, who was surrounded by maps and radios in the back of the battalion operations Humvee.

  “Here you go, sir. A little souvenir of Saddam’s finest.”

  He laughed and said, “I bet you thought you were coming to recon to get away from clearing villages on foot.”

  At the northern end of the village, a group of women and children huddled together in a one-room school. They had seen us coming and retreated there in fear. We reassured them that we meant no harm and asked why no men were in the village. They answered through Mish.

  “We are poor farmers. The men work all day in the fields.”

  “Where are the Ba’ath Party, the fedayeen?”

  “There are no fedayeen here. We are happy to see the Americans come.”

  “Where did these Republican Guard uniforms come from?” The women had no answer and stared silently at the packed-dirt floor.

  Satisfied that the village posed no threat to RCT-1’s advance, we kept driving north, snaking through groves of palm trees filled with colorful birds, singing as we passed. The shade provided refuge from the sun, and I enjoyed the cool interludes between stretches of barren fields. Clearing the village had been hard work in the midday heat. The Marines looked pale, with red-rimmed eyes. My sleeves were encrusted with white salt stains, and I gulped warm water from the plastic canteens fastened to my flak jacket. It tasted like water from a swimming pool.

  Alpha Company took over on point, and I rotated the platoon to the back of the battalion formation. Somehow, we always ended up at the front or the back, never in the comfortable middle. Patrick’s and Lovell’s teams swung their guns behind us, serving as tail-end Charlie. We continued rumbling north at a walking pace, poking through villages and watching the people at work in the fields for clues about what lay around the next bend or over the next rise. The column halted. I climbed down and took a knee in the dirt next to the Humvee, stretching the radio cord to keep the handset to my ear. Wynn did the same on his side of the vehicle.

  “Good day so far,” Wynn said, sounding unusually upbeat. “At least we’re doing something useful. Could you believe those fighting holes along the river? The Iraqis could have hosed the RCT and then melted away before they even knew
where the fire came from.”

  I didn’t share his enthusiasm. “I’m a little wigged-out by all the Republican Guard uniforms,” I said. “What else don’t we know?”

  A radio call interrupted us. All platoon commanders to the front for a meeting. I shook my head at the battalion’s order. It figured that we’d just taken our place at the far rear of the formation. Laughing at Wynn’s gently mocking smile, I slung my rifle across my chest, handed him my portable radio, and started walking past the long line of stopped vehicles. The battalion sat in single file along a narrow dirt road that curved to the right and disappeared into a thicket along the riverbank. Far ahead, I saw a mosque’s turquoise dome sticking up above the palm fronds. To our left, an irrigation ditch paralleled the road, and beyond it a planted field stretched for more than a mile across flat ground. The river flowed a few feet to my right, at the bottom of a steep bank. Across it, dense palm forests bordered a field of waist-high crops. I saw a white sedan parked in the field.

  As I walked, a wooden rowboat approached, drifting with the current while two Iraqi men halfheartedly paddled. They flashed me a smirk, which caught my attention. Only kids smiled. Men their age stared or avoided eye contact. I called up to a Marine high in a machine gun turret. “Can you see anything in the bottom of that boat — weapons, packages, anything?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  Damn. I would have welcomed the excuse to sink it. Something about those two was aggravating me. As combat heightened and honed my senses, I saw details and made connections that would otherwise have passed unnoticed. Instinct began to take over, and I learned to trust my instincts. They told me to shoot the guys in the boat.

  No sooner had they disappeared around the bend to our rear than an unearthly whooshing noise made me drop face-first in the dirt. Any sound that loud and strange had to be dangerous. I caught the barest glimpse of an orange fireball as it streaked over my head. I lay pressed into the ground, thinking, Return fire. But I couldn’t see the fireball’s source. Facing the river, I saw my platoon to the right, stretched along the banks in a conspicuous line. A string of flaming pumpkins floated across the field and ricocheted off the riverbank, passing within feet of their Humvees. Marines abandoned turrets and fell from open doors into the road, diving for cover. Another string arced toward me and passed overhead with the sound of bowling balls hurled through the air. I dragged myself into the irrigation ditch, joining the Marines already there.