William Christie 03 - The Blood We Shed

by William Christie

The words weren't even out of my mouth when I said to myself: what the fuck did you just do? And it would have to be Reilly I'd give the order to.

  What I'd done was what every leader of Marines knew not to. Because Marines obeyed orders, instantly, whether or not they thought those orders were fucked up or made no sense. And if you left any ambiguity in your orders, they'd usually be obeyed in exactly the way you didn't want.

  Which was what I expected just then. But before Reilly could finish counting, lay hands on the Staff Sergeant, and speed me on my way to a general court-martial, the Staff Sergeant correctly decided that he wasn't being bluffed and gunned the Humvee back up the trail.

  The rest of the amtracs were able to land. We swept through the area, hopped back in our vehicles, and headed back to our original side of the river. We were lucky, very lucky.

  Our next mission was a night crossing of the inlet to take up blocking positions around LZ Parrot, sealing it off so Fox Company could do a night attack.

  Except for one big complication. On the way back from refueling Frank Milburn's one remaining amtrac went down. If Milburn stayed behind we wouldn't have enough forces to accomplish our mission. The ensuing conference came up with only one solution. Stuff Milburn's platoon in with my platoon on my amtracs. I'd drop him off at his objective, then continue on to mine. It had to be me; O'Brien had a different landing point and route to his objective.

  "I don't have a problem with it," I said. "But what about the safety question of putting tracks into the water with that many Marines aboard?"

  Everyone turned to Lieutenant Houseman, the track platoon commander. "They'll float," he said. "But if there's a problem I don't know about anyone getting out." He let out a breath. "I'm willing to do it." Working with Captain Z seemed to have turned his nerves to asbestos.

  Captain Z didn't even hesitate. "We'll do it." Another gutsy call. If anything happened he was toast. Most captains would have given lip service to training the way they'd fight.

  Milburn and I did a couple of rehearsals, to see if we really could cram everyone inside. Their packs too; we couldn't hang them outside the vehicles while swimming. It was tight, so tight that 3rd platoon couldn't sit down. Or even bend over.

  Milburn would be back in the troop compartment too. "Just don't fuck around getting to my intersection," he said.

  "What if I have to pee?" I asked. "Or I see a 7-11 and really need a Slurpee?"

  "Just keep talking. You're not stuck in back."

  "It's a great chance to get close to your men, Frank." Just then I happened to notice the grenade sticking out from one of his pouches. It was shaped like a soda can but colored gray, not green like a run-of-the-mill smoke.

  "Funny," I said, "I don't remember CS being authorized for the MCCRES." CS was a very potent tear gas.

  "Been saving it for the right occasion."

  "Do me a favor? Try not to let the pin snag on anything inside the track."

  "That would be totally unsat, wouldn't it?"

  We waited until the absolute last moment to board the vehicles. How tight was it? The crewmen inside the troop compartments had to inch the rear ramps closed to make sure no fingers or noses got nipped off.

  The red night lights were on inside to keep everyone from losing their night vision. The scene was appropriately hellish even without them. It didn't seem as if there was any unused air back there, let alone space. Just a solid block of Marines. Amid the usual chorus of bitching, I heard the voice of Lance Corporal Turpin saying, "Anyone pops a rod, I'm dropping a dime on them." To which someone of course replied, "Better keep that sweet ass puckered up, Turpin."

  Sergeant Bean said over the intercom, "It looks like field trip day at Clown College, sir."

  "I'm just glad someone else said that," I replied.

  I was praying pretty hard when we hit the water, but we stayed afloat. It was eerie looking though my night vision goggle as we chugged along, seemingly inches above the water, the tips of the waves flashing like green sparks.

  When we landed on the other side I said over the intercom, "Let's go before someone loses it back there."

  Sergeant Bean replied calmly, "Don't worry sir; there's no room back there to lose it in."

  I was counting off intersections as we raced down the tank trails. "Okay, next one."

  The drivers stood on the brakes. The ramps dropped and it was as if the two amtracs vomited 3rd platoon out. As soon as they were clear the ramps went up and we were off. Just after we disappeared down the road, and before they had a chance to shake off the effects of their cramped journey and get organized, Milburn was attacked by two aggressor amtracs charging into the intersection from the opposite direction.

  Deciding that the right occasion had in fact arrived, Milburn yanked out his CS grenade, pulled the pin, and chucked it in front of the onrushing amtracs.

  The effect was miraculous. The gas was sucked into the vehicle air intakes and settled in the troop compartments. The ramps and hatches all flew open. The aggressors stumbled out, coughing, wheezing, eyes on fire, mucus jetting from their noses, fumbling to get their gas masks on. Which gave Milburn and his boys enough time to shoot them up and fade back into the trees.

  After reaching my objective I set up my ambush and positioned the two amtracs behind us to block the tank trail.

  Then it was just a matter of waiting. A couple of hours later, after midnight, we heard firing from the direction of LZ Parrot as Fox Company went in with their night attack.

  Five minutes later a Humvee sped down the tank trail heading right for us, and I do mean speeding. I barely had time to open fire and initiate the ambush.

  The Humvee didn't even slow down, roaring though the intersection straight for my amtrac roadblock. I jumped up and ran out into the trail, positive that the stupid bastard was going to crash right into the amtracs.

  The Humvee slowed down as he saw them, but didn't stop. The driver actually tried to run up the embankment bordering the tank trail. He would have made it but he hit the bank too fast and cut the wheel too hard—two wheels on top and two on the slope. Rolling a Humvee wasn't easy but he pulled it off, sliding down the slope upside down.

  I could just picture the accident investigation gigging me for not hanging safety lights on my tactical roadblock. Over the intra-squad radio I ordered, "Doc Bob, out on the road. Everyone else stand fast."

  By the time the Doc and I reached the Humvee, the driver had crawled out and was sitting dazed on the side of the bank. It was the Staff Sergeant whom I'd almost allowed Reilly to punch out. As they say in the Corps: good initiative—poor judgment.

  Doc Bob made him lie down and checked him out. The amtrac crews were standing by with their extinguishers. Sergeant Bean appeared next to me in the darkness, saying, "Glad I'm not signed for that vehicle, sir."

  "You and me both," I said.

  Doc Bob came over to report. "No broken bones, sir. No skull or spinal injuries, and no signs of internal bleeding."

  "No medevac?" I said, surprised.

  "I don't think so, sir. Instead of trying to get an ambulance in here at this time of night I'd rather watch him for signs of a concussion or a stiff belly."

  "Okay," I said. "Good work, Doc." And then to the patient. "Hey, Staff Sergeant, what say you don't cap off a full night by trying to overpower my Doc and escape? Deal?"

  "Deal, sir, deal," he moaned.

  Sergeant Bean said, "Sir, I think we can roll that Humvee back right side up. You want me to try?"

  "No, leave it be. They're going to need photos and measurements for the investigation."

  That was the end of the action. The rest of the night was the hard boring part of training—not slacking off when you're tired and nothing's going on. Troops on an ambush are linked by a parachute cord tug line for silent communication. And I did a lot of tugging to keep everyone awake.

  The MCCRES ended that morning. I dozed in the cupola while Sergeant Bean navigated us to the final assembly area where the Batt
alion Landing Team broke up and went home to see what had happened to the world in our absence.

  PART TWO

  "Apparently they can learn nothing save through

  suffering, remember nothing save when underlined in blood-'"

  William Faulkner, The Bear

  CHAPTER TEN

  I think everyone in the country tried to call someone. Nothing northbound was getting past New York, so I sent my folks an e-mail. There was a message from Jenny on my desk when we got back. As soon as the company was secured I drove down to Wilmington.

  Jenny didn't want to go out to eat; she didn't want to go out at all. She just wanted to be held, and to talk. I don't think she was alone in the country in feeling that way either.

  We were lying in bed, and I was saying, "If we hadn't been in the field I probably wouldn't be here. Locking the barn after the horse is out is a military specialty. By the time we came in everyone was guarding something. All that was left was the base swimming pools."

  "You shouldn't kid. Not about this."

  "I wasn't kidding. Just because it's absurd doesn't mean it's not true."

  "All I heard around campus was how this was all our fault."

  "That sounds like my school days. Dictators, tyrants, and murderers always get a free pass. And it's always our fault."

  "You know, Michael, there are legitimate grievances against us in the Arab World."

  "Sure. There were legitimate grievances in Russia in 1917. And the Bolsheviks didn't address them, they exploited them to seize power. It's not about grievances, or us being Rome. It's the same old story of a clever psychopath and his accomplices who want to rule the world, or in this case be the Caliph of the Islamic World."

  "They always think it would be a perfect world if only fill-in-the-blank was dead, don't they?"

  "Sure, and Bin Laden wouldn't be the first to think that God wanted him to do it, or send the true believers out to die while he stayed home. You won't see him or his lieutenants flying any planes into buildings."

  "I suppose everyone in the military is blaming Bill Clinton?"

  "He is widely regarded as a gutless bastard. But there's plenty of blame to go around. The Iranians take over our embassy in Teheran. The Iranians and Syrians blow up our embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon. They take Americans hostage in Lebanon—Ollie North sends them missiles. Al Qaeda blows up a base in Saudi Arabia, two embassies in Africa, and an Aegis destroyer in Yemen. And we don't do diddly squat in each case. Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush—all the same. Terrorism always worked."

  "I hate to think restraint only egged these people on."

  "Showing weakness always does. If you give them reason to think they can take you, they'll try. You either have to destroy them or they'll destroy you."

  "I don't even want to think about that."

  "I know you don't. That's why you have people like me to destroy them for you."

  Jenny hugged me tighter. "I don't want to think about that, either."

  "That's why you're worth defending."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When I walked into the company office I could have sworn there was an adult male chimpanzee sitting at the XO's desk. You were never quite sure what was going to happen in an infantry battalion. I sometimes wondered what other people's Monday mornings were like.

  No, it was a human being after all. He'd taken a real beating, not the Hollywood kind where the victim shows up in the next scene with a little black eye. This guy's face was pushed out to about twice normal size by all the swelling and edema.

  Eventually I realized who it was. Captain Carbonelli, not that it should have been a surprise. One of my early junior lieutenant jobs was visiting the company's incarcerated in the brig. Whenever a unit had a Marine in stir, an officer had to drop by and check on the jailbird once a week.

  Captain Carbonelli was actually Private Carbonelli, but he'd won his nickname the day he decided to see how the other half lived. Buying some captain's bars at the PX, he pinned them on and toured the base grandly accepting and returning salutes from the lowly enlisted. The only flaw in his plan was that he was what the Marine Corps calls a shitbird lance corporal. His cammies were a mess, his boots looked like they'd been shined with a Hershey bar, and no matter how hard he scrubbed—not that he scrubbed all that hard—there would always be dirt under his fingernails. Eventually an MP asked to see his ID card, which everyone including captains were required to produce on demand.

  Ten seconds after we met at the brig Captain Carbonelli began whining about his misfortunes. Apparently in reply to some lip the brig MP's had moved him to a cell with a concrete slab instead of a mattress and a bucket in lieu of a toilet. And he wanted my help in getting his mattress and potty back.

  "You want your privileges restored?" I said. "Stop running your mouth." After that I think he decided not to bother asking me to bring him some smokes the next time.

  The lieutenants were, as usual, congregated around Jack O'Brien's desk. I joined them and said, "That is Captain Carbonelli, isn't it?"

  "Himself," said Frank Milburn.

  "So what do you think?" O'Brien asked me.

  "What do I think? If they keep making Planet of the Apes movies, I see a chance to make some real money."

  Once they stopped laughing, O'Brien said, "Wait until you hear this one," turning the floor over to Jimmy Nichols, Captain Carbonelli's platoon commander.

  "You know Corporal Cushing?" Nichols asked me.

  I shook my head no.

  "In the assault section," said Nichols. "Great kid. He and his wife—major love story. He writes her a love poem every day; she hides little notes in his gear so he finds them out in the field. Well, she's out of town with a sick mother or something, and misses their anniversary. So she sends him flowers, and sends them to the barracks so they don't sit on the doorstep all day long. But he's gone when the flowers get delivered. And guess who signs for them?"

  "Okay," I said, "I may be coming out of left field on this one. Captain Carbonelli?"

  "That's affirmative," said Nichols. "And Captain Carbonelli doesn't give the flowers to Cushing. He makes off with them and gives them to some hosebag out in town."

  The dramatic arc of the story was beginning to make itself clear to me.

  "It really pissed the platoon off," Nichols continued. "Last night the duty NCO and firewatch were both from the mortar section. You know where they're doing landscaping out by the barracks, with the wood lathe fencing around it?"

  I nodded.

  "The firewatch spots Carbonelli coming back to the barracks. He calls the duty. They each rip a wooden lathe off the fence...."

  "And they give Carbonelli a wood shampoo," I said, finishing the sentence. "Outstanding."

  "Payback is a medevac," said Nichols.

  "I can't believe you weren't the OD for this one," O'Brien said to me.

  "Simple assault with a deadly weapon?" I scoffed. "Child's play."

  "Just about what you'd expect from the mortar section," said Milburn. "They couldn't wait a day or two for Carbonelli to get court-martialed again for stealing the flowers."

  "Didn't Carbonelli get six, six, and a kick for impersonating an officer in the first place?" O'Brien asked Nichols. He was referring to the standard special court-martial sentence of six months in the brig, six months forfeiture of pay, and a bad conduct discharge.

  "Oh, yeah," Nichols replied. "He got the Big Chicken Dinner." The insider's term for a bad conduct discharge, or BCD. "He's just waiting around for it to come through."

  "Not the sharpest knives in the drawer," said O'Brien.

  "But they did a hell of a job on Carbonelli," said Dick Herkimer. "Good thing he doesn't have any brains either, or they'd have leaked out his ears after that ass-whipping."

  The fire door banged at the other end of the office, and we all looked over to see Captain Zimmerman closely examining Captain Carbonelli.

  "Uh, oh," said Herkimer.

  "I can't wai
t to see what he does," said O'Brien.

  The Captain having received one version of events from Captain Carbonelli, the First Sergeant followed him into his office to provide a more objective overview.

  Then the First Sergeant called us into the Captain's office.

  It was with great anticipation that we took our seats. Captain Zimmerman looked out at Captain Carbonelli through the open door and motioned for the First Sergeant to close it. He turned back to us, shook his head sadly, and said, "They beat that boy like a redheaded stepchild."

  Whenever the Captain favored us with one of his Southemisms, the four Yankees would crack up while Milburn rolled his eyes at being among the heathen.

  Back out in the main office Staff Sergeant Frederick and Staff Sergeant White of 3rd platoon were sitting at our desk. No matter how many times I told my platoon sergeant not to, he always vacated the chair behind the desk when I showed up.

  I'd given up fussing over it. "What's up?" I asked, sitting down.

  "We were just passing around some pictures of the wives and kids, sir," Staff Sergeant White said, handing me a few.

  "A handsome family," I told him, even though they were as plain as he. I was pretty sure Staff Sergeant Frederick didn't have any children, but suddenly I was holding a photo of Staff Sergeant Frederick, a young oriental lady, and two little children who were obviously theirs. "And the same here," I said. And then, "Excuse me for a second."

  I went to the head because I wasn't sure how long I could maintain. Okay, if I had already met his wife Annette from New Jersey, and this was his wife and kids....

  I was so shaken I had to splash some water on my face. It made no difference if it was bigamy or just adultery, since both were crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. What civilians shrugged at the military was deadly serious about—at least for everyone under the rank of general.

  What now, lieutenant? Well, there was no way I was going to lose the best platoon sergeant in the battalion, if not the Marine Corps. So right then I vowed that I would never again ask Staff Sergeant Frederick a personal question. What I didn't know I couldn't testify to. So now I'd be starting each day with a short prayer that he'd be able to keep his personal life from blowing up in all our faces. I never imagined how much of being a platoon commander would involve turning a blind eye.