One Bullet Away

by Nathaniel C. Fick

  Combat is a form of vertigo. I was trained to thrive on chaos, but nothing prepared me for the fear of doubting my own senses. Frequently, I found that my memory of a firefight was just that—mine. Afterward, five Marines told five different stories. I remembered turning left off the dirt road onto a paved street running west through Al Gharraf. I saw fire coming from buildings to the right and remembered a drag race of four or five kilometers out to the highway. That was my memory, my accepted truth of what had happened.

  But the map showed the distance was only about fifteen hundred meters, less than half of what I'd estimated. Some in the platoon remembered armed men standing to our left as we made the turn; I never saw them. The domed mosque was burned into my memory, but only Colbert and Wright could remember seeing it as I described it. Person was adamant that we had driven across a bridge during our sprint to the highway. Not one other person in the platoon remembered a bridge, but there it was on the map.

  ***

  Marines manned three of the four machine guns in the late afternoon. They searched the horizon with binoculars, calling out points of interest to one another. The fourth gun lay in pieces across a Humvee hood. Over it, Corporal Jacks labored intently. I watched his big dirty hands cleaning each small part with tenderness, even love. He reassembled the gun and then began to wipe down each individual grenade in the linked belts of Mark-19 ammunition. Watching Jacks clean his gun before eating, sleeping, or cleaning himself, I saw a bit of the essence of the Marine Corps, the spirit that has sustained young Marines in bad places for more than two hundred years. This was no idle patriotic reverie on my part, though. It was the kernel of a growing unwillingness to watch these Marines mistreated or wrongly employed by those with more power than experience. I cautioned myself not to pass judgment too quickly. As a platoon commander, I saw only a tiny piece of the puzzle. But every tactical fiber in my body said driving through Al Gharraf had been a mistake. We had gotten lucky, and it would be dangerous if someone mistook that luck for skill.

  The sandstorm shrouded what was left of the daylight, and I hurried to finish preparing for a night on the line. I squinted through my compass to give left and right lateral limits to each machine gunner. The gunners marked these limits on their guns' traversing bars so that in case we were attacked in the dark, the guns' sectors would all overlap but wouldn't include any other friendly positions. This was routine procedure, essentially unchanged since World War I. Battlefield success came from timely creativity atop a firm foundation of grunt work. Recon's reputation was built on creativity and individual improvisation, but woe to the young lieutenant who failed to heed the unglamorous basics. Upon them, all else rested.

  And so I went down the line, sighting, calculating, and drawing lines on my map. As I worked, Gunny Wynn also visited each team, looking for injuries and equipment damage and checking our ammunition. Through the whole engagement, the platoon had fired only about a thousand rounds, and we carried enough extra ammo in the back of my Humvee to top everyone off. At the end of the line, members of Lovell's team were counting bullet holes in their Humvee and marveling at holes in the rest of their gear. Stinetorf showed me a long gash through the canvas of his North Face backpack where an AK-47 round had carved its path only inches from where he'd been standing.

  "I'm guessing their warranty won't cover this," he said, fingering the rip.

  Colbert's Humvee had also been shot up. There were twenty-two bullet holes in it, including six in the door next to Evan Wright's seat. When I walked up, he was studying them with a kind of awe.

  "How you feeling, Evan?" I half-expected him to say he had enough information for his story and wanted to leave on the next resupply helicopter.

  "Embedded," he replied. "More embedded than I ever thought I'd be."

  Espera put an arm around his shoulders. "But he's staying with us. Dude's got balls."

  Gusts of wind swept across the field, blowing dust through little knots of Marines still reliving the day's drive. I dropped my pack on the downwind side of the Humvee and stripped out of my flak jacket and helmet, feeling light and free under the breezy overcast. I swung a pickax into the earth, carving out my bed. Far from a chore, I found digging therapeutic as the day's tension flowed from my arms through the handle to dissipate in the ground. While I dug, I thought about the relativity of safety. My friends and family at home were surely worried about me at that very moment. For them, Iraq was a dangerous place. For me, some towns were dangerous, and some were safe. Within the dangerous towns, some blocks were dangerous and some safe. On a dangerous block, one side of the street could be dangerous and the other safe. I finished digging the hole before I could work out whether that meant I was always safe or always in danger.

  Darkness fell, and the wind picked up. Thunder mixed with the rumbling of distant explosions, and lightning blended with the flash of artillery rounds shooting overhead. Gunny Wynn and I sought refuge in the cab, where we monitored the radio and tore into our first MRE of the day. I realized that I was ravenous. Wynn gnawed on a Tootsie Roll as I watched his face reflected in the windshield by the dim green radio lights.

  "What's on your mind?" I asked.

  "After Nasiriyah and this last place, it's pretty clear to me what the Iraqi strategy is. They won't touch us out here in open country because we'll blast the shit out of them. They'll wait till we're in the towns, and then they'll attrit us. When we fight back and wound civilians, they'll get paraded all over TV and make us look like thugs."

  I looked at the map, tracing my finger up Highway 7 from Nasiriyah to Al Gharraf. Then I continued tracing north along our proposed route. An Nasr, Ash Shatrah, Ar Rifa, Qalat Sukkar, Al Hayy, Al Kut—a string of towns stretching all the way to the Tigris. And north of the Tigris lay Baghdad, the biggest town of all.

  "Well, it doesn't look like it'll get better anytime soon," I said.

  We traded radio watch back and forth for the rest of the night. Sometime before dawn, as I lay in my hole, it started to rain.

  26

  THE MORNING OF MARCH 26 cleared, as if the rain had washed all the dirt from the air. Sunrise revealed Marines caked in a muddy crust, stretching sore limbs and beginning the daily ritual of brewing coffee. Austere living intensified our appreciation of life's simple pleasures. At the top of that list was a hot mug of coffee, the thicker the better. Next to each Humvee, battered canteen cups perched atop flaming pieces of C-4 plastic explosive. Brews were passed around and shared communally; to drink an entire cup yourself was poor form.

  Having slept in my MOPP gear and boots, all I had to do after waking was stand up. I rolled up my sleeping bag and stuffed the wet, misshapen lump in the back of the Humvee. Despite the discomfort, this lifestyle hummed with efficiency. No shaving, showering, or ironing clothes. No blow dryers, breakfast, newspaper, or e-mail. Just wake up and live.

  A radio call summoned me to company headquarters, where the same morning routine was under way. The captain briefed the day's plan: get on the highway in thirty minutes and attack north. No Americans were currently farther north than Al Gharraf, and we'd be leapfrogging up the highway with other elements of the RCT. Changes would be briefed on the fly, he said, so be sure to keep the radios up and running. Oh, yeah, and watch out for RPG ambushes and car bombs.

  Gunny Wynn and the team leaders waited around the hood of our Humvee. I grabbed my map and joined them.

  "Everybody's favorite mission: movement to contact," I said. "We're driving north on Highway 7, and we're attached to RCT-1." The team leaders took notes, studying their own maps. "We'll be leapfrogging and strong-pointing as we go. All friendlies are on the road, so if anything off to the flanks worries you, it's probably enemy. Cobras will be on and off. Any questions?"

  "Sir, do you think Hooters girls would look better in white shorts than orange?" I grinned, and the others laughed. These guys were blessed with perfect timing.

  We continued through a few serious concerns and contingencies before breaking up for
the team leaders to brief their men. Gunny Wynn and I cleaned our rifles, rubbed pencil erasers on all the radio connections to scour off corrosion from the night's rain, and started the engine. Ten minutes later, in fits and starts, the battalion snaked out of the field and up onto the single ribbon of Highway 7.

  Like many bad days, this one started out well. We hummed north, passing the massed combat power of RCT-1 spread out along the highway. They were still stopped near the road intersection where we'd shot through Al Gharraf and landed in the sobka field. The town sat three hundred meters east of the highway, shuttered and menacing. As the sky continued to clear, sunlight dappled rich fields and green trees. Cooking fires smoked in chimneys. Young shepherds waved as we passed, while their sisters, dressed in robes of red and deep purple, peeked shyly from behind gates.

  We halted at the southern end of An Nasr, pulling off the pavement in a herringbone. I walked to each vehicle, checking on the Marines and telling them we'd be holding for a few minutes while part of the RCT passed us to enter the town. The three snipers uncased their rifles and scanned our flanks, watching for Iraqi shooters.

  In many cases, the Iraqis seemed almost completely indifferent to violence. We could be locked in a raging gunfight, with mortars exploding and jets screaming overhead, only to see three women saunter past with buckets on their heads, strolling to the town well. This made our obligation to spare civilians even harder. Snipers are the ultimate smart weapon because they hit only what they mean to kill.

  As we talked, a company of tanks rumbled past. Some were painted green and some desert tan. All had names such as "Peacemaker" and "Avenger" stenciled on their barrels. The crews stood in their hatches, looking robotic beneath goggles, armor, and helmets. I noticed that once they'd passed us, they closed the hatches and proceeded toward An Nasr buttoned up tight. A company of LAVs followed them, also buttoned up, with their turrets alternating to the left and right. The highway rose south of An Nasr on a graceful, modern span of concrete, crossing low green fields and a small river before dropping back to disappear into the cluster of buildings. The tanks clanked over the bridge and out of sight. Overhead, four Cobra gunships raced north, splitting into two pairs and turning low circles over the center of town. Finally, it seemed, we were entering a town properly.

  The word came to move out, and we began to climb the bridge. An Nasr's streets were deserted, gates closed and shutters latched. Nothing moved. Tanks sat at all the cross streets, turrets leveled along the roads to discourage anyone from approaching. We passed block after block, and I started to relax. Maybe the fedayeen weren't here, or maybe our firepower had intimidated them. As my shoulders loosened and my breathing slowed, a long burst of automatic-weapons fire roared over my right shoulder.

  Incoming.

  Tight shoulders, shallow breaths. "Hitman Two, taking fire from the east." I tried to keep my voice steady and measured as I passed the warning.

  The Humvee wove back and forth as Wynn fumbled with his rifle and the steering wheel. "Goddamn it. I don't see anything."

  Another burst of fire ripped overhead with a series of sonic cracks.

  "Where are the shooters?" I swiveled my head, looking for the source of the fire. We couldn't shoot back indiscriminately, but I didn't want our attackers to think they had us running scared. Our mission was clear: get to Baghdad. We choked down our rage and continued north, never firing back because we saw nothing to shoot at. Within minutes, we passed once more into open fields and groves of trees.

  Bravo Company led the battalion, and Second Platoon led Bravo. Ahead of us was only LAR, and it sounded as if they were in a fight. I heard the hammering of chain guns and the whooshing of 25 mm cannons. Smoke curled into the sky ahead, and I saw flaming trucks through my binoculars. We pressed forward. I found that instinct took over in firefights, and fear was replaced by the countless small tasks of living, leading, and fighting. The anticipation was worse. As we'drove toward the guns, I unconsciously pulled my arms and legs inward, trying to tuck inside my body armor. My doorless Humvee, which south of An Nasr had satisfied me as a pleasant way to enjoy the beautiful countryside, now felt ridiculously exposed. In my mind, every tree, rooftop, and berm hid a fighter with an RPG, and that RPG was surely going to hit me square in the chest. At first, I stayed off the radio for fear that my voice would sound funny. But when I made a call, I was surprised to hear it steady and calm.

  LAR left the fedayeen few options but to flee, surrender, or die. We passed a minibus that had recently exploded. Its occupants were charred lumps, some hanging from the shattered windows. Only the driver was alive, and he waved feebly, still seated behind the steering wheel and burned nearly black. On the sides of the road, dead gunmen sprawled from fighting holes. we'drove gingerly past one still clutching his RPG launcher. Rocket-propelled grenades littered the ground around his corpse.

  Four pickup trucks burned along the shoulder. Each had been mounted with an antiaircraft machine gun and parked facing north, so the guns could be fired south as we advanced up the highway. Now the guns were blackened and bent, and their skeletal crews smoldered in the dust. Container trucks and tankers burned farther off the road, sending clouds of greasy smoke into the sky. I turned to focus on a flash of color in my peripheral vision and saw a dead girl in a blue dress sprawled in the road. She looked to be about six years old. Next to her, crouched on his haunches with his hands atop his head in surrender, a uniformed soldier hissed at us as we passed. Reaching back to four years in a Jesuit high school, I found myself mouthing the Twenty-third Psalm: "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."

  We sprinted through the town of Ash Shatrah with every available gun hanging out our windows. we'didn't know it at the time, but Ash Shatrah would later take on symbolic importance in the war. A supply convoy would be ambushed on this same road, and a Marine sergeant would be captured and mutilated, some said crucified. (Our battalion's Alpha Company was sent to work with the CIA and the Free Iraqi Forces to recover the Marine's body and teach the people of Ash Shatrah a lesson about desecrating Marines. Just before the operation, however, the Marines realized that most of their Iraqi allies had fled in the night.)

  The next town on the map was Ar Rifa. Battalion headquarters called to say that we would reverse the An Nasr plan—recon would enter the town first and strong-point it for the RCT to move through. My platoon would lead the battalion into Ar Rifa, peeling off the road at the first major intersection to set up a strongpoint. The rest of Bravo Company would continue a kilometer farther north and do the same. Then Alpha and Charlie would pass by us to establish their strongpoints in the central and northern parts of town. Once we were all in place, RCT-1 would thunder through to continue the push north. By the time we entered the town, it was early afternoon, but we expected the whole process to take less than an hour.

  Ar Rifa stank. The town sprawled west of the highway, stopping at a wall just fifty meters from the road. Sewage flowed through drainage ditches, and trash piles dotted the roadside. An electrical substation stood just east of the highway. It was on fire; the bluish white blaze smelled like fried wiring. Three hundred meters past it were a smattering of mud huts, a row of palm trees, and a few berms. South of the power station, a small road joined the highway from the east. This is where I led the platoon to set up our strongpoint.

  We parked our five Humvees in the shallow defilade of a drainage ditch and posted security in all directions. The snipers peered through their scopes at walls, gates, and rooftops. Machine gunners trained their guns on likely targets, one north, one south, one east, and one west. Gunny Wynn and I studied the map and plotted targets for on-call artillery to speed up the response time in case we needed help fast. As we worked, the rest of the battalion roared past, smiling and waving, clearly happy not to be stopping at our sorry excuse for a strongpoint.

  "I've got armed men moving in the trees!" Christeson shouted, then pointed as three or four men darted through the tree line, carrying RPGs an
d looking our way.

  I talked Wynn onto them, and he rested his M40 sniper rifle on the hood of the Humvee. Patiently, he stared through the scope, ignoring the noise and confusion swirling around him. His finger tightened on the trigger, then slackened again, waiting for the perfect shot. I was turning to answer the radio when his rifle cracked.

  "Don't know if I hit 'em, but that'll make 'em think twice."

  Two of the men ran out from behind a berm. Christeson opened up with a light machine gun, spitting 5.56 mm rounds at them in bursts of eight or ten. I saw through my binoculars that he was aiming high. Tracers arced over their heads as they ran.

  "Lower, Christeson. You're shooting too high." My voice sounded calm, almost like a coach on the rifle range. Again, this surprised me. I was learning that leadership under fire is part theater. There must be competence to back it up, but appearances go a long way toward setting the tone for the whole platoon. Christeson dropped his rounds, and the men fell. "Keep an eye out, Christeson, and kill anyone else who comes at us from that direction."

  Only a football field away in the other direction were the walls of Ar Rifa. Like most Iraqi towns, this one blended the East African and Soviet brands of despair. The houses were some combination of mud, cinderblocks, and unfinished wood. Water cisterns perched on flat roofs, and makeshift television antennas crawled from upper-story windows like steel ivy. Dark windows, many without glass, broke the thick walls. The buildings sat close together, separated only by narrow alleys closed off with wrought iron gates. Government buildings, generally made of stone or poured concrete, stood out among the houses. Their spare, symmetrical forms oozed authoritarianism. Often their only ornamentation was an Iraqi crest over the door, and sometimes a tattered green-and-black flag flying in front. In my military judgment, Ar Rifa was a densely concentrated natural fortress of thick walls and tall gates, and we sat far too close to it.