One Bullet Away

“At ease, gentlemen. Please take your seats,” General Jones said. He and Colonel Waldhauser sat together at the head table. Throughout the dinner of steak and shrimp, we stole glances at the general. He was tall, easily the tallest man in the room, and wore the Marine Corps’s new digital-pattern camouflage uniform. We’d been away from home for a long time, emotionally as well as physically, and it was strange to see this newcomer among us. He’d been in Washington only a few days before and would be there again just a few days later. He seemed like an ambassador from another world.

And yet he fit right in with us. Instead of a long and politically correct monologue, he stood up after dinner and told a story about a combat deployment of his own, many years before.

“You’ll be spending the 226th birthday of the Corps out here. My favorite Marine Corps birthday was also spent in the field — 10 November 1967 as a lieutenant with my rifle platoon in Vietnam. We mushed a bunch of field ration pound cakes together to make a cake, drizzled chocolate on top, and sang ‘The Marines’ Hymn.’ Unfortunately, it was the monsoon, and we couldn’t get the candles lit, so we went back to our fighting holes and continued killing Vietcong.” The Marines in the room cheered.

Before sitting down, General Jones looked straight at our table of lieutenants. “Mark my words, gentlemen,” he said. “Your time is coming.”

12

STEPPING OFF THE C-130 in Jacobabad reminded me of every description I’d ever read about another generation of Marines arriving in Vietnam. Only five days after the commandant’s speech, it was Bravo Company’s turn to secure Shabaz Air Base at Jacobabad, in central Pakistan. Even in November, the sun was so hot I watched dark sweat stains spread across the tops of my tan boots. Sandbagged bunkers ringed the tarmac, and fuel trucks, Humvees, and helicopters were crammed onto every square inch of pavement. Adjacent to the runway stood a metal hangar painted in a splotchy brown camouflage motif. Staff Sergeant Marine and I walked toward it.

Inside, government-issue cots filled half the space. Men slept, their eyes shielded from the light by bandannas and T-shirts. Assault rifles lay within easy reach under the cots. Ponchos hanging from parachute cord provided minimal privacy. It looked like a refugee camp. The other half of the hangar was divided into separate briefing areas, with maps, charts, and rows of metal chairs. Our footsteps echoed through the silent hangar, and no one moved as we walked the length of the room to the doorway on the other side.

I squinted in the bright sunlight. Behind the hangar were a dozen low, white stucco buildings. South of them, stone aircraft revetments were built at random. Neat rows would be more vulnerable to aerial attack. But what interested me was to the west, back across the runway from the hangar. The town of Jacobabad stretched from smoggy horizon to smoggy horizon. It sprawled in a vaguely menacing third world way, with boxy water towers and television antennas sticking up from the alleys. The dusty brown construction blended with the smog. Marine and I walked the whole perimeter of the base, filling Alpha’s old positions with our Marines and plotting mortar targets in case we had to defend the field.

Tucked behind one of the revetments was a black Chinook helicopter, propped forlornly on a pile of cinderblocks, missing one of its landing gear. I pointed it out to Staff Sergeant Marine. “That’s the Sword bird we heard about. Lost a wheel taking off out of Mullah Omar’s compound. Looks like it should be sitting in a front yard in West Virginia.”

“Or Maryland, sir.”

Jacobabad was a spook fest. A different team of scruffy-looking commandos lived in each revetment. “Lockheed and Boeing contractors” — masquerading CIA and Delta Force operators — mingled with Royal Marines, Special Air Service troopers, Air Force pilots, SEALs, and others. A maintenance crew patched bullet holes in a helicopter, while another group played touch football on the taxiway next to them.

One of the MEU’s recon teams manned a position atop a hangar, and we climbed up for a look around. The air was hazy, filled with dust and smoke from a thousand burning trash piles and cooking fires. Scrubby trees ringed the runway, but otherwise the ground was bare, baked into cracks and fissures by the relentless sun. Nothing moved. Rudy Reyes and another Marine wore T-shirts caked with white sweat stains. With sunglasses and zinc-covered noses, they could have been lifeguards. Binoculars, a radio, and a sniper rifle lay between them. Recon Marines trained as observers. Sitting atop the hangar in Jacobabad was a perfect observation mission, albeit without the drama of snooping through enemy territory in the dark.

“You guys ever see anything interesting up here?” Marine asked as if he doubted the answer could be affirmative.