One Bullet Away

But when I sent my men out without me, the mission’s rationale had to be ironclad. My litmus test was simple: If someone was killed, would I be able to visit his parents after the war and explain to them honestly why their son had died while working for me? People die in war. Every one of us in the all-volunteer military accepted that. But the death better not be senseless, the mission not unnecessary, the planning not shoddy, the equipment not inadequate. So I felt a little guilty briefing Reyes while knowing I would not be joining him out there in the palms.

The moonlight was eerily bright, casting our shadows across the ground. We spread the map on the Humvee’s hood and read it easily without a flashlight. As we discussed the patrol, gunfire erupted from the field to our east. Streams of tracers crisscrossed back and forth through the trees. Evan Wright, tucked comfortably in his sleeping bag, levitated three feet off the ground before rolling across the hood of Colbert’s Humvee and into the shelter of the front tire. Red strings reached high overhead, fading into the dark sky. West of us, near the Tigris, more gunfire echoed through the trees. In only a few seconds, raging gunfights grew to surround us on three sides. We ducked instinctively, though no rounds seemed to be coming into our position.

“Christ almighty, what started this?” Gunny Wynn spoke for us all.

We figured it was a combination of revenge killings, citizens defending against looters, and probably some delinquents who just liked shooting in a lawless town. The gunfire continued unabated for almost an hour. Sometimes it chattered for minutes on end before settling into a testy silence as the gunmen presumably reloaded or looked for more targets. Then, inevitably, it roared louder than before, with many weapons firing at once. One of the urban legends of American military training is that our tracers are red but our enemy’s are green. I never saw a green tracer. They were all red, and they were everywhere.

Decision time again. I suspected that most of the fire was from people who were nominally our “allies” — Shia killing Sunni Ba’ath Party remnants and homeowners defending against criminals. I also knew they would shoot my Marines without hesitation if the team was seen moving suspiciously through the darkness. The Marines, in turn, would shoot anyone who threatened them. It was their obligation. Major Whitmer’s advice came back to me: Don’t get sucked into a fight not of your choosing. Don’t be in a hurry to get your Marines killed. The odds were slim of anything in this bedlam being of our choosing. Guaranteed risks outweighed long-shot returns.

After Rudy left to brief his team, I looked at Wynn and said, “I think we should cancel the patrol and keep everyone here until sunrise. This isn’t aggressive — it’s foolish.”

“Damn right. Not worth killing Marines to keep someone’s TV from being stolen.”

The battalion acknowledged our change in plans, and I settled in for radio watch while AK-47s cracked all around us. A warm wind blew cordite across the hill. In the distance, headlights traveled up and down the highway north of Baghdad.

My CO called just after midnight. He updated our taskings for the next day. We were to mark any weapons caches or unexploded ordnance for EOD to destroy. Also, the battalion had received reports of a possible regime palace in our zone. I copied the target’s coordinates and saw that they placed it squarely in the center of the amusement park. We were to determine whether it was in use. Twice I asked him to repeat sentences drowned out by the gunfire behind me. After updating our mission, he turned to his second point. “Request full explanation why you canceled tonight’s foot patrol. This makes us look very bad.” In response, I held the handset up to the gunfire and pushed the button to transmit.

We started our day before dawn. The nearest weapons cache was right below our feet. Concrete bunkers stood just down the hill from the antiaircraft position, and in them we counted more than twelve thousand rounds of large-caliber ammunition. Two surface-to-air missiles lay in the field outside the building. While I examined the missiles for identifying marks, an old man in gray robes approached from a nearby house.

I put my hand to my chest and greeted him. “Salaam alaikum.”

“Alaikum es salaam.” He launched into a tirade, spitting and kicking one of the missiles. His Arabic rose and fell in a harsh, guttural staccato. I looked expectantly at Mish.

“He says he is happy you are here and he is grateful to be liberated.” I expected Mish’s stock answer and kept staring at him, waiting for more. “He also says the Iraqis had a gun here to shoot down American airplanes. They abandoned it about a week ago. He is angry at Saddam for hurting the people but also angry at the army for having no pride. He is embarrassed that they gave up without a fight.”