Carrying

by Theodore Weesner

  The lieutenant, in the hatch in goggles, is relaying info like an offensive coordinator. “Engineers swept all this for mines,” he has us know. “There’s so much intelligence from scouts and satellites, you’d think they could tell us exactly where the enemy is…what they’re having for breakfast…if they’re conscripts or Elite Republican Guard.”

  “Aren’t they dug in, whoever they are?” Noordwink asks the Lieutenant.

  “Their engines haven’t been turned on,” is the reply. “You’d think there’s a way to read inside their bunkers from the satellites, clouds or not. Murphy, keep your eyes on your screen! Main body may be ten klicks away, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t riding parties out here to slow us down…to set us up for artillery barrages.”

  Hands at the ready as The Claw slams on, I study my screen with all I have, thinking, This is it! This is it!

  “Nothing for twenty-eight hundred meters, sir,” I offer in an even voice. “Rain and fog messing with the range. I’m on it,” I add.

  The Bradleys take the lead from the on-churning M1A1s, and the captain’s command vehicle returns to the center of our rolling box formation. The lieutenant explains that our Apache gunships, having risen from the ground, have withdrawn yet again due to high winds and poor visibility, as we roll on, gobbling up real estate. “Rainy skies would have grounded the choppers in any case,” the lieutenant adds from the hatch, adding that the captain has instructed all vehicles to test-fire weapons before daylight breaks.

  Missteps and confusion. Hesitations and charges. Throughout our test-firing, as it commences, the lieutenant keeps reporting from the open hatch. He speaks over not only the tank intercom but the platoon net. “Spread it out, White Three! Come on line, White Four!” And: “Unusually dark for 0200…blowing hard out here…naked eye down to two hundred, one-fifty meters. Nothing in view. Same old rubble and ridges, sand and gravel. Wouldn’t wanna be on guard in a trench, I’ll tell you that. Earth trembling with tanks. Hold tight…here comes a little drop-off. Ride ’em, cowboy! Good morning, Saddam…you dumb asshole! What in the hell were you thinking?”

  Before light has washed into the sky, orders come to stop for maintenance and refueling. “Huh?” the lieutenant says. “We train for years to fight in darkness, have night vision and beaucoup high-tech equipment, and because it remains overcast we stop for maintenance and refueling!?”

  As if he’s overheard the lieutenant’s carping, Captain Kinder comes on, saying, “There’s some concern about mines and friendly fire in the dark. Do your chores. Rest up if you can. Security’s in place, but be vigilant on vehicle guard. Need I remind you that we are in a country with which we are at war?”

  “Friendly fire?” the lieutenant says to our crew. “What the hell is going on?”

  So it is that some light washes into the wide sky, and we mark our first day at war. A long, bumpy ride in an M1A1. The test-firing of weapons. Vehicle maintenance and refueling. A confusing early stop to avoid friendly fire from someone’s long-range 120 mm cannons. As the rain persists, I note to my crew mates, “Did you hear ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ as we slammed into Iraq?”

  “Played in my heart,” the lieutenant says. “It’s the music of blood.”

  “You say so, sir,” Sherman utters in a mocking tone.

  “You don’t like movies?” the lieutenant says.

  “In live theaters, sir,” Sherman says. “Not in live scenes.”

  “Where do you think it comes from if not the blood?” the lieutenant wants to know…to which no one replies.

  The overcast rain keeps spattering The Claw in the cold, day-breaking air. Each of us faces a turn in poncho, helmet, infrared goggles, pulling guard behind the external .50 caliber machine gun. On my turn, I eye-sweep the world of gravel and rain while listening for word of any kind on the radio net.

  Our rhythm is to report at designated times to troop…which reports to squadron…which reports to regiment…which reports to corps (churning forward in the heavy divisions behind us)…which reports to CENTCOM in Riyadh…which reports to the Pentagon in DC…which reports to the White House…which may or may not report to the people for whom, in theory, we’re fighting in the rain thousands of miles away. A vein of confused reality is the image in my mind where I’m sitting in the seat closest to the action, the best seat and the worst, where truth may or may not be manipulated for reasons never to be disclosed, not to us.

  I scan and listen, sweeping with the machine gun, waiting for time enough to pass to return to my gunner’s position, to hunker in for some Zs as others take their turns and we all wait for something to explode. Gazing within, I find myself reliving the past and envisioning the future. Lotte Lengemann. I can’t help sensing the betrayal she has to be experiencing in the face of my strange deployment. What is she thinking? That she’d have done better to have never met me?

  I think of my buddy, DeMarcus, out in the elements, more at risk as a dismount scout than anyone else. A one-time gangbanger who has come of age in the army. It’s funny to think of what’s happened to him, and to me. How we’ve had to sink or swim, and have chosen the latter. How we clashed and fought, and how he’s become the only soldier with whom I can laugh stupidly and say dumb things that friends alone can say without fear of being disliked or ratted out.

  Yeah, my buddy. More than I fear for myself, I fear for him out in the elements with a radio and a flagging antenna, subject to being identified, stalked, taken out. Like a teammate, my impulse is to throw a block for him, to pass over the shoulder to him in awareness that he’s reading my mind as I’m reading his. Kids playing in a vacant lot. Plotting and moving in awareness of being on the same side.

  First contact comes to Fox shortly after 0840 hours. Day has broken while the skies remain overcast and half-creamy dark over our thirty-klick width of rumbling forward movement. Grinding into Iraq as a gunner in a high-tech M1A1. I remind myself that it’s Saturday, 24 February, 1991. A spot report to Fox indicates fire belching from a bunker complex of trenches and fighting positions that apparently seemed secure to the Iraqi soldiers manning them.

  The outpost is obliterated as easily as a mosquito is swatted on an elbow. Did they think they had prodded a squad of camel jockeys in the desert? An after-action report follows: “Five timber-reinforced bunkers connected with trench lines. Fighting positions oriented south, facing Fox head-on. Two machine guns destroyed. One tank left burning. One PC left burning on site. No other weapons. Eighteen dead Iraqis. All wearing red triangle patches on green coveralls. One Captain, two noncoms, fifteen privates. Thirteen surrendering soldiers being passed through for processing. Soldiers poorly fed, terrified, eager to surrender. No RG insignia. Captain’s map now in possession. On searching area, will proceed northeast.”

  The report is like a pilot’s indication of turbulence of no consequence. All systems go. Mission proceeding. Enjoy your flight.

  “Smell the smoke,” the lieutenant notes as I refocus my eyes on my screen, looking for any signs of life, movement, or heat.

  Then it’s Geo’s turn for a skirmish, a spurt similar to what Fox encountered, except that ours produces over a hundred bedraggled and terrified Iraqi soldiers whose lives have just been ripped into a nightmare by our mechanized equipment and brutal fire. A hiccup at the hands of our M1A1s and Bradleys. Chilled, unprotected by foul weather gear in the rainy conditions, facing immediate slaughter, who could blame the conscripts appearing like ghosts on our screens for surrendering, pleading with hands up for mercy…which, with tossed MREs, is quickly granted.

  Green One takes the lead, with The Claw and the rest of 2nd Platoon following in a wedge formation. Scout platoons are on the flanks, while our mortar section is bringing up the rear. A hostile fire report is received, with orders to engage. Up in the hatch, the lieutenant jogs 2nd Platoon’s four tanks with hand and word signals, ducks inside to confirm screen locations of targets, gives the order to fire at one-twenty meters.

  Using the six-digit grid
, I fix crosshairs on a truck and bunker (my first firing in combat) and obliterate both with a single HEAT round.

  Shifting the crosshairs, I fire into the reinforced bunker from which machine gun fire is continuing to spittle our way.

  It’s as I’m moving to add co-ax machine gun fire that a cease fire comes from the captain. He reports that Iraqi soldiers have white flags and hands up and are trying to surrender. “CEASE FIRE!” he shouts, and we’re relieved to have engaged and scored against minimal opposition. As the captain repeats his report of terrified soldiers showing white flags and raising hands in surrender, more figures surface on our screens as if in old black and white TV footage.

  Resurfacing in the hatch, the lieutenant directs the platoon forward in concert with other platoons in the troop. Fearless relief and confidence is rising in each of us. We’ve engaged, scored, prevailed. Word comes that trailing MPs are processing prisoners. While I’d like to have a closer in-air look at what we’ve done and are rolling by, what I do is hold in the gunner’s position in case some crazed Iraqi explodes into a frenzy of fighting all at once to the death. No such crazed individual appears as we roll on through the devastation. “I smell it, sir…what’s it look like?” I try.

  “You don’t wanna know,” the lieutenant replies. “It’s not wood smoke you’re smelling, let me tell you that. Smoldering bodies. Smoldering rubble. The surrendering conscripts are pathetic, like they believe we’re about to cut them in half with machine gun fire. Dudes in Bradleys are throwing the survivors MREs and water, which they shouldn’t be doing, though these conscripts are truly pathetic, believe me.”

  Ducking in as The Claw rolls on, the lieutenant adds, “Good job, in any case.”

  Then: “What’s sad in this culture is their strategy of putting cannon fodder out here for no reason other than to have us using ammo. These are the guys, though, in an outpost just like this, that captured and tortured two U.S. pilots who were shot down not far from here. The old saw: ‘Do unto others what has been done unto you.’ Shoe was on the other foot, I’ll tell you, they’d be cutting us in half for sure, because that’s how they live.”

  As we rumble on, the captain comes on and warns against carelessness in view of the opposition we’ve faced so far. “Don’t worry. Putting up cannon fodder is an Arab strategy meant to make us waste ammo and lower our guard. They have Russian equipment and experienced forces that will be coming out to play any minute. We hit an RG security zone, believe me, we’ll know it.”

  Straggling conscripts are all that we encounter, however, as 1st Squadron continues to stop and start throughout the dark, rain-filled air. We realign and move on, refuel in cold rain and move on into falling darkness before stopping to perform maintenance, blow dirt from vee packs, check oil levels, and settle in to catnap for ten or fifteen minutes at a time.

  “Shit will hit the fan tomorrow,” the lieutenant says. “It’s sure to happen. Let’s hope the rain passes and we get some air cover. I’ll tell you: It’s fortunate for all of us that things are moving slowly. We’re warming up is what we’re doing. Rehearsing. Getting into a groove before we really have to get into a groove.”

  For my part, doing an hour on vehicle guard, I doze yet again in the gunner’s seat, wrapped in my sleeping bag, leaving many Day One jitters behind. Less nervous. I need a shower and don’t really want a shower. I’m learning firsthand and first-smell the meaning of ‘desert dog’ while also getting to know my strengths. I smell like an animal, I’m eating and sleeping like an animal, I’m prepared to kill as an animal kills…as I did on taking out that bunker and big truck. I’m feeling confident and aggressive, rested and smart.

  Within exhaustion (and within the rules of war as we’ve been taught), inflicting damage is not something upon which to dwell. Fighting and killing is what we came to do and what we’ve started to do. It’s been non-sickening (so far), which isn’t to say, if the captain is right, it won’t become other than remote at any moment.

  Sunday, 25 February is our second/third day out, and a clash with a real enemy force has yet to occur. As before, Geo rolls through the wedge to take the squadron lead with The Claw and three tanks of 2nd Platoon abreast at the point. Driving rain and poor visibility keep the Apache warships grounded, and it falls to dismount scouts with thermal sights to identify and report anything generating residual heat. Entering what is apparently a new day, we roll on and stop, roll on and stop, gathering more barren real estate.

  At midday a skirmish from a bunker flares only to be snuffed by two or three spurts of machine gun fire that rip apart boards and sand covering a trench and flushing half a dozen conscripts with terror in their hearts and on their faces, hands reaching into the air. Guided through by dismount scouts, they’re turned over to MPs in trailing units whose job is to process prisoners. More and more prisoners. Terrified middle-aged men. Is this the price of war? Processing middle-aged men who were content to tend their sheep until the maniac Muslim Saddam Hussein came along to waste their lives?

  When orders are given to halt for a pit stop and refueling, we circle close to a recently destroyed trench/bunker complex and, per usual, dismount with our M-16s to inhale air and stretch our legs. An opportunity to pull in air outside the sweaty confines of The Claw. We eat MREs in the open, using the tank’s stove to heat water into which to stir food materials with squirts of Tabasco. Infantry and dismount scouts from Bradleys pass by, likewise enjoying some R&R. It’s here that I notice that a recon scout passing at forty meters is none other than my buddy DeMarcus, and I am tickled to see him.

  “Yo, Dee!” I call. “What’re you doing… miss the bus to Bayreuth?”

  We grin, laugh, fist-bump, pleased to see each other and to be alive in a war zone…as gritty, dirty, greasy as we may be. “What do you hear from magical Magdalena?” I dare ask as we stand near hissing and decompressing armored vehicles to talk for several free minutes.

  “Ain’t heard nothin.’ How ’bout you?” he says, surprising me. At once, less aggressive, he adds, “You hearin’ from that Bindlach girl you say we gonna party wid?”

  “You haven’t forgotten our party?”

  “Can’t wait to get outta here, get back to Germany, drink some beer, and see my woman.”

  “Gets old in the desert, doesn’t it… living in a steel box without a bathroom? Always feeling grimy.”

  With minutes to hang out, we wander toward the remains of the recently destroyed and still smoking bunker, M-16s in hand, using the occasion to relax and keep speaking of everyday stuff like friends meeting in a chow line on base.

  “Think I overdid it in a letter to Bindlach,” I tell him. “Did I tell you that? You get carried away out here…feeling lonely. I keep thinking I said too much. I don’t know. Shit, I practically proposed.”

  Dee laughs with his head angled, taking in my words and finding them hilarious.

  “Not to diss my girlfriend,” I add. “She’s a sweetheart. Smart as hell. It’s just that you get lonely out here, you can get a little crazed in the head and do things you shouldn’t do.”

  “Man, hear you talkin, gettin’ crazed in the head,” Dee is replying…in which moment, as we pause, a noise startles us, grabs our attention, and sends a shiver up my back: Voices in the rubble before us! Movement and shadows! A racket of boards being moved! Sobbing!

  Jerking our weapons around, we’re ready at once to blast what must be enemy soldiers surfacing from the rubble! So it is…as one, two, three terrified Iraqi conscripts, seized and delirious with fear, having been buried under splintered remains…pushing through in an attempt to surrender, breathe, survive.

  Two of the three are sobbing and begging at once, reaching into the sky for mercy…which gesture keeps us from unleashing rounds. Hands kept high, they keep bowing, crying, begging, and beseeching us not to blast them into an afterlife of blood and meaningless death.

  Conscripts. Men of age. As I’ve swiveled my rifle, one of them loses all control and collapses onto the ground
before me, joined by another before Dee. They attempt to crawl, kiss, caress our boots while begging and sobbing for their lives to be spared.

  “STOP IT!” I shout, pulling free my boot from being gripped, kissed, held by the man on the ground before me. “STOP GRABBING MY FOOT!” Backing off a step or two, rifle yet at the ready, I see that these devastated men fully expect to be slaughtered by U.S. soldiers.

  On their knees by now, they crawl, grope, sob until we flag them into desisting with our rifles and shouted words! The incident is unnerving as they grope all the same to kiss our boots, begging to be spared, clearly convinced that they face being cut to ribbons by teenage U.S. soldiers with muscles and powerful weapons.

  We instruct them yet again to cool it, to take it easy, assure them that death is not going to follow if only they’ll stop trying to kiss our boots. At the same time, they’re crossing a line into something personal, unseemly, embarrassing. They aren’t warriors or soldiers or hardly even armed conscripts. They’re pathetic human beings in uniforms, reduced in terror to shameful begging that they be allowed to live…will do anything to be allowed to live.

  Signaling dismount scouts coming along to see what is happening, Dee says to one of the scouts, “Call the MPs for us. Say we got three prisoners who were buried in rubble.”

  “Gotcha,” is the reply from a scout who adds, “Better pat ’em down, ya never know with these fuckers.”