Wild joined his friend Denney above the CCP. Whereas Denney had to stoop to support his firing arm, Wild was too short to see over the wall. He pulled up a wooden crate and stood on it to get a better view. Denney, he noticed, was shaking badly. He was still scanning, looking for a target to shoot, obviously rattled. Wild was not firing on all eight cylinders, either. He couldn’t remember how he had come to be standing on a box on top of this roof. Everything seemed fuzzy to him, like he had just awakened from a bad dream to a worse reality. Suddenly, he felt a strong urge.
“Denney?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve gotta piss!”
Denney looked at him and smiled. His eyes never lost their glint of terror, which made the smile haunted and tragic. “Yeah, me too.”
Without another word they both unbuttoned and released their bladders on the wall in front of them. The rush of their first combat pee was glorious. That wonderful sense of golden, full-bladder-first-thing-in-the-morning urinal release, combined with the euphoria of a pre-death adrenaline rush—the makings of Olympic-caliber urination. They began and finished as one, then resumed their post, looking for anyone stupid enough to cross their sights. Wild couldn’t help but wonder, though, if that phenomenal piss hadn’t been their version of a blindfold and final cigarette.
“We got somebody peeking their head around the corner!” yelled Coleman.
Aguero whirled around in time to see the silhouette of a small man’s head appear and then pull back. A second later, a figure sprang full into the mouth of the alley, legs spread, assault rifle aimed from the hip, and fired his weapon in a short burst, raking it from side to side. He disappeared just as quickly behind a flurry of returned fire that kicked up dust and chunks of brick. The head appeared again, and this time Coleman fired immediately but without hitting his target. The little bastard was slick. Then two small figures popped into view, firing AK-47s. Aguero heard bullets whiz by as he ran to the left and stood beside Perry to add his fire to theirs. When their volley had ended, only one child—for so his size would indicate—jumped back out to fire as if this were a game for which he was waiting his turn. Aguero had anticipated it and dropped the kid with a single shot. The child in the black karate suit fell straight down as if he were a puppet and someone had just cut his strings. The L-T watched, completely engrossed as a small hand appeared and grabbed the dead kid’s leg. With apparent difficulty, the young child was pulled out of view by his playmate.
I crouched in the turret, .50 cal at the ready and scared to death. Someone tapped my leg. I ducked my head inside the vehicle and saw Sala’am’s young face staring at me. I wondered if I looked as scared as he did.
“Mr. Mathias, I have no weapon. Can I please use yours?”
“Absolutely,” I said without hesitation. “It’s in the floorboard there.” It never occurred to me that the translator could take that weapon and turn on us. His fate was connected to ours. He would live or die as we did, so why not let him fight with us?
And he did. He grabbed my weapon, opened his door for cover, and stood with me against the enemy. I glanced down at him and realized that I was having my first taste of war fighting alongside a man who, in Arabic, was calling himself “Peace.” I had to chuckle at the irony.
Time for some truth in advertising here. I would like to say that I conducted myself as fearlessly as an Arnold Schwarzenegger action hero with his frontal lobe removed. My grade school daydreams always involved me strutting through 1,000 bullets and a forest of arrows without flinching, winning through impossible odds to save a fair damsel. When I get my time machine invented—patent pending—I swear I’m going to go back to that Arkansas playground in the early ʼ80s to kick my own ass for getting me into this mess.
The only resemblance my current situation had to that old daydream was the 1,000 bullets part. When everyone opened fire behind me, I utterly failed to utter anything remotely swashbuckling. What came out of my throat more closely resembled a teenage girl gargling her surprised shriek after spying a rat. My heart hammered in my chest as I tried to compose myself. Just as I almost had it together, there was another burst of gunfire from my rear. I yelled, most unmanfully. A single gunshot this time. I yelped. God, this was killing my macho self-image.
SO Note by Karimkhani, Valeh @05 JUN 2010
Chief complaint: SM presents for medication eval after his intake. He describes being unable to concentrate and this is effecting his work. He is clearly uncomfortable in the office with his back to the door and he is fidgety. He describes that at home his being on edge is affecting his marriage. He feels ok here, because “looking out for snipers and being alert isn’t weird.” He his hypervigilant, anxious, has nightmares, near panic, intrusive thoughts. He has tried Wellbutrin in past but I am thinking an SSRI will better serve this SM.
Assessment: 1. ANXIETY DISORDER NOS
COMMENTS: CLASSIC SIGNS OF PTSD. R/O PTSD AS HIS PRIMARY DX
Aguero, satisfied for now that we weren’t in danger of being overrun, returned to his post between the vehicles. As he took a moment to calm his nerves and consider options, Doc Guzman approached him from the shadow of the courtyard gate.
“Sir, there’s nothing I could do.”
The P-L eyed Guzman uncertainly. “What do you mean?”
“Chen’s dead.”
Aguero let out a single, vehement expletive. “Who else is injured?”
“Just Haubert that I know of. He got shot in the finger. Took some shrapnel to the face.”
“What about you?”
Doc looked at him quizzically, uncomprehending.
“What happened to your face? It’s all cut up.”
Guzman put a hand to his cheek and was surprised to see a little blood. “Huh.” Without saying anything more profound, the Doc walked back inside.
Lieutenant Aguero looked around him to see how everyone was doing. The confirmation that Chen was dead rocked him to his core, threatened to push him over the brink from pissed into the land of totally insane. Davis and Perry were helping Coleman defend the east. Bellamy and Sala’am were assisting Fisk to the west, which was still quiet except for a roaring crowd, now a little closer than it had been before. Wild stood by Sala’am for a moment, grew bored, then moved to the other side. Sala’am looked small and somewhat naked compared to his heavily armed and armored warriors. Well, if the scrappy little man was going to act like a soldier, Aguero was going to make sure he looked like one, too.
“Sala’am! Come here!” The thin Iraqi looked back over his shoulder and then trotted up to the L-T. Aguero motioned for him to follow and led him into the court. Aguero, with his heightened sense of awareness, immediately saw Hayhurst and Taylor on the roof across the courtyard. He took in each doorway and window. Riddell and Denney defended from a rooftop to his immediate right. In the room underneath them, he spied Doc Guzman and then Chen’s body. Without slowing, he burst into the room and swept the ground with his eyes. He bent down and picked up Chen’s helmet and armor.
He rushed over and handed them to Sala’am, saying, “Here, wear this.”
“OK.” Sala’am saw the blood covering the inside of the vest but did not mind. He quickly donned everything. Aguero helped the man correctly fasten the straps to make the gear as comfortable as possible. Chen’s vest hung loosely on the translator’s skinny frame, and the helmet sat askew on top of his head. The total effect would not soon inspire fear in the enemy but would keep the brave man a little safer.
Aguero knew that there would likely be a counterattack, so he began to prepare his men to take the fight to the enemy. He assessed the situation and took mental note of who was still in the fight. Their casualties had been miraculously light. Riddell was using his driver’s door for cover with Sala’am on the other side and Fisk manning the gun. Swope was maintaining contact with higher while Bellamy, Wild, an
d Coleman shot everything that was stupid enough to step into view. The L-T glanced up again at the soldiers providing security from the rooftops. Even from his vantage point on terra firma he could tell that there was no way that they were covering a 360 degree perimeter. There were too many buildings in their line of sight. The next building to the east, however, was much taller.
“Rob!” Aguero called. The NCO’s head appeared immediately from the second story roof. “Come down here. I got a mission for ya.”
The L-T pulled Robinson, Bourquin, and Rogers into the alley. He pointed out the black door on the front of the four-story building and said, “Get me on top of that roof.”
Without another word, the soldiers stacked up on the wall behind Rogers. He put a round from the shotgun into the lock, but the door wouldn’t budge. He cursed and fired a second slug into the door which finally decided that it had had enough and seemed to open on its own. Rogers kicked it wide and they charged the roof.
“Sir,” Swope called to his P-L. “What’s the status on our casualties?”
Aguero trotted across the alley and told him, “Chen’s dead. Haubert’s walking wounded. That’s all.”
Swope couldn’t believe his ears. Had they really driven two combat convertibles through a literal hail of bullets and sustained only two casualties? He remembered rounds striking his vehicle with the frequency of rain drops. How was it possible that no one else had been killed? He called Lancer Mike and reported the latest casualty report and requested a location on the QRF. Lancer Mike said that their front line trace was approximately Silver and Aeros. Home Depot as we called it. Good. This hell would be over soon.
The roads traveling north to south were labeled—in order from FOB War Eagle—Aeros, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Fox and Grizzlies. Silver, the northern boundary of Sadr City, was completely free of obstruction and yielded no portent that evil was afoot. Specialist Rafael Arteaga, known as Puppet in the streets of L.A., huddled with his brothers in the back of the LMTV. They gripped their weapons tight, eyes scanning for threats. In the distance rang the constant din of battle.
AK-47s fired from nowhere and everywhere. Even in the light of day, Puppet had trouble discerning a target. The Rules of Engagement lay like lead on his trigger finger, aware the consequences should he decide to fire blindly into a city of 2.5 million people—massive loss of innocent life and an extended stay in Leavenworth prison.
The initial panic that can freeze a man the first time he’s shot came and went. Everyone began to fire, and the rescue force kept rolling. Arteaga noted small groups of people in the narrow alleys, a group of five or three then five more, all firing at them from a range of less than 50 meters. He kept his Squad Automatic Weapon or SAW talking, but was never sure if he had hit his mark. They were going too fast. Bullets pinged off of the armored cab as Ski attempted to suppress the enemy with a weapon that jammed again and again.
Arteaga saw a man pop up from the roof of a two story building, flames flashing from his rifle. Rafael raised his point of aim and squeezed the trigger. A fusillade of bullets put holes into the roof’s low wall then climbed up and punched the insurgent in the chest.
The convoy reached Delta, still under heavy contact, and turned left. As soon as they hit the road, the attack stopped cold. Everyone blinked in surprise with the echoes of gunfire still in their ears. What the—?
Hunter followed the Commander’s Humvee closely through a slalom course of jagged scrap metal and piles of rock. The constant sound, like a gravel storm of bullets hitting the cab, had left everyone on edge. Before they reached the second intersection, the Bradley leading them stopped. Then he heard that they were to turn the vehicles around—and go back the way they came! Captain Denomy was telling them that Delta was blocked further south and that they would have to find a bypass. Rather than chance the unknown further west, or risk getting stuck in a smaller side street, they would have to go back to Aeros and try Route Copper further to the south.
As the vehicles began to make three-point turns to point north again, everyone in the back of the LMTV began a philosophical debate. The “f” word was commonly combined with the words “what,” “are,” “we,” and “doing.” There was no radio in the LMTV, so the reasons for heading back into the ambush they had successfully broken were lost on Hunter. All he could do was pray and drive.
“What’s our ETA on the QRF?” Swope asked his higher command while trying to mask his anxiousness. He hunched over with a finger in his other ear, listening carefully to the response as his gunner continued to engage. “Say again all after ‘ambush,’ over!”
Swope sat upright, staring ahead into nothing as his thoughts raced. He acknowledged receipt of the transmission and set the mike down. Bad. This is bad. We’re in a damn city-wide ambush that we just happened to be lucky enough to set off. We’re it, good God A’mighty. We’re all going to die out here. As soon as the thought rose to his head, he squashed it.
“What’s wrong?” asked Aguero. They had been partners in leading the Platoon for months now, long enough for the L-T to know when the Platoon Daddy was troubled. “What’s up with the QRF?”
Swope said, “QRF just got ambushed on Bravo, man. It’s going to be a while. We’re in for a long night.”
The Lieutenant again displayed a complete lack of originality at finding words that rhyme with “duck.”
Swope started laughing.
Coleman watched as a large mob gathered directly across Delta from him. Men, women, and children amassed quickly, shouting and pumping their fists in the air and waving flags of various colors. He watched as the crowd, children first with women following after, approached the alley at a deliberate pace. Coleman saw no weapons being brandished and no shots were fired from the group, but they obviously meant to overwhelm them by sheer weight of numbers.
“Holy shit. They’re stupid,” Coleman shouted. The Iraqis weren’t charging, weren’t madly dashing forward, just walking. Now he could see some rifles being raised skyward along with a few swords.
As I watched the noisy mob approach, an SUV roared into the alley from the right side of the near intersection. It turned away from us and lurched to a stop maybe 50 meters farther up the street. It backed up to a gate like the one by which we were parked. The vehicle wasn’t an overt threat yet, but I trained the .50 cal on it in case that changed. The driver and passenger jumped out quickly and ran to the door. The driver opened up the rear hatch while the passenger took something from a man inside the doorway. They were loading small bundles of something into the bed of the vehicle. I didn’t know what I was seeing. Maybe they were preparing some sort of deadly surprise for us. They weren’t facing down a cornered American infantry platoon to load up their groceries. I hesitated, locked in an internal debate: to shoot or not to shoot, that is the question.
The crowd was close now, less than 50 meters away. I saw rifles, but no one was shooting. Why weren’t they shooting? They meant to either take us alive or rip us limb from limb with their bare hands. This was before the days of the internet when beheadings became commonplace. Perhaps they meant to set our severed heads on pikes at the outskirts of their fair city as a warning to infidels who come to their country offering freedom of religion and freedom of thought. Even at their slow, methodical pace they would be on us in a few seconds. God, this was a nightmare.
Aguero, his mind aghast at what was coming, stared in disbelief at the approaching crowd coming from Delta. He turned toward the west side and saw that the mob at that end was also approaching them at the same deliberate pace, now about 75 meters away. With the sudden realization that the crowds were coordinating their movement, his paralysis broke. He yelled, “Shoot. Just shoot them.”
My mind went truly and deeply blank. I honestly don’t remember wha
t happened. Martha Raddatz wrote a book about this very battle called The Long Road Home back in 2006. I read it, curious to see what she had to say. When I at last came to this part of the book, my heart racing as if I were still there, I became enraged at the horrendous lies she told. What crowd? What slaughter? I wasn’t there! I would never do that!
The mind is perhaps God’s finest invention. It has a mechanism that acts like a breaker switch in an electric panel. When you come dangerously close to overload, it can shut down the parts that threaten well-being. This switch-off happened with my memory. The whole episode, beginning with the appearance of the SUV until the deed was done, had been missing from the otherwise crystal-clear recollection I have of the battle. Missing, until I really began to poke and prod and try to recall. With great effort, I have been able to remember as far as changing magazines.
I have been poking my brain with a metaphorical stick, replaying events before and after in an attempt to jumpstart the old noodle. I saved this part for last, hoping that it would come, praying that it wouldn’t. I know that God will not allow you to be tested beyond what you’re able to endure, so that must mean that I’m not ready.
I remember gunpowder. It’s actually cordite, but it’s the smell associated with gunpowder. What is that alluring fragrance you’re wearing, Specialist? Why, it’s Gunpowder 5.56, all the rage with ignorant buffoons marching to their doom. The way that cordite smells when it bakes into the dully gleaming brass casing conjures the memory of the first life I ever took. I was eight years old in southern Arkansas. My father had raised me to respect the rifle that would one day be my inheritance. We are in a small wooded area on the back side of my pawpaw’s pasture. It’s autumn and the leaves are off of the trees. I have had a gun in my hand since I was five years old, dad always close by. He’s close now, watching me as I point the rifle toward my target. The rifle, a bolt action .22, is heavy and my little arms shake with the effort. Dad is so close that I can smell the Old Spice aftershave he wears, a smell I often associate with death. I aim as he has taught me, wanting with all my heart to please him. I squeeze the trigger (you must never pull it) and wince at the sharp report, and there’s that smell (gunpowder) that’s darkly exciting. My target falls; my aim was true or lucky. I cheer, delighted, and run to where the squirrel has fallen to the earth. It doesn’t move but stares back at me with eyes of glass. I see what I have done and tremble, confused. The squirrel’s mouth is open, teeth stained red, and from its mouth issues
Black Knights, Dark Days Page 16
