Then he thought of all the times he had been personally blown up by creeps like these, of American GIs like Pitcher who had been wounded or crippled by IEDs. That cleared his conscience.
“Permission granted to engage,” Chavez tersely informed him. “Hammer the cocksuckers.”
Pool did. Red tracers plunged up the center of the road and stitched the two diggers, bursting into a thousand fireflies from impact against bone and asphalt.
“I got ’em—at least one!” Pool reported excitedly.
When they rolled up to the scene, however, there was nothing left but blood trails. Insurgents were sneaky about policing up their dead and wounded. It was hard to get a decent body count where there were no bodies.
Something similar happened to Lieutenant Dudish and Sergeant Montgomery. About midnight, Dudish was at the wheel of their hummer while Montgomery sat in the turret observing the road through a CAS (Covered Acquisition System), a large camera-like device with a special thermal-sensitive laser capable of picking out the wink of a bird’s eye a mile away in the middle of the night. So far, no birds were winking.
“I got movement,” Montgomery suddenly whispered. “A bunch of guys underneath blankets. Goofy bastards. I guess they think we can’t see ’em if they hide under the covers.”
“Give them time to start digging.”
“Roger that.”
The saboteurs crawled up onto the road bed underneath their dark blankets, resembling giant slugs. Since First Platoon soldiers were guarding an IED crater downrange, Dudish raised them on the radio to give them a heads up.
“One-Six, this is Two-Six. We have a target. You guys hunker down in your trucks. Tracers are going to be zipping.”
“Roger, Two-Six. Good luck and good shooting.”
The range was less than a thousand meters, still a fairly long shot for the two-forty. Montgomery watched, finger on the trigger, eye against the laser sight. Two of the perps armed with shovels threw off their blankets and started digging at the edge of the asphalt. It wasn’t like they were out farming in the moonlight.
The laser sight locked on the target; the machine gun locked on the laser. Montgomery took a deep breath, let half of it out, held the rest, and gently stroked the trigger. Every fifth bullet in a belt of 7.62 was a tracer. A stream of red arched through the night sky and plunged into the enemy demolitioneers. One of the men dropped. A woman lookout somewhere in the roadside foliage emitted such a blood-chilling scream that, even at this distance, Montgomery heard it above the deep-throated chugging of his weapon.
It was remarkable how quickly insurgents could bug out. Hajjis appeared from everywhere to drag away their dead and wounded, leaving nothing behind except some tools and blankets.
Damned frustrating—but the campaign seemed to be working. The number of IEDs on Malibu declined, at least somewhat. Subversives began to get in a hurry to accomplish their tasks, get on the road and get off again, which meant carelessness.
Toward evening of one approaching night, when the voices of children at play hung in the sunset of what might have been one of the most naturally peaceful places on earth, the concussive blast of an exploding IED shattered the tranquility. Sergeant Chris Messer and three other Second Platoon members—Specialist Jared Isbell, PFC Michael Pope, and PFC Chiva Lares—were pulling static security for 151. Reverberations from explosions going off at all hours of the day or night left even those out of the blast radius momentarily stunned and breathless.
Recovering, Pope peeled rubber heading toward the explosion. Anytime an American might be in trouble, those nearest him were expected to respond as backup.
Sliding the hummer around the first S-curve, Pope and his squad confronted a plume of black smoke anchored to the side of the road. There were no American vehicles in sight. Instead, a trio of Baghdads wearing shemaghs and disdashas, the traditional robes of Arab men, were hotfooting it north down the middle of the road. One held his skirts bunched up around his knees and was really pumping. None were armed, none were carrying digging tools. From the looks of things, they were a bunch of amateurs who had inadvertently set off the bomb they were planting. Only luck kept it from blowing their heads off.
They looked back over their shoulders and saw the hummer bearing down on them. One of them carrying a burlap bag full of something hurled it into the bushes. All three tried to scatter. Not fast enough. Pope almost ran them down. Messer, Isbell, and Lares flung open their doors and bailed out.
“Hold it up, girls!”
Isbell and Lares collared their suspects without resistance. Messer’s turned at bay and drew a knife. Sergeant Messer unsheathed his machete and brandished it. “Now, this,” he said in his best Crocodile Dundee impersonation, “is a knife.”
The guy’s eyes bugged. He tossed the knife aside as though it had burned his hand, dropped to his knees and surrendered.
One captive was sixteen years old, the other nineteen, and the oldest twenty-four. The burlap bag contained wires, fuses, and timers for igniting IEDs. All three were flex-cuffed and transported to Battalion at Yusufiyah for questioning; soldiers in the field weren’t authorized to interrogate prisoners. Messer and his squad became Heroes For A Day in Delta Company, as they were the first to capture insurgents in the act of setting an explosive device.
Second Platoon never heard what happened to their captives. In light of how many times his platoon had hit IEDs on Malibu, Lares secretly hoped they tried to escape and somebody shot them.
“If they had the balls to shed their dresses and come out and fight,” Is-bell chafed, “we would kick their butts and go home next week.”
But, of course, they weren’t going to come out and fight, not in the traditional manner. The next time Isbell spotted Crazy Legs T-Rex’ing down the road, he took aim with his M4 and pretended to pull the trigger.
“Bang!” he said. “You’re dead.”
TWENTY-SIX
Unlike previous wars in which ordinary dogfaces had virtually no access to news from the home front, soldiers in Iraq were as well informed of political and social events in Modesto, California, or Tahlequah, Oklahoma, as their parents, wives, and friends who lived there, thanks to the modern technology of the Internet and satellite phones. More so, in most instances, since they realized they were political pawns in an ongoing cultural war. The hypocrisy of politicians in the nation’s capital clamoring from one side of their mouths about how they supported the troops, then referring to them from the other side of their mouths as “ill-educated” or “ignorant” was not lost in the clamor of battle. It produced anger and bitterness in every FOB, patrol base, and battle position in Iraq.
It damaged morale immeasurably when senators and congressmen asserted that American soldiers were “stuck in Iraq” because they were too stupid to get a better job, who, like Senator John Kerry, accused U.S. troops of “going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children and, you know, women . . . ,” who lauded young people who went on to college instead of the armed forces as “students who think for themselves in contrast to C students with their stupid fingers on the trigger,” who declared how soldiers were mostly from the under classes and enlisted in the army because they couldn’t get a “real job” in the private sector.
“If you aren’t smart enough to get into college,” they said, “you’ll end up in Iraq.”
Since the end of the draft and the Vietnam War, fewer and fewer Americans served in the military. That was especially true of politicians; there was only a negligible number of veterans in either house. Knowing very little about the military, they failed to understand that the modern all-volunteer soldier was in every way the equal of his peers anywhere in the United States. Disparaging and belittling remarks by public servants who should know better profoundly insulted the patriotism and sense of duty of men like Chiva Lares, Robert Pool, James Cook, Sammy Rhodes, Mayhem Menahem, Brandon Gray, Victor Chavez, Jared Isbell, Joshua Parrish, Jenson Mariur, Will Hendrickson, and the other 90 percent
of Delta Company who had all enlisted following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, not because they couldn’t get a “real job” or weren’t smart enough to get into college but instead because they thought defending the nation was the right thing to do.
“Fuck ’em!” Men exclaimed in the vernacular of the battlefield. “We go off to die and lose our arms and legs for these cocksuckers while they stay at home like fat pigs and worship money and Sean Penn. While we’re getting shot and blown up, they’re looting America like a bunch of thieves and calling us stupid. Not a one of them has the balls it takes to drive Malibu even one time.”
GIs in The Triangle of Death endured hit and run ambushes, heat, uncertainty, privation, fear and separation from home for about one thousand bucks a month, each day venturing from their forts expecting to kill or be killed, pondering when they would be allowed to go home, wondering if, when they finally made it home, folks would understand and appreciate the true meaning of sacrifice. Or would they have to sneak into the airport latrines to change out of uniform as returning Vietnam vets had had to do to avoid assault and insult?
Having little access to media, resentful GIs fought back in subtle ways. Whenever someone received a supportive letter or chain mail “support our troops” missive from back home, it ended up on the fort walls for everyone to read. There was hardly a dry eye when the following “Author Unknown” appeared posted in the common area at Inchon:
You cell phone is in your pocket;
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.
You talk trash about your “buddies” that aren’t with you;
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.
You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls;
He patrols the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.
You complain about how hot it is;
He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.
You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong;
He doesn’t get to eat today.
Your maid makes your bed and washes your clothes;
He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.
You go to the mall and get your hair redone;
He doesn’t have time to brush his teeth today.
You’re angry because your class ran five minutes over;
He’s told he will be held over an extra two months.
You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight;
He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.
You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do every day;
He holds his letter close and smells his love’s perfume.
You roll your eyes as a baby cries;
He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they’ll ever meet.
You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything;
He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting.
You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him;
He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded.
You see only what the media wants you to see;
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.
You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don’t;
He does exactly what he is told even if it puts his life in danger.
You stay at home and watch TV;
He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.
You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable;
He tries to sleep but gets woken by mortars and helicopters all night long.
TWENTY-SEVEN
At twenty-eight years old, Sergeant Chris Messer was almost the “old man” of Second Platoon, younger than only a few others. After enlisting in the army in February 2003, he pulled a tour in Germany and another in Iraq with the 26th Infantry Regiment before his reassignment to Fort Drum came through in July 2005. When the 2nd BCT deployed to Iraq in late August 2006, he left behind his wife Amie and his one-year-old daughter Skyle. With him he carried a haunting premonition that he would never see either again.
No amount of gentle coaxing by Sergeant Montgomery or the other men of the platoon could knock that dark conviction from his mind. He seemed resigned to his inevitable fate. Although his turn toward fatalism left him stern and distant, prone to long talks with Chaplain Bryan and quiet time with his Prayer of Salvation card until the lettering was almost worn off, he remained the good soldier and NCO he had always been. Duty came first.
Messer was First Squad Leader. PFC Nathaniel Given was the squad’s SAW gunner. Neither realized just how inextricably linked they were to become on the afternoon freckle-faced Given, nineteen, breezed into Inchon to the congratulations and good-natured ribbing of his fellow platoon members.
Back at Fort Drum, Given had been one of Sergeant Montgomery’s “problem children.” Since then, he had gone from one of the worst soldiers in Delta Company to one of its best. A three-star general visiting the war zone selected him out of the entire company as an example of what a good soldier should be and personally presented him the coveted unit coin, inscribed with the 10th Mountain Division logo. The tall young Texan was walking on air when he returned to Inchon from the awards ceremony. Even stepping in a minefield pile of IA feces failed to dampen his spirit or trigger his quick temper. He wiped off his boot but not his grin.
Messer was sharpening his machete while seated on the ratty old sofa with Brenda the Bitch at the other end. He got up to shake the private’s hand.
“Nate, you done good,” he said.
“I have to thank you and Sergeant Montgomery,” Given replied, proudly displaying the coin. “I must have been a real fuckup at first.”
“You’ve made up for it, soldier.”
“That means something coming from you, Sergeant.”
Some of the other soldiers dragged him away laughing to play cards. Second Platoon was on downtime. Messer sat back down on the sofa with his machete. PFC Chiva Lares pushed Brenda out of the way and sprawled next to Messer to clean his rifle and talk about his girlfriend back home. The two soldiers had been tight since Delta formed at Fort Drum.
“Talked to Amie?” Lares asked as preamble to light conversation.
Messer concentrated on his big knife, not responding. His lean face looked lined and stiff, his eyes hard and focused.
“Chris . . . ?”
Messer looked up. “I had the nightmare again, Chiva.”
“It doesn’t mean anything, Chris.”
“This time it was more real than ever. It was like I was outside myself. You know what I mean? I was here, right here, looking down at myself on the ground. Chiva, I didn’t have my legs. Both of them were blown off and I was dying. I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t tell Amie, Chiva. I’m never going home again, but I can’t tell her that.”
Lares didn’t know what to say. They had been through this together before—nights when Messer couldn’t sleep because of nightmares and climbed up to the roof to sit, rub his Prayer card, and stare at snapshots of his wife and daughter in the starlight. Days when he didn’t seem quite up to going on. Lares could always tell when his friend had had one of his dreams by the torment in his eyes.
None of his previous nightmares had been as graphic and specific as this one.
“Chiva,” Messer said, “I have a feeling it’s going to happen soon.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Surprise. It was not going to be a White Christmas in the Sandbox. Partly out of nostalgia, partly from an effort to capture a little bit of home and the Christmas spirit, the platoons on Malibu Road went all out for the holidays. Some of the guys put up Christmas trees fashioned from whatever they could find on hand. Empty cardboard boxes knifed into shape, then erected in three dimensions and covered with
poncho liners, served as a fair approximation of the real thing, especially when decorated with garlands of 7.62mm machine gun ammo belts, colored-pencil cutouts of angels, Santa Claus, humvees pulled by camels, and Christmas cards from home.
Mayhem Menahem and his buddies in Fourth Platoon reported for a mission wearing red Santa Claus caps they picked up somewhere. Lieutenant Tomasello rolled his eyes. The mischievous miscreants threw their arms around each other’s shoulders and harmonized a vulgar rendition of “Santa Claus Comes Tonight.”
“You’ve had your fun,” Tomasello scolded, laughing. “Now get with the program. The war didn’t stop for Ramadan. I doubt it’ll stop for Christmas.”
“Even Mohammed wouldn’t shoot Santa Claus,” Joshua Parrish protested with feigned indignity.
Some of the Joes in Second Platoon planned to throw a big Christmas dance with Brenda the Bitch as guest of honor and invite any GI who could make it. Piled underneath the makeshift Christmas trees were little presents to each other dug out of care packages from home, boxes from Blue Star Mothers, and shipments from “Give a Soldier Christmas” benefactors; MRE packets: beef jerky, oatmeal cookies, hard candy; feaky-feaky magazines, paperback books, CD games and music . . .
Delta had the Christmas spirit. Guys were “ho ho’ing” each other all day Christmas Eve. An anonymous voice kept popping up over the company radio net to relay Santa’s progress from the North Pole. Someone rendered his best Alvin the Chipmunk impersonation, and a duet sang he knows if you’ve been naughty or nice, so be good for goodness sake . . .
“Have you been a good boy, Mayhem?” James Cook teased.
“Ask my girlfriend.”
“She’s probably doing ‘Silent Night’ with some other dude by now.”
Everyone looked forward to the Christmas Day feast Cookie Urbina promised. He started whipping it together the day before. The aroma of baking turkeys coming from Cookie’s kitchen trailer drove the Joes crazy with anticipation. Lieutenant Tomasello’s platoon made a quick trip to Battalion at Yusufiyah to pick up a resupply and the final Christmas mail run.
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