William Christie 03 - The Blood We Shed
Page 25
"Claymores to breach walls," he said. "God damn, Mike, that was slicker'n snot on a doorknob."
We rocked with laughter, and he said, "I'll never understand what you Yankees find funny." Though of course he always knew what he was doing.
Paul Federico had been preparing to pull out of the Forward Refueling and Rearming Point right after we left the village. Apparently just after he vacated the high ground to board his '53, an arms smuggler's caravan bumped into him. While the firefight was going on more Yemenis showed up, occupied the high ground, and proceeded to shoot up the area and set the '53 afire. Then the word went out all over the area. A unique aspect of societies without modern communications was that somehow the word seemed to move just as fast, though more prone to disinformation.
It didn't make any difference who we were or what we were doing. The rule of the Yemeni outback was that strangers got shot at.
The Yemenis had a fine time shooting up the helo and Federico's platoon, but their unfamiliarity with vertical envelopment meant they were caught by surprise when we fast-roped onto the ridge. And then they were stuck. They couldn't run without getting slaughtered by the Cobras, so they had to stand and fight.
And the longer we stayed the more locals poured into the area looking for a fight. That they had mortars and shoulder-fired surface to air missiles meant nothing. In Yemen such items were as common as backyard grills in the American suburbs.
We killed a hell of a lot of them. After Vietnam no one talked about body counts—that was an American military taboo. And apparently the government of Yemen, which had agreed to a nice quiet raid on one isolated village, was none too pleased about us shooting up the whole county in daylight. But they were keeping it quiet, not anxious to have word of American Marines killing a shitload of Yemeni civilians get around.
As were we. The entire mission fell under the shroud of secrecy that covered the war on terror. We were told to keep our mouths shut, and my expectations of that were about the same as liberty incidents. Especially once the wounded got to Germany.
I had to write letters. To the relatives of my wounded. Even though Cushing was weapons platoon I thought I ought to write his wife and parents.
Then there was Peterson's mother. What was I going to say there? Dear Mrs. Peterson, I am writing to you because your son was an asshole who chickened out and lost it in combat. His hysterical panic put us all in danger, and rather than allow that to happen his squad leader shot him dead.
Needless to say, that's not what I wrote. I lied about Peterson, I lied about the circumstances of his death. I lied to keep from destroying Sergeant Turner's life and career. It might be true that no mother needed to know that kind of truth about her son, but it was still a rationalization.
I don't know how often something like that happens in war. It's not the kind of thing that gets into the history books. It's the kind of thing that festers in the human heart until the day we die.
And it was all my fault. I knew that Peterson was a disaster waiting to happen, but I'd never been able to get rid of him. I should have thought of something, done anything; I'd failed in my duty to both Peterson and the platoon.
The same with Sergeant Harlin. I should have figured out a way to get rid of him, for his own good, but I didn't. At least he didn't get anyone else hurt when he screwed up the way I'd always known he would.
Both of them on my head, and not easy to live with.
Along with his Purple Heart Sergeant Harlin would be receiving a career-ending adverse fitness report, along with a special notation in his record book. Probably not the classiest move I ever made, but he might not come back to the platoon and I had to make sure he never commanded Marines again.
Jack O'Brien cut back on his stress-related routine of PT'ing twice a day and goring everyone who bumped against him. Lynn and the baby were fine.
My prediction to Staff Sergeant Frederick came to pass. We didn't get fired; Washington was very pleased with what we'd done. Three of the bodies my platoon left behind in the house turned out to be on the wanted list from the bombing of the destroyer Cole. Six more were the top Al Qaeda in Yemen. Everyone else was either Al Qaeda or its cover groups—Yemen Islamic Jihad and the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army—or their bodyguards.
The two laptop computers and the documents were said to contain significant intelligence. That's all we were told. All intelligence goes up, then sideways, but rarely if ever comes back down. Knowledge is power, so the more the intelligence agencies kept it to themselves the more powerful they were. Even though we'd collected it, we were no longer cleared for it.
The platoon and I held our own debrief, talking about everything we'd done right, and wrong, and the lessons that needed to be learned. I used the notes as the basis for the medal citations I'd begun to write.
It turned out to be surprisingly therapeutic. Instead of going home and bottling it up inside themselves for the rest of their lives, the Marines talked about what they'd done and seen with the buddies who'd been through it with them. In a couple of instances Marines torn up about making wrong moves or not doing what they thought they should have done were told by their friends they were full of shit, and to forget it.
I took one action right away. Held a platoon formation and gave Westgate back his fire team for standing tall with his SAW when we were ambushed. Just as I'd said after the MCCRES, he'd worked his way back to being someone I could rely on.
I gave Conahey a fire team at the same formation. He and his SAW had popped up in every tight spot we'd been in. Whether these appointments would last beyond our next liberty ashore was anyone's guess.
Both were promoted to corporal at the same time. And it was depressing how much we had to plead with Colonel Sweatman before he gave out the combat meritorious promotions. The senior officers were so paralyzed by the zero-defects system they were afraid to do anything without getting permission first.
The bodies were flown out along with the wounded. I had yet to hear anything about Peterson's gunshot wound.
Echo Company knew it would be a long time before we saw another mission. Not with our strength so whittled down. The other companies wouldn't be getting anything either, not until some replacement CH-53's were flown in.
It drove a real gulf right down the middle of the battalion. Echo Company, Federico and Lee Harvey's platoon on one side, the rest on the other. The jealousy of who had been in combat, and who hadn't. Paul and Lee Harvey had it the worse, because they had to live with Captain America. Who, they reported, couldn't stop talking about how he would have done it better. Sometimes you'd think Marines had never gotten off the playground.
It was nearly two weeks after the operation before the first mail came on board. In it was a DVD from Corporal Cushing's wife, addressed to the Captain. No letter, just the DVD.
The Skipper had a TV and DVD player hauled into the company office. The officers, the First Sergeant, and the Gunny assembled to watch it. Though there was plenty of discussion, no one had any idea what it might contain.
The images that blinked onto my TV screen were of a military burial. I think we all groaned at the same time. In combat the dead are taken away and disappear, so you can try to forget them, if you can. But thanks to technology we were watching a funeral that had taken place on the other side of the world.
"Why did she do that?" O'Brien wondered out loud. Not in anger but genuine puzzlement. "Was it to say, now watch what you did, you bastards? Or did she think this was the same as us being at the graveside, honoring him."
"We killed him," said Milburn. "She's doing this to get back at us." And I was inclined to agree with him.
"I don't know, sir," said the First Sergeant.
"All of you hush up," said the Captain.
I think we all wanted to leave, but of course none of us did.
The service. The folding of the flag on the casket, the neat triangle presented to the widow with the thanks of a grateful nation. Flinching at the firing party salute. Taps. Day
is done. Gone the sun. From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky. Rest in peace, soldier brave. God is nigh.
Just when I thought the service was done a very small boy slid off his chair, and before his mother could get ahold of him ran over, put two little hands on that cold casket, and shouted loud enough to be heard through it, "'Bye Daddy."
I felt as though my heart had been torn out of my chest. Everyone in the office had his hands over his face, so the others couldn't see him crying.
Maybe it's the curse of too much reading, because all I could think of was Lord Byron, Don Juan. That while all comedies are ended by a marriage, all tragedies are finished by a death.
THE END
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005, 2011 by William Christie
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ISBN 978-1-4976-1305-8
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
PART TWO
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three