One Bullet Away

by Nathaniel C. Fick

  From behind came the distinctive clanking of treads on pavement, and we moved our Humvees off the road to allow the seventy-ton behemoths to pass. Two M1A1 Abram tanks were followed by eight LAV-25s, each armed with a 25 mm Bushmaster cannon. For a grunt, working with tanks is like having jets overhead or being in the bottom of a deep fighting hole. It just feels good. In an embarrassment of riches, two Cobras reappeared from the east, thumping overhead without lights: lethal, menacing, utterly reassuring.

  The lead platoon commander radioed that he was moving. A kilometer ahead, the tanks and LAVs fanned off the road, forming a line along the riverbank, pointing their guns toward the town. With a flash of light and a deafening roar, they fired their first salvo. Then another, and another, and another. When a tank fires its main gun in the dark, a tongue of flame shoots ahead, and the flash and bang of the shot is quickly followed by the flash and bang of the impact. The LAVs pumped chain gun rounds in burst after burst. They sounded like paper being torn, or a long guttural belch. From overhead, the Cobras fired Zuni rockets and Hellfire missiles. Each impact sent up a column of liquid fire. we'drove forward into this storm, with smoke swirling through the doors and cordite filling our nostrils. As we'drew abreast of the tanks, they ceased fire, and we moved forward to the bridge alone.

  I planned to put my platoon on the north side to cover Third Platoon as they crossed into Muwaffiqiya. Once across, they would sit in place on the far side of the bridge and cover our crossing. The tanks and LAVs were too heavy to cross with us. I watched through my goggles as Third Platoon's five vehicles crept around the Dumpster and across the narrow concrete span onto the riverfront street. Company headquarters followed behind them. Suddenly, the command vehicle, towing a trailer filled with supplies, lurched and settled, as if about to plunge into the river.

  "We're stuck on the bridge," the captain reported. Considering his situation, he sounded calm. Two Cobras hovered over the river, firing rockets into the alleyways on the far side. The Marines in company headquarters were out of their Humvee, trying to rock the trailer from a hole in the deck of the bridge. As much as any firefight we were in, this one typified the strange distance of combat. Third Platoon was trapped in the hostile town, alone, with no way to be reinforced or to fall back. Company headquarters struggled at the center of the bridge, as if spotlighted on a stage. Only fifty meters from them, we could do nothing. I held the platoon in place on the near side of the bridge, as much for moral support as anything else. In the darkness and smoke, we couldn't safely fire close to the other Marines. We pushed out security to the flanks and rear and watched the drama unfold.

  An hour later, with dawn approaching, headquarters managed to free the trailer. They reversed across the bridge and halted in front of our position. In the gray light, I watched Third Platoon's Humvees rumble out of the demolished town, one by one, and cross to safety. As they drove past, the Marines looked like caricatures, pale with dark, sunken eyes. Throughout the night, the rest of the battalion had remained behind us, out of the fight. Now a few headquarters officers rushed forward and, as my Marines manned security positions in the fields along the road, eagerly clustered around the men we'd killed. I watched in disbelief as camera flashes popped in the dim light and senior officers laughed and strutted around.

  I had kept my cool through almost seven hours of nonstop combat, through killing men so close I could hear them breathe, through evacuating my wounded brothers, through thinking I wouldn't live to see the sunrise. Finally, I lost control. Running up the road, I was in a rage.

  "What the hell are you doing?" I shouted. "You stupid motherfuckers. Taking pictures? You make me sick."

  A headquarters captain grabbed my shoulder and told me to calm down. I shook free. Major Benelli looked at me with disdain, as if it were in poor taste for me to ruin the victory celebration.

  Headquarters began to trickle away; my explosion had not been entirely without effect. I looked at the dead bodies sprawled in the trees. Six or seven of them, young men like us, clean-shaven and dressed meticulously in pleated trousers, button-down shirts, and brown loafers. Their silver belt buckles gleamed. They looked more like computer programmers than Islamic fighters. AK-47s surrounded the bodies, along with RPG launchers and piles of grenades.

  Clutched in the death grip of one of the men were two hand grenades, seconds from being thrown. Another corpse stood almost upright, stapled to a tree trunk by .50-caliber machine gun rounds. A third fighter looked as if he'd died the clichéd death by a thousand cuts. One of the Cobra's fléchette rockets had hit next to him, sending thousands of tiny metal slivers into every inch of his body. There was no blood, only razor-thin cuts. We started picking through their pockets for information.

  "Holy shit, these guys are Syrians!" Each man carried a Syrian passport, complete with official Iraqi entry visas. The visas were stamped in red ink with blank lines for the date, place, and reason of entry to be written in by hand. Each of the dead men had entered Iraq during the first week of the war at a crossing point on the Syrian border. Their written reasons were all the same: jihad.

  I found no joy in looking at the men we'd killed, no satisfaction, no sense of victory or accomplishment. But I wasn't disturbed either. I fell back on an almost clinical detachment. The men were adults who chose to be here. I was an adult who chose to be here. They shot at us and missed. We shot at them and didn't miss. The fight was fair. All the same, I was happy my platoon wasn't here to see what they'd wrought. Sometimes it's better not knowing.

  As I walked away, I heard a shout behind me. "We got a live one over here!"

  Far behind the trees, a groaning man lay in the grass, one of his legs nearly severed by machine gun fire. The grass around him was slick with blood. For a second, the Marines looked at me, eyes flashing between my face and my pistol. I think they thought I'd walk up and shoot him in the head, like a lame horse or a shark on a fishing charter. Colonel Ferrando elected to treat and evacuate the wounded man. I felt relieved. Two Marines slid him onto a stretcher and into the back of a Humvee, and he was whisked down the road to our staging area from the night before.

  I collected the platoon, and we withdrew back down the highway, the last ones out just as we'd been the first ones in. The teams took their places in the defensive perimeter while Gunny Wynn and I searched for Sergeant Patrick. On our way across the field, neither of us said anything. We were preoccupied with the loss of one of our team leaders for the rest of the war, wondering at the stupidity of the mission that had nearly cost us our lives, and just plain exhausted from massive adrenaline overload. The sun had cleared the horizon, and it was a gorgeous morning. Dew on the grass sparkled in the light and reminded me of early-morning practice on the playing fields in high school.

  We found the battalion's sergeant major aggressively watching our approach, hands on his hips.

  "Morning, Sergeant Major. Where's Sergeant Patrick?"

  "How the hell should I know?"

  "Well, he was evacuated back here a few hours ago after he got hit. What happened to him?" It was clear from the sergeant major's confusion that he didn't know of Patrick's wound. He hadn't been on the mission the previous evening and was so far out of the loop that he still didn't know what was going on. We bypassed him and kept looking.

  On a gentle hillside, we saw a supine form under a poncho liner. Patrick's foot was bandaged, and an IV hung from his arm. "How you doing, Shawn?" I asked.

  "Good, sir. What's up, Gunny? How's the platoon?"

  "Fine. Stafford took some frag in the leg, but he's OK. Glad to see you talking."

  "They couldn't get a bird in last night, so I'm just waiting here. A truck's supposed to take me to the field hospital."

  I told Sergeant Patrick about the wounded Syrian. "He'll probably be riding out with you. You good with that?"

  "Long as he don't try nuthin'."

  "I don't think he's in any shape to try anything."

  Sergeant Patrick's assistant team leader walk
ed up. Rudy had evacuated Patrick the night before and then returned to lead his team during our second attempt to cross the bridge. "Damn, brother, you're looking rough," Rudy said with a grin. "The battalion commander always said you looked like a bum, and this morning I'd say he's right."

  The four of us were laughing and joking, relieved to be alive and grateful to see Patrick, when the sergeant major ambled over.

  "Hey, jokers, get the hell outta here and give Sergeant Patrick his space."

  I thought he was kidding and looked over at him. He was serious. "Get lost, Sergeant Major. You didn't even know he was here," I said.

  "Now, Lieutenant, that ain't right..." His voice trailed off. Walking away, he looked crestfallen—left out of the mission and then not even able to assert some authority in its wake.

  We gathered Patrick's gear and put together a small bag of things he might need in the hospital. The platoon rotated over in shifts to wish him well and joke about free rides home, million-dollar wounds, and the rest. Despite their humor, I knew that they were rattled. It was hard to see a man so respected get hit, and even harder to say goodbye. The bluster and jokes were a front for Sergeant Patrick's benefit, but inside we hurt. Gingerly, we lifted his stretcher aboard an open truck and settled him comfortably, one last act of faith for a friend. We loaded the Syrian next and climbed down. Wynn and I waved as the truck pulled away, then we walked back down to the platoon.

  The Marines were on autopilot, minds elsewhere as bodies busily cleaned weapons, changed tires, and reloaded ammunition. Gunny Wynn and I took stock of our vehicle. A bullet had torn a ragged gash in the door frame just below his seat, and another had punched a hole behind my headrest that was large enough to fit my fist through. Holes peppered our canvas tarp, one of them surely left by the shrapnel now deep in Stafford's leg. I followed the paths of the other bullets to make sure they hadn't done any hidden damage to our equipment that would become apparent at some inopportune time. One round had passed through the tarp, then clear through a box of MREs, before piercing the plastic of a sniper rifle case and lodging against the buttstock of the rifle. I picked up the misshapen lump of lead and dropped it into my breast pocket. Maybe after a few more towns I'd have enough to make my own horseshoe.

  I walked among the platoon, from vehicle to vehicle, visiting each team to listen to stories, take requests, and answer questions. Work continued while we talked, and everyone seemed to take renewed interest in the simple pleasures of eating a bag of pretzels or slipping out of his MOPP jacket to feel the warmth of the sun on his shoulders. Evan Wright was sprawled in the grass next to Colbert's Humvee, laughing with the Marines who stood around him scrubbing their M4s.

  "I'm surprised you're still with us," I said.

  "Because I should have left or could have been shot?"

  I laughed. "Both."

  Beneath the banter, the mood was morose. After earlier firefights, I had seen a quiet confidence in the younger Marines, the realization that they had faced the beast and won. That was gone now. The beast had fought back, and although no one was dead, we had paid a blood price. The more experienced Marines were vocal.

  "Sir, what the fuck were the commanders thinking, sending us in there with no armor to clear a fucking town? We could have all been killed, and for what? We're sitting in the same goddamn field we were in last night, as if nothing had happened, except we got the shit shot out of us and lost a great team leader."

  I walked a fine line. As an officer, I couldn't badmouth decisions the way a lance corporal could. Even as a lowly first lieutenant, I simply had too much rank, too much authority and influence. It would be disloyal and insubordinate, a transgression both moral and legal. At the same time, though, to smile in the face of stupidity and say something about liberating the Iraqi people or living up to the example of Iwo Jima and Hue City would neuter me in the eyes of my men. Men shrink in combat to little circles of trust: us versus them. A platoon that puts its commander in the "them" category is a dangerous place to be. Every young officer quickly learns the difference between legal authority and moral authority. Legal authority is worn on the collar—the gold and silver rank insignia that garner salutes and the title "sir." It doesn't win fire-fights. Moral authority is the legitimacy granted to a leader who knows his job and cares about his men. In combat, I learned to rely on moral authority much more than on legal authority.

  So I conceded part of the Marine's statement. "That was bullshit, bad tactics. After all the artillery prep and with the air escort, no one expected that ambush to happen. We were all wrong. I can't speak for the battalion, but I can tell you that will never happen again in this platoon." I paused and locked eyes with the Marine to be sure he knew I wasn't just talking. "I'm sorry about Pappy. I don't know if we'll be fighting for another three days, three weeks, or three months, but I can tell you one thing. We have to learn from what we'do right and what we'do wrong, then move on. There were twenty-three of us, back to back. Now there are twenty-two. We have to get each other home in one piece."

  The Marine nodded, accepting this line of reasoning. Strong combat leadership is never by committee. Platoon commanders must command, and command in battle isn't based on consensus. It's based on consent. Any leader wields only as much authority and influence as is conferred by the consent of those he leads. The Marines allowed me to be their commander, and they could revoke their permission at any time.

  I stopped at Sergeant Reyes's vehicle, where half the team was replacing a tire shredded by machine gun fire while the other half brewed coffee and relived the night's adventure. Behind them, their Humvee's windshield displayed a hole exactly 7.62 millimeters wide where an AK-47 round had passed within inches of Sergeant Reyes's head. Now Rudy himself was serving as barista, carefully bringing water to a boil through coffee grounds, then pouring it with a delicate flourish that topped each cup with white crema. He spoke as he worked.

  "So I'm driving along when Shawn says, 'Hey, Rudy, turn around.'" He imitated Sergeant Patrick's North Carolina drawl. "I start turning to the left, and ack ack ack ack, shooting everywhere. Humvee's rocking. Tracers over, under, past my head. Madness, brother, just madness. Then I see Shawn jump in his seat and yell. Well, I'm busy turning around in this firefight, trying not to run into anything or get us stuck, and I hear him say, real calm, 'I'm hit in the foot—I'm OK, though.' Then that crazy mother ties a tourniquet around his leg, real cool, picks up his M4, and starts shooting again!" Rudy folded at the waist, slapping his knee, struggling to breathe. "Brother, that guy is awesome. Awesome."

  I was nursing the coffee Rudy had poured for me when Christeson's voice crackled through the radio. "Sir, the CO needs you at his truck." Looking toward company headquarters, I could see people packing up, getting ready to move.

  "Roger, I'm on my way."

  I thanked the guys for the coffee, shouldered my rifle, and walked away.

  31

  "HOW'S YOUR PLATOON, Nate?" The captain's eyes were red. He asked the question with reservation, as if he already knew the answer. "Licking its wounds, sir. Two Marines shot. Thirty holes in my trucks. And that's just what I can see. The Marines are starting to wonder who's calling the shots here. Hell, I'm starting to wonder who's calling the shots." Keeping a stoic face for the platoon sometimes meant unloading on my commander. "That attack was fucking kindergarten tactics. We all knew it, and no one said a goddamn thing about it. And how am I supposed to keep my Marines on their game when officers are pulling stunts like that photo op this morning?"

  The captain cut me off. "All right. We're all sorry about what happened to Sergeant Patrick. This is a war. Direct your frustration at the people who deserve it—the Iraqis." With that phase of the discussion over, he moved on to the day's plan while I seethed. Now I had to focus on getting from myself what I always expected from my troops: attention to the task at hand. What's past is past, but the present and future will kill you.

  The plan called for us to move south to Al Hayy, recross the bri
dge we had crossed two days before, and attack into Muwaffiqiya with the Third Battalion, First Marines. In training, the order for a multibattalion attack into an occupied town would have taken half a day. Here, it was a sentence.

  Gunny Wynn, Colbert, Lovell, and Reyes stood around the Humvee hood. The team leaders were laughing, and tried to quiet down as I approached. I spread my map on the hood and began to lay out the day's plan, but the guys couldn't let go of the joke I'd interrupted. When Reyes and Lovell kept chuckling, I paused. Goddammit. Didn't they know how serious this was? Didn't they remember we'd lost Sergeant Patrick only a few hours earlier? Couldn't they see that I carried their lives on my shoulders? I started to speak and stopped myself. I'd nearly repeated what Captain Whitmer had told us in the Peleliu hangar bay eighteen months before: "If any of you get a Marine killed today, I'll shoot you myself."

  I finally understood why Whitmer had threatened us that night. Commanders always bear the heaviest responsibility. When you're tired and under stress, your efforts to convey that gravitas can come out all wrong. The Marines must have seen my frustration, because they shut up and let me finish running through the plan. When I was done, they nodded and went off to brief their teams. They knew this wasn't the time for questions or arguments, and I was grateful for that.

  Our lives were in free fall, spinning so completely out of our control that all we could do was hang on and try to keep up. That was when mistakes happened. Without time to plan or process or recover, we were at the mercy of fate—or worse, of other people. As a commander, taking full responsibility for my own decisions was one thing; taking it for other people's decisions was something else. The weight pressed down on me. I sat in my Humvee, studying the map, until Christeson fired up the engine.

  We swung south to Al Hayy and into a world transformed. Of course, the weather had changed. Gloomy, dusty skies gave way to brilliant blue. All along the road, people waved and cheered. Girls in purple and yellow dresses smiled shyly while their brothers sprinted along the road's edge, slapping high-fives and giving the thumbs-up. Shutters and gates, once closed, were thrown open, and laundry fluttered in the breeze on lines above the streets. Traffic darted back and forth through the city, but despite our best attempts at watchfulness, we could see none of it as a threat. The desolate lot we'd raced through two days before was half soccer field, half open-air market. All foreboding had vanished. The only thing missing as we crawled through crowds of cheering Iraqis were streams of ticker tape from above. For the first time, we saw the meaning of liberation and felt the release of pure joy from ordinary lives. It was the best fifteen minutes of our week.