Princes of War

by Claude Schmid

  And packs always had leaders. Since his early days in the army he’d been drawn to effective leaders, men that could gather others to them, hold them, earn their respect, then get something good out of them—far more than would be possible by any individual acting alone. Cooke hadn’t known his father. That left a hole in him that he was still filling. He now behaved the way he did—at least in part—because he still hated that hole and wanted it filled. The army had supplied fill dirt. The army exposed him to durable men, men that would step forward even when the going was tough. By the time it came for Cooke to reenlist the first time, three years after he’d joined the army, he had decided he wanted to be one of those leaders. He resolved to work harder than anybody else and try to improve himself constantly—and by the sweat of his own ass become a pack leader himself. 1LT Wynn, the platoon’s officer, was the sled driver, and might determine when and where they went, but Cooke, as platoon sergeant, led the pack.

  Arriving in the motor pool, Cooke spotted Pauls. He made eye contact and gave Pauls one of those recognizable twists of the head, signaling “let’s take a walk.”

  Others in the platoon had percolating issues. It was his job to know them. Halliburton had a child support dispute festering—he’d fathered a kid at sixteen. Ortiz’ was divorcing. The poor bastard’s wife already living with another man. Singleton’s mother was dying of breast cancer. So far, those men’s troubles hadn’t overly affected their performance in Iraq. But Kale—Cooke wasn’t sure.

  He and Pauls walked side-by-side away from the platoon. Cooke leaned his shoulder into Pauls’.

  “Kale’s about to get on my shit list,” Cooke began. “The LT asked me about him last night, and a little while ago I had to wake the young gentleman up. When I did, he looked at me like I’d saved him from drowning. What’s your take?”

  The two NCOs spent about five minutes talking. Pauls was defensive on Kale’s behalf. Cooke appreciated that. Any leader should stand up for his men. Pauls promised he would come to Cooke if anything about Kale worsened.

  “I suppose we can’t expect men to fight a war without some cracks forming,” Cooke said. “Thing is, we don’t want no cracks leading to no avalanches.”

  By the time the Wolfhounds started towards FOB Apache’s exit it was 1100, the later-than-usual departure scheduled due to the platoon’s shift on FOB guard duty and a few extra hours of scheduled downtime. A short while earlier, Wynn had re-briefed the plan for resuming the census work today.

  Now, he finished adjusting D21’s computer navigation system, which was mounted with the vehicle radios between him and his driver. The system connected the vehicle with the automated communication and tracking system in widespread use throughout the Iraqi and Afghan theaters. He marveled at the technology which allowed him to select different maps, scroll up and down, magnify, search other locations, see current operations, and even check a location’s IED history. By clicking on the respective symbols, he could see more details and even identify types of friendly vehicles. The built-in messaging system reduced reliance on sometimes-problematic radio communication.

  Communications were essential. In addition to the standard SINCGARs radio frequencies between the convoy elements and the higher headquarters—such as the battalion—Wynn had access to the Sheriff’s Freq, an emergency frequency monitored by AWACs aircraft. And he had a satellite phone, called TACSAT, and his Iraqi cell phone. System redundancy would reduce the communications problems that had plagued previous Armies—or so it was hoped.

  A thick nylon cord hung across the ceiling of the Humvee between two anchor points in the top center above the radio set-up. Three handsets for the radios hung on the cord, pre-set on the necessary frequency. When he needed to talk to someone, he selected a handset. Sometimes he’d switch handsets in quick succession if he needed to communicate with someone on a different radio frequency. He could simultaneously monitor both the platoon and company freqs.

  They drove a recently paved road that cut through the guts of the camp. Moose, leaning back comfortably in D24’s turret, noted all the supplies and equipment the convoy passed. Was it all intentionally arranged so they would see it and then never say they didn’t know what the Army had brought along to support you? Dozens of prefabricated buildings, heaps of gravel ready for foundations of new construction, various diameters of plastic and concrete piping, spools of electric wire, 25 new GMC SUVs—which nobody knew who would own yet—crowded the FOB. One building had been converted into a 24-hour pseudo internet café with ten computers—but no coffee.

  Ahead was a new construction site for more living quarters. Safety signs marked this area. Moose saw one sign that said “no parking,” and another “beware of moving trucks.” The whole place looked like any large construction site back home. Behind the PsyOps area, a shit-sucker truck cleaned latrines. Several soldiers waited at the bus stop down from the Mayor’s cell. Buses, which ran from 0500 to 2300, got most soldiers around on the FOB when they weren’t traveling in military vehicles. Another year to two of progress at this rate and the base might become a tourist destination, if you could ignore all the concertina wire and sandbagged trailers.

  Moose considered the men in his convoy, as he did every time the Wolfhounds prepared to exit the FOB. They were like cowboys mounted up to ride out of a fort. Most soldiers on the FOB would not go outside the wire today. Most never did; they were support soldiers. That made the Wolfhounds different and special. The rest were pussies.

  A hundred meters before the gate, the Wolfhounds pulled into a small parking lot for final pre-combat checks, locked and loaded their weapons, and again checked individual equipment and special equipment like IED jammers.

  Moose liked the next thing best: test-firing their weapons. A pit for test firing was just inside the exit. Moose patted his machinegun in anticipation, as if he was waking the gun’s latent capacity for violence. All of them had heard stories about machineguns jamming during engagements. No way did he want that happening to him. One by one the crews tested their weapons. When D24 was ready, Moose swiveled his .50 cal slightly to the right and depressed the barrel, aimed at the firing pit, charged the gun, and pulled the trigger for an instant, firing 3-4 rounds. The heavy deep hammering of the gun thrilled him, the almost-sexual vibrations pounding through his body and the truck.

  D23 was in front of D24. Moose noticed Kale in D23’s turret. Kale must have sensed him, because he turned and made eye contact. Moose smiled. Kale looked like a man waiting for anesthesia. What was he thinking? Moose brought a salute to his helmet, acknowledging Kale’s look and hoping to give him a boost.

  Time to get serious again. Moose pulled his dark goggles down from his Kevlar. He felt like a welder firing up a blowtorch. His mind now underwent a purposeful change, a conscious separation from insignificant thoughts. External lights only—on whatever he was looking at. No introspection. No silly memories. He put FOB luxuries behind him. Only the gun, his crew, and the platoon were important.

  Kale, after exchanging glances with Moose, found himself once again wishing he had the man’s single-mindedness. Kale wanted it to feel right. Why was he different? Fuck! How would he react if something went wrong today? Unlike most other Wolfhounds, he had yet to fire a gun in combat. Sometimes, back on the FOB in the evenings, he would check out a machinegun from the arms room and take it to his trailer. After dark, alone in the trailer, he practiced repeatedly disassembling and reassembling the gun with his eyes closed. Assembly and disassembly of the gun would make him more self-assured, maybe bring a spiritual familiarity with the gun. Confidence gained from practice minimizes failure.

  Did Moose ever question things? Moose appeared immune to doubts.

  Last night’s dream hovered around Kale like an insect squadron. Could he handle another attack? Could he kill? Thus far he’d done his duty. He’d survived the bombing that killed Ramirez. He’d gone on every mission. Yet his insides stewed.

  The idea that others would k
now if he failed revolted Kale more than anything else possibly could. Frustrated, he put the gun on safe and rotated the turret so that the gun faced forward. He sat on the seat sling, his upper body already sweat-soaked.

  Wynn glanced around at D21’s crew: Gung, Lee, Singleton, and Cengo.

  Each soldier was making final equipment adjustments. Gung pulled the wrist end of his gloves to tighten them against his fingers. He switched on the truck’s Warlock counter-IED system and revved the Humvee’s engine twice.

  Singleton unlocked the turret and swung it once from side to side, and then pushed the stock of the 240B downward, lifting the barrel skyward. He shuffled his feet to get a comfortable stance, as if he were a batter getting ready for the pitch.

  Then Singleton cranked his music loud for a few moments, as he normally did just before the platoon left the FOB, and Wynn heard, as usual, Seal's soulful lyrics to "Crazy."

  “We sure is crazy,” Lee echoed.

  Lee pushed his goggles up higher on his nose with his gloved index finger. He looked left and right once, reflexively, hunting for anything suspicious. Then he did it again, concentrating harder the second time. Whatever was out there was out there. They were ready to roll.

  Wynn repositioned his radio earpiece behind the left straps of his helmet, making sure he could hear well. He leaned forward and turned the SINCGARS’s volume up and tapped the remote speaker with the knuckle of his right index finger. He checked his rifle and repositioned it, the black barrel down in the floorboards, the stock secure in a holder. This must be something like what NASCAR drivers feel just before race start, he thought. He checked his watch a final time before departing. The designated census area was about 25 minutes away.

  The convoy paused for a few seconds at the end of the road leaving the FOB, and Wynn called HQ to report the Wolfhounds departure time.

  “All right, old mule. Time to move again,” Gung said to the truck.

  “Let’s do it,” said Wynn to the crew, then to Singleton up in the turret, “You awake, old man?” At 29, Singleton was older than all but Cooke.

  “Always, Sir.”

  “Sleep more later, old sarge,” Gung said, piling on Singleton.

  “All right, go,” Wynn ordered.

  The convoy moved. D22, SSG Turnbeck commanding, pulled out first. Instantly, a civilian car got out of the way too slowly, and Turnbeck jumped on him.

  “Fucker. Get your head out of your ass.” Then the radio chatter began.

  “He should be shot,” suggested someone inside D22.

  A car approached from a side road.

  “Car moving left to right, two o’clock. Don’t get complacent,” Wynn said, making sure his crew was on its toes. The moving car ahead of them stopped, then accelerated off to the side of the road.

  “Shit!” Gung exclaimed, as he maneuvered adroitly around a few goats that scampered across the road.

  “You trying to get dinner, man?” Singleton responded.

  The platoon’s four turret gunners rhythmically swiveled their turrets, looking for potential threats.

  “Traffic ahead.”

  “Move on.”

  “Warlocking, Mack?” Wynn asked Gung, referring to the electronic counter-IED system mounted in D21.

  “Yes, Sir. Everything perfect.”

  “One on the right, coming behind us. Same speed,” Cooke announced from D24, the trail truck. A car had come out of nowhere and followed the convoy.

  “He slowed down. Ugh, and now turned off.” The car disappeared down a side street.

  The men returned to routine talk, both in the trucks and between them by radio. Most recognized every voice on the radio. Their out-loud, gut-instinct mutual thinking made a kind of soldier’s symphony. Short clear comments, playful banter, threaded together by an easy but serious teamwork. No other way to communicate while driving through hell.

  As they drove, Moose closely observed his surroundings. The platoon passed through several neighborhoods, each one a quiltwork of adobe buildings, often without windows, all with flat roofs, most constructed of rough-cut block or brick. The exterior plaster looked flesh-colored and full of imperfections, like the skin of an aging man. Multiple generations frequently lived together. Because no reliable public water system existed, Iraqis stored water in the metal tanks on rooftops, which fed indoors by gravity.

  Doing his duty scanning the surrounding area while the convoy moved, Moose started thinking about what a body would look like if hit by several .50 caliber rounds. That person would be hurtin’. So far he had seen three dead soldiers and more than a dozen dead and injured civilians since arriving in country. He remembered most of them clearly. He felt rather clinical about it, like it was research. It wasn’t that the deaths and ugliness didn’t bother him—perhaps he was just more detached than most people. Two of the dead had been Iraqi civilians, killed instantly when a 120mm mortar round rigged as an IED—probably intended for the Wolfhounds—blew up their car as the platoon convoy passed going the opposite direction.

  The Wolfhounds had stopped to investigate. The IED blew marble-to-baseball-sized holes into the lower part of the car’s passenger door. The passenger had taken the brunt of the blast and his body was completely disfigured. His buttocks and hips had essentially disappeared, and the lower part of his back was split open, exposing a section of spine that looked like splintered wood. A bloody mess of thousands of particles of flesh was sprayed over what remained of the car’s interior. The driver took the rest of the explosion. Due to the direction of the blast, angled from road level through the lower part of the passenger’s door and up, the driver’s shoulders and head were smashed, but his lower body was largely unscathed. His upper right arm was ripped from the shoulder, and dangled from thin strips of ligaments. His right forearm and hand were sliced off. A chunk of that hand with three fingers still attached lay charred on the smoking remnants of the car’s dashboard. What remained of his head was a messy clump of flesh about the size of a pink grapefruit. Moose remembered wondering what the man had originally looked like.

  In his mind, for a moment, he put these two dismembered guys on polished metal tables in a well-lit morgue. He pictured them naked and washed, wounds exposed and visible. Imagining this, he recreated all the details of their destruction.

  Then Moose remembered a 10-year-old kid who had his left hand blown off when a mortar round that he’d carried home to show his father exploded. The father was unhurt. He carried the boy to the Wolfhound convoy to seek aid.

  And there was Ramirez, and the two Civil Affairs soldiers.

  Moose reached forward and stroked the big .50 cal.

  D24 hit a sharp bump on the road.

  “I’m still here!” Moose yelped.

  “Ayeee, yep. Passed your flying lessons. Been there. Done that,” rejoined Cuebas.

  “You didn’t pass, buddy.”

  “The hell I didn’t. The next time we come to a bumpy area, I’m undoing your harness. Let you fly out and join Hajji on a pilgrimage.”

  “You might get away with it, Mex. You could sneak daylight by a rooster.”

  “Ayeee. Not a Mex. I’m Puerto Rican.”

  “I’m the Mex, and I like to party,” said Ortiz, D24’s driver.

  “Drop the bullshit,” Cooke ordered.

  “Slowing down,” Turnbeck reported. “More congestion ahead.”

  “Fucking move,” Ortiz said. “Geeeet out of the way!” The car driver couldn’t hear this, but he finally crawled to the side of the road.

  “Sometimes we must scare these people shitless,” Moose said, after a pause.

  A car that looked like a taxi came down the wrong side of the street.

  “You idiot.”

  “We’re smart and we’re doing it.”

  The Wolfhounds jumped the street median and drove against the civilian traffic. The oncoming cars pulled hurriedly to the side. A man and three children rushed across the street. He graspe
d two of the children’s hands as if he were afraid he might lose them. One was a girl, maybe 12 or 13 years old. The other two were boys, perhaps between six and nine. All wore filthy clothing, clothing probably worn for weeks.

  The Wolfhounds approached a bridge.

  “Slow mover on the overpass. Left to right,” Turnbeck reported.

  “And right to left,” someone called out, as a second vehicle drove onto the overpass, going in the other direction.

  The first car was almost directly above them on the overpass as D22 drove under it.

  Seconds later, as D24 drove under, Moose remembered a story he had heard about a VBIED detonating on a bridge and blowing it up.

  The platoon merged on a wider highway, and traffic became lighter. A cart full of propane tanks stood on the left side of the road up ahead—a man, probably the dealer, standing beside it.

  “Propane. Exactly what I love,” said Moose, as the convoy passed.

  The tanks, rusty and beaten up, looked as if they had been hauled out of a landfill somewhere. Propane tanks had been used in bomb attacks. The Iraqis used propane for kitchen cooking.

  More road bumps, this time potholes. The road looked carpet bombed.

  Moose noticed several cots on the roof of one house. In hot weather, some Iraqis slept outside on their roofs. Most neighborhoods had no air conditioners.

  “Red stationary vehicle. Single occupant,” reported Turnbeck.

  Seconds later, he said, “No problem. Think it’s a woman. It is a woman.”

  Two mules strolled off the right median, a large brown one and a smaller white one.

  “Rather see horses,” said Lee.

  “We ought to make soldiers out of them,” Moose suggested.

  “Looks like you and your girlfriend,” Cuebas ribbed Moose.

  “Fuck you.”

  Ahead, the convoy was channeled by curbs on the side of the road and a concrete median.