William Christie 03 - The Blood We Shed

by William Christie

  Then there was Corporal Maple. "Can I talk to you, sir?"

  "Just what I had in mind," I said.

  We moved away from the platoon and he began by telling me, in a lecturing tone, "Sir, you're supposed to give a fire command before you shoot, so if you miss everyone knows the range you were using."

  It was the shock of surprise as much as anything that made it hard to maintain your cool. Such as Corporal Maple, after nearly blowing the MCCRES for us, seriously trying to match Corporal Asuego's achievement in getting me to admit that I was wrong. I'd found that the best way to keep my mental health was to cultivate a sense of detachment. Just a way of dealing with the fact that, no matter how much hard work and preparation you'd done, in the final execution something absurd or nonsensical was bound to happen. You had to find some emotional distance and treat it like an unavoidable natural disaster. The tornado wiped out the town? Okay, let's clean up the mess.

  My reply to Maple took the form of a question. "And do you think that was a good idea in this particular situation?"

  "You're supposed to give a fire command before you shoot the AT-4, sir."

  "Corporal Maple, let me lay out a scenario for you. Your platoon has just sneaked up behind four enemy tanks, achieving total tactical surprise. Now, at that point is it a good idea to start screaming at the top of your fucking lungs, wake up the tankers, have them swing their turrets around, and turn us all into strawberry jam? Or is it a dumbass idea?"

  "But, sir..."

  "Look, it's one thing to have a brain fart and then tell me you learned your lesson and you won't ever do it again. But don't tell me your brain fart was justified because you had it by the book. If you don't understand that, I'm going to start worrying about you. Now, before you piss me off any more I want you to go away and think it over."

  In case you hadn't guessed, Marines weren't all that great at grasping situational behavior. It was either a fire command every time or no fire command at all. I couldn't afford to let Maple keep believing, deep down, that he was right. So I went to his squad leader, Sergeant Turner.

  "Maple doesn't think he fucked up," I said. "He needs to hear it from someone beside me."

  Sergeant Turner couldn't believe it. "Doesn't think he fucked up, sir? Oh, he'll hear it from me." And he set off muttering, "Doesn't think he fucked up...."

  Then Sergeant Bean jogged over from the amtracs. "Sir, terrorists just attacked New York and Washington. They crashed jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

  I just looked at him and said, "Are you sure about that?"

  "Yes, sir. One of my guys was listening to his radio."

  He obviously believed it. "Okay, look, go talk to all your people and tell them to keep their mouths shut about this, at least for now. We're in the middle of a MCCRES, and the last thing we need is to get everyone all freaked out and then have no way of doing anything about it."

  "Roger that, sir." And he sprinted back to the tracks.

  I immediately told Captain Z, convinced that something probably had happened but that the magnitude, as always, had been inflated in the telling.

  But he set me straight. "It's true, Mike. It's all over the radio net. Paralyzed the battalion staff for about a half hour, trying to decide what to do. But the word is that the MCCRES continues."

  "The amtracers know about it, sir. I told them to keep their mouths shut, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm worried that if we don't say something to the troops then rumor control is going to get totally out of hand."

  That was the way it was supposed to be. I gave the commander my information, I gave him my opinion, and then I walked off to let him process it and make his decision. And whatever he decided, I'd make it happen.

  Captain Zimmerman called the whole company and all the attachments into the center of the LZ. "From what we've heard terrorists hijacked four jetliners this morning. They crashed one into the Pentagon, one into each of the World Trade Center towers in New York. The fourth went down in a field in Pennsylvania. That's all we know right now, and probably all we will know for some time. Except one thing. We're at war, and we are warriors. I'd like to send you all back to mainside to call your families. I've got a brother in law who works at the Pentagon. But today and tomorrow our job is to get ready for war. We may be going for real very soon." He paused. "Does anyone have any questions, or want to say anything?" No one did.

  Captain Zimmerman said, "Then let's take a minute of silence for everyone who lost their lives today."

  When the minute was over Captain Z brought the lieutenants together. "We need to get moving and get everyone's heads back in the game." He unfolded his map. We kneeled around it, and he pointed to the next major tank trail intersection to the north. "Mike, I want you to go up on foot and make sure there aren't any surprises waiting for us there. Take the Javelin squad with you. The rest of us will be mounted up and ready to move. If you make contact we'll be right there. You understand?"

  "Yes, sir," I replied.

  "Outstanding. Move out as fast as you can."

  I gave the squad leaders the order. It was only then I realized we were missing someone. "Staff Sergeant, see if you can find our evaluator." And he put Lance Corporal Conahey on the job.

  I wanted to listen to Asuego and Reilly giving their orders, since this was something we hadn't rehearsed. Conahey waited for them to finish. "Sir, the evaluator's asleep in the back of one of the tracks."

  Some Ranger. "Go wake his ass up and tell him we're moving out."

  I went through the usual process of radio checks to make sure all the intra-squad radios were up and functioning. Vincent let me know he had good comm with the company headquarters. The squads were in formation ready to step off. I snapped, "Conahey, where the hell is the evaluator?"

  "I told him we were moving out, sir."

  Screw him, then. I gave the signal to move out.

  The intersection was less than a kilometer up the tank trail. I knew the terrain. It was wooded all the way up on the left side of the trail. The right opened onto a cleared area, Drop Zone Plover. No way was I going to cross that. So I'd go up the left and make a wide arc to arrive on the flank. Staff Sergeant Frederick would take the two machine-gun teams and the Javelin anti-tank guided missile squad and set up a base of fire in the trees on the edge of the field. Having no idea what we might run into, I kept all three rifle squads and the SMAW rocket launchers with me.

  The problem with sending a point fire team far enough out ahead that you didn't make first contact with your whole platoon was that the team leader either concentrated so hard on his navigation that he missed the enemy, or concentrated so hard on the enemy that he led you off course. I'd solved this by buying my own civilian GPS unit and tying it to the team leader with the admonition, "You don't want to be losing or breaking the Lieutenant's GPS."

  It was the best investment I ever made, especially comparing the 5.5 ounce unit to my obsolete 2.75 pound battery-eating military Plugger, officially and laughably known as the Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver. In all fairness it actually was state of the art—when first issued 10 years ago. I'd already replaced my 2.25 pound issue Steiner binoculars with an 8 ounce pocket pair.

  Once they saw it in action all the squad leaders went out and bought their own GPS. Marines always had to pay out of pocket for gear they should have been issued. I really think the leadership preferred it that way. Just think of all the money we save if the dumb, dedicated bastards pay for the shit themselves.

  When my Plugger told me we were just about there I got on the radio and told the point fire team to halt. We moved up to them and the platoon got on line. I made another call to Staff Sergeant Frederick and took the risk of ordering the machine-guns to open fire. It would give away our presence in the neighborhood, but.... The guns opened up, and so did the aggressors at the intersection right in front of us.

  Now that we knew where they were I shifted our line obliquely to the right so Lance Corporal Reilly's center squ
ad was even with the enemy. We were almost to the intersection when one of our Marines saw them, opened fire, and began the assault. Vincent was calling in a contact report on the radio, so I didn't have to worry about that. We broke out of the underbrush just in time to see the aggressors bolting into their two amtracs. Reilly's squad had the most contact, so Sergeant Turner and Corporal Asuego's squads on the left and right both sort of naturally bent around and cut the aggressors off from both sides. Not my idea, but good things usually happened if you let people do their jobs.

  I saw Lance Corporal Conahey dash forward to the nearest amtrac and, grinning, fire his Squad Automatic Weapon into the open troop compartment.

  That gave me an idea. I yelled, "Conahey, jump on that ramp and don't get off until I tell you!"

  Corporal Asuego heard me and threw two Marines in front of the amtrac. Ahead of the curve as always, Sergeant Turner had done the same to the other track.

  The amtrac commander nearest me was gunning the engine and jiggling the rear ramp, trying to knock Conahey off so he could close up and drive off. I tore open my flak jacket and stuck a thumb under my collar, flashing my bar like a badge. "Shut this vehicle down!" I yelled. "You injure someone down here and I'll see you in the brig." The engine shut off.

  An angry little Staff Sergeant jumped down from the troop commander hatch and said, "Sir, you can't do this."

  I held up one hand, though I didn't tell him to talk to it. "Keep your people inside the tracks. The evaluators will be here in a minute and they'll decide everything."

  I took the handset from Vincent. "Echo-6, we are at the checkpoint. Be advised we've captured two amtracs and one aggressor platoon, over."

  Captain Z's voice was wobbling over the sound of his amtrac's engine. "You what?"

  "That's affirmative, Echo-6. We're holding them here at the checkpoint. Recommend you move up ASAP, over."

  I couldn't believe these idiots had parked their amtracs right at their ambush site. A fifty meter run down the road and we'd never have caught them. But we had, and it was a major feather in our cap. Well, better to be a military genius by accident than a dickhead on purpose.

  O'Brien showed up first. He took in the scene from his cupola, then climbed down shaking his head at the luck that fools sometimes enjoyed. Captain Z dismounted with his evaluator, who was immediately set upon by the aggressor platoon sergeant. But his side of the story had to wait, because the evaluator had to follow Captain Z over to me.

  The Captain eyed the two amtracs filled with very pissed off aggressors. He produced a can of Copenhagen, banged it on his hand, packed a massive dip under his gum, and grinned like a chipmunk with a cheek full of nuts. "Okay, Mike, tell us what happened."

  I did, ending with, "As soon as they broke to mount up their vehicles, sir, they were dead. They would have had to kill my whole platoon first, which they didn't."

  At that point the evaluator pulled away to talk to the aggressor platoon sergeant.

  Captain Z said, "Great work, Mike, but why in hell did you go off without your evaluator?"

  "He was asleep in the back of an amtrac, sir. I sent one of my men to wake his ass up and tell him we were moving out, but he didn't show. The whole platoon was standing by ready to move out. I couldn't hold them up waiting for him to get his shit together."

  He nodded. "Don't leave him behind again."

  "I won't, sir. But I've got a pretty full plate here, and this fucker's only job is to follow me around."

  Captain Z cocked his head in the direction of the company evaluator having some heated words with his lieutenant. "I've got a hunch that's what he's hearing right now."

  A lot of talk about our prisoners was flying back and forth over the battalion radio net. Captain Z sent Milburn to block our open flank.

  When the ass chewing was over I was my evaluator's next stop. "Man, why did you take off without me?"

  "Are you telling me Lance Corporal Conahey didn't let you know we were moving out?"

  "Yeah, but I thought we were going on the tracks."

  He knew how weak that was. He should have been awake and listening to me give my order. I just stared at him until he walked away.

  Which was when the Javelin squad leader appeared on my other side and said, "Sir, I wanted you to know that I killed those tanks in the trees."

  I had been a little distracted, but now he had my full attention. "What tanks in the trees?"

  He casually waved an arm toward the other side of the intersection.

  "The four tanks back in those trees, sir. They're really well camouflaged, but we picked them up on our thermal sights."

  I counted down from ten again, and said calmly, "You know, Sergeant, that information would have been really helpful before we went into the attack. Or during it. Or even after it."

  "Sorry, sir."

  "Look, I'm glad you killed them. But next time don't be shy about getting on the radio and letting me know."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Okay. Go on over there, knock on the hatch, and tell them they're dead."

  A big smile at that. "Yes, sir."

  I might have stopped losing my temper with my Marines, but that didn't include me. If I could have physically slapped myself without raising questions in a lot of people's minds, I would have. How could I have been so stupid to assume the whole area was clear of enemy without sweeping it? I'd been too busy gloating over my score. Another hard lesson.

  And when Frank Milburn returned he made sure he told me about driving past the trees and having all the enemy tankers waving at him.

  Battalion and the evaluators eventually decided that my prisoners really were prisoners. We'd hang onto them and practice POW handling procedures, something that was rarely done. O'Brien's platoon got the job of initially searching and segregating them. Battalion sent a couple of trucks and a security team to take them to the rear.

  MILES gear would have settled who killed whom, not to mention made us realistically practice what Marine units also skimmed over—casualty evacuation. But no battalion commander would ever volunteer to use MILES during a MCCRES. In the zero-defects career stakes looking good took priority over being good. Even the best felt they couldn't afford to do otherwise.

  The next part of the MCCRES extravaganza had the aggressor battalion moving to the other side of the base, across the New River inlet. Some went by helicopter. The amtracs swam the inlet. And the tanks went over on an old LCU landing craft, which was manned by an Army crew—go figure that. None of this was typical for a MCCRES, but then Major Jones wasn't your typical operations officer.

  If heroes didn't have tragic flaws, there would be no drama. Captain Zimmerman's was not knowing when to grab his chips and step away from the table. It always happened on a winning streak, when excitement overcame judgment. And we always knew when it was about to take place, because it was the only time he refused to listen to our input.

  We knew that look well, and all resistance was futile. Like amphibious training in Little Creek, Virginia, when he insisted on the company running the Navy SEAL obstacle course (which is like Mount Everest compared to the standard Marine Corps obstacle course—we could have used ladders). They didn't all end in disaster, but the margin was always so close that it didn't make much difference to your central nervous system.

  Reports began coming in from our reconnaissance assets. The aggressors and their amtracs were parked in a group up on the riverbank across the inlet, administratively as opposed to tactically.

  Captain Z decided that he wanted to cross the river, land and pull a quick raid, shoot the enemy up, and return to our side. Apparently violating them twice wasn't enough, he wanted to go for three.

  My Irish mother would have had something to say about things happening in threes.

  After Captain Z gave his order, of course it was Jack O'Brien who spit some tobacco juice onto the sand and said, "A daylight raid, sir? You sure you want to do that? I can think of about ten things that could go wrong, for not m
uch payoff on the mission."

  I was eyeing my map. "Sir, it looks like there's only enough room at Town Point for one track at a time to land. And high banks on both sides."

  "They could see us coming with more than enough time to get ready," Milburn added.

  But the Captain was determined. And much to our surprise he got permission from battalion to do it. Another argument in favor of MILES gear—it would have made everyone think twice about pulling a wild-ass stunt like that.

  I was the lead platoon again. I hadn't suspected my company commander of being superstitious, but I guessed he was going to stay with me as long as I was hot. We splashed into the Inlet for about a 4000 meter angled swim across.

  And ran into trouble right away. The tide was coming in almost faster than the water speed of our amtracs. I stayed off the intercom because the crew had their hands full.

  The current caused us to turn out of the main channel too late, and the column of tracks swept right past our landing at Town Point. So we had to turn around and head back.

  Shit. We came around the point like a fleet of Civil War ironclads. The only thing in our favor was just one aggressor track up on the bank able to shoot at us.

  As soon as my amtrac hit dry land I ordered everyone out. With banks on both sides we could only rush up the landing trail. It was an impossible tactical situation, which I'm sure happens more often than not in real war, with the only option to put your head down, assault hard, and hope most of your platoon was still standing when it was over.

  At least the aggressors were surprised again and spazzing out. All but one. A Humvee raced down the tank trail and stopped in front of us, blocking the landing. The Staff Sergeant inside shut down and smiled triumphantly at me.

  The smile was what did it. Lance Corporal Reilly was right next to me, leading the point squad. "Reilly!" I ordered. "If he doesn't back this vehicle off the trail in five seconds, drag his ass out and move it yourself."