Chapter One

September 21, 2006

The day of our first patrol and it is quiet. American news channels broadcast non-stop violence, horrific dismemberment, and civilian casualties. All I hear is the sound of boots on the catwalk, the soft rattle of tactical gear, and the sound of movies from other rooms. It’s softly discomforting. Enemy activity picked up significantly right before we got here.

Yesterday, Lance Corporal Miller, a Marine with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, was killed while on patrol roughly a hundred meters outside the base. The Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that killed him was an 82 mm mortar shell wired to detonate on the side of the road, buried under six inches of soft dirt. Other Marines in the patrol traced a wire from the explosion site back to a house where it was connected to a small motorcycle battery that was used to detonate the shell. During the subsequent search they found nothing but empty houses, a few women and children in the small rooms. He was supposed to be going home today. It’s going to be a long seven months.

“Perna,” Lieutenant Brusch calls me. Brusch is an ivy league educated African American 2nd Lieutenant, and on his first deployment. The gold bar that signifies his rank is often referred to by enlisted men as a butter bar. The officer version of boot Marine. He’s never commanded men in battle before.

“Yes sir,” I answer.

“This is Corporal Robert,” he says, pointing to a tall, slender Marine I’ve never met before. “He’s going to be taking you on a familiarization patrol so you can get a feel for the city.”

“Roger that sir. You coming with us?”

“Negative. Additionally, your mission is to establish an observation post in the northern half of Barwanah proper, and keep on the look out for indirect fire teams making a move on the base.”

“The LCMR shot out a grid on the last attack that was right up here,” Brusch says, pointing to what appears to be open desert on the large map inside the briefing room.

“LCMR? What the fuck is that, sir?” I ask.

“Lightweight Counter Mortar Radar system. It detects incoming rounds, calculates their trajectory, and then spits out a rough grid location.”

“Check.”

Just next to the map is a chart of indirect fire attacks. From August 1 to September 15, the Forward Operating Base (FOB) logged 86 mortar attacks. Eighty of the attacks happened between the times of 1100-1400 and 1800-2000. Funny how that corresponds with lunch and dinner. The insurgents seem to have a decent grasp of tactics and a sick sense of humor.

“Here’s where I want you to set up the OP,” the Lieutenant says.

I’m shown the location of a house just over a click, or kilometer, away. I have no idea how to get there, what the key terrain features are, or what to expect once we get there. Shit, I pulled into this city in the middle of the night, I don’t even know what it looks like in the daytime.

Corporal Robert has been here in Barwanah for the last seven months, so I’m forced to trust him to get us to the OP site. I’m no stranger to combat, but I’m a little nervous. The type of combat I experienced in Afghanistan is markedly different from what I expect here. A Marine Corps publication on military operations in urban terrain, or MOUT, states the average engagement distance in a city is 17 meters. Seventeen fucking meters. That’s a bit close for comfort.

The squad goes through a series of pre-combat inspections, ensuring everyone has all their body armor, ammunition, water, and other tactical supplies needed for a short patrol into Barwanah. Robert takes point and we step off towards the front of the base. I rack a round into the chamber of my M16, tap the forward assist to make sure it’s seated correctly, close the ejection port cover, and look towards the gate.

The FOB has a wooden framed gate covered with cloth swinging freely across the street. It’s purpose is to prevent the enemy from being able to see inside and shoot at personnel walking around. Of course, it’s only five feet tall, so apparently head shots are still game.

Everywhere we look is a possible threat. Bombs are buried in the road, snipers fire from distant windows or rooftops, and hand grenades come out of nowhere. Every street corner seems like a great spot for an ambush. There isn’t nearly as much urban terrain in Afghanistan, and up to this point, most of my combat experience has been in the mountainous terrain of the Hindu Kush.

After what seems like the longest twenty minutes of my life, we reach our destination. The Iraqi home sits on top of a small rise, offering a clear view of desert just north of the city. Mortar teams are suspected of firing from a point of origin (or POO) is somewhere near the wadis and dried up stream beds just outside the city limits.

The home Robert chooses for our observation point has a good view of the north, and solid defense capabilities all around. The man of the house isn’t home, and we allow the woman there to leave while we occupy her house. No sense in having her in the home if something goes down.

When we get inside I take off my helmet and wipe off my brow. It’s just under 110 degrees. Not the worst I’ve seen, but still fucking hot. Especially with the new side armor on our flak jackets, it just doesn’t breath. I drink some water, replace my helmet, and check my Marines to make sure we have 360 degrees of security. I establish sectors of fire, and talk with Corporal Roberts.

“About six days ago we got into a firefight here,” he tells me. We step into the living room, where the windows are shot out. There are bullet holes all along the inside of the room, and shattered glass on the floor. I step towards the window. There are three bullet holes in the glass at my chest, and two just in front of my face.

“So you ran into a mortar team up here?” I ask.

“No, didn’t see any mortars. There were about six motherfuckers in that building there,” he points to another home less than 100 yards away.

“So what happened?” I ask.

“Well, we returned fire, I set up a SAW (an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, a 5.56 mm belt-fed light machine gun) in this window, and they broke contact. We tried to pursue, but these guys don’t have sixty pounds of body armor on. We can’t fucking run ‘em down.”

“How often have you guys been taking fire?” I ask.

“It picked up right before you guys got here. Ever since then we’ve been hit multiple times every day. There wasn’t shit during the winter, I guess the Hajis don’t like the cold! That and Ramadan starts pretty soon.”

“Great,” I reply. Ramadan is a Muslim holiday, observed around September, October, or November. It starts on a new moon, and lasts for a lunar cycle, to honor the month in which the prophet Muhammad was presented the Koran. Fasting during the daytime is commonly practiced, as this is supposed to erase the sins of Muslim people. Consequently, insurgents who have declared jihad on Americans view this holy month as a great time to increase their attacks on coalition forces. Sweet.

We remain in place for about two hours, scanning the area, looking out for any sign of insurgent activity. Nothing. We return to base under cover of darkness. I notice I’m more centered on the return. Adrenaline doesn’t last forever, the little spike I had leaving the wire has subsided, and I am in a relaxed state now. It’s kind of like the moment after sex, when you’re not thinking with your cock anymore, and your thoughts are clear, calm, and collected.

After getting back to the base, I conduct a small debrief. The mission can be considered a success, because there was no mortar attack. However, there is no way to tell if that was due to our presence. We turn our fragmentation grenades into the Ammo Supply Point, or ASP. No need to sleep with high explosives in the room, gents.

*            *            *

The next morning I find myself standing on the short catwalk between the Combat Operations Center (COC) and the main building on the FOB talking to Lance Corporal Jason Dunaway. My lead fire team leader, JDun as we call him, is from Winnie Texas. He’s a good old country boy with fists made of bricks and a heart made out of gold.

As we wait for the final inspections before our second patrol, suddenly we hear a series of metallic thuds behind us. We’re peppered with dirt and rocks. I duck reactively, not knowing what is going on.

“Who’s kicking rocks?” Lieutenant Brusch asks.

“Incoming! Fuck!” someone yells.

I turn to my right to see Staff Sergeant Ledbetter, the Marine conducting the final inspections prior to us stepping off, cover his head and dive behind a pillar. He’s not wearing any body armor, so Dunaway covers as much of his body as he can. I dash behind the pillar and cover up the rest of him. We wait for the blast. The round could go off at any time. I’m scared shitless. If the round detonates, myself, Dunaway, and Staff Sergeant Ledbetter will surely be killed. The rest of my squad might be seriously wounded, if not worse. After a second, there’s no explosion, so the three of us get up and run into the COC.

The funny thing about having a near death experience and the adrenaline rush that comes with it is losing all fine motor control. I feel like an uncoordinated jackass as I run for cover. Look like one too. I can barely keep my feet under me. My heart is trying to jump out of my chest. I look back to see the fucking 120 mm mortar round halfway sticking out of the dirt not 10 feet from the catwalk. There is a second one stuck in a Hesco barrier, and another 10 meters further. Close call indeed. Holy shit.

Lance Corporal Ryan Finley, my point man, turns to me and asks, “Corporal Perna, what’s the kill radius of that thing?”

“Big,” is my response. It’s 20 meters. The casualty radius extends another 40 meters past that. These things are fucking deadly.

“Were we in it?”

“Yeah, we were fucking in it.”

The look in his eyes finishes the conversation.

Staff Sergeant Ledbetter returns a minute later with his gear on.

“Jesus Christ, thank you guys. You saved my ass,” he says, referring to Dunaway and I. It was the logical thing to do and we both never even thought of it. Dunaway dove on him first, a testament of his character.

“Hey whatever, you didn’t have armor. It’s cool,” Jason tells him. Humble motherfucker. He’s right though. It didn’t take a second thought. Some people might think that’s heroic. We were all dead if that round exploded. Anyways, he’s going home in a few days. He deserves to live more than we do right now. He has something to look forward to.

We collect ourselves, then step pass the rounds on our way out of the gate. We can’t afford to let non-exploding mortars prevent us from accomplishing the mission. Leaving the base, we head lengthwise down the serpentine alley of concrete jersey barriers barring entry to the base. I don’t like how we’re exposed down the long axis of our patrol formation every time we go outside the base. Fuck it, I think to myself, everywhere is dangerous in this country.

An Iraqi Army convoy pulls down the street towards us, heading back to the FOB. I crouch behind the jersey barriers as they roll by, flashing one of the machine gunners the “V for Victory” sign. Hippy liberal fucks call it the peace sign. Well I’ve adopted it back to it’s original meaning. Victory. V-E Day, the day we defeated Germany in World War II. The dude flashes it back to me. I wonder if he knows what it means.

We turn down a side street, carefully keeping a look out for insurgents, tripwires, mines, IEDs, anything out of the norm. Fuck, I don’t even know what the norm is yet. Last night’s patrol was bullshit. We saw merely a small part of Barwanah, a city of 40,000 people. I don’t know how to get back to base other than finding the mosque, if there happens to be electricity today and someone remembers to turn the minaret light on.

The first part of the mission is to conduct a reconnaissance of the north part of the city, talking to the locals and getting a feel for the place. Kind of like driving around a new town after moving. Next, on our way back, link up with 1st squad and provide close support for them while they maneuver through the palm groves. We really just want to scope out as much of the city as possible today.

As we head down the first street, Lance Corporal Joe Patishnock, one of my M249 SAW gunners, spots a suspicious looking vehicle. What makes it suspicious? The list of known insurgent vehicles posted in the COC. I have a copy in my pocket, and pull it out. It looks like a match, however there isn’t a license plate number to check against. Lance Corporal Cade Cooper and Private First Class Ernesto Chavez search the vehicle, questioning the driver. It’s just a taxi, or so he says. There’s really no way to tell unless we find weapons or explosives inside. There’s nothing in the vehicle, so we move on.

We turn off the street and start patrolling through backyards and ditches. I’m under the assumption that most IEDs target vehicles. Why waste all that time and effort to get one Marine if you can get four? The Company standard operating procedure, then, is to never drive vehicles within the city limits unless it’s for a raid or medevac. I figure it’s a safe bet to stay off the roads in case there are IEDs around.

There have been smaller explosive devices that target Marines on foot, so we carry a man-portable electronic countermeasures system that jams radio signals. It’s design is to defeat any remote controlled IED threat, so any explosive device nearby must detonate by command wire. This requires a direct connection from the blasting cap to the battery, which makes the IED harder to disguise and requires the triggerman to be closer, increasing his risk of death or capture. Preferably death. There’s less paperwork. A delicate game of risk management on both sides.

Lance Corporal Paul Denison walks point in front of the patrol alongside Lance Corporal Ryan Finley. Denison is nervous and on edge. He’s not the same person I sent out here a couple weeks back, having been in country for two weeks now as part of the advance party. Every once in a while he points out sites he has been in firefights, where Iraqi soldiers have been killed, where Marines have been shot, and the spot where Miller was killed just two days ago. Turns out he was walking just 10 yards behind Miller when the IED went off. It’s hard watching somebody die, and it has visibly shaken him.

Still moving north to our pre-planned OP site, 3d squad, 4th platoon (Mobile Assault Platoon 3, or just 4/3) radios in, “Fox Main, this is 4/3, over.” Our call signs are based by platoon and squad. My call sign is Fox 3/2, meaning Fox Company, 3rd Platoon, 2d Squad. First Squad is 3/1, and so on throughout the company.

“This is Fox Main, send your traffic,” comes the reply.

“We have a possible IED, grid XXX XXX, over.”

“Roger, keep us updated, over.”

“Roger, be advised there’s a command wire leading to the east of that position, over,” 4/3 sends.

“Roger 4/3.”

I check my map, and note where 4/3 is. They’re roughly a kilometer away to the northwest. None of us hear the attack.

“All units, all units, this is Fox Main, we have indirect fire, LCMR grid XXX XXX, over!”

I glance at my map and make a snap decision, “Fox Main, this is 3/2, we’re close to the gird, can be there in under ten, over.”

“Roger 3/2, get some. Fox Main out.”

We head towards the LCMR grid, looking for the IED command wire reported to head in this direction. The location is 600 meters past the northern edge of the city, out in the open wadis. Completely exposed all around. I direct Finley to the general area of the grid, and tell him to pick up the pace. I’m hoping to kill a mortar team that nearly fucked us up this morning.

I’m blood drunk. All I want to do is kill these fuckers. I sweat, breathing heavily, but the excitement of the kill keeps me going. The freedom to kill human beings, and not be punished, better yet, praised for it, is intoxicating. As we arrive, I notice some of my junior Marines are starting to drag ass. This is no good, them being tired like this. It’s all this goddamn gear we’re carrying. Fucking body armor, water, ammo, it all weighs a fucking ton. It must be close to 100 degrees, too. Thank God we aren’t deployed during the hottest time of the year. I remember being deployed to Afghanistan in 2005, where daily temperatures were 115 degrees every day of the summer. One day hit a record high at 142 degrees. Fucking melting.

I pull up to a small building, and establish half the squad as a base of fire. Dunaway, Coop, and my radio operator Lance Corporal Chris Gentry go scouting for the exact grid. Hopefully, as a small element, we can draw some enemy fire, then the rest of the squad waste the motherfuckers. We stay out of the line of fire of the other team. There’s only four of us out here visible. I figure the easiest way to get in a firefight is to appear like we’re doing everything wrong. We are certainly doing that.

We spread out on line and comb the area up, moving to a group of decent sized homes. We gain entry to a home undergoing renovations about 200 meters from our original position. I see people mingling about, and direct my other team leader to bring the rest of the squad to a supporting position while we go and talk to them.

I greet a woman, who informs me that her husband is not home.

“Wayn Arrhabi?” I ask her. Where are the terrorists?

“Lah. Makoo shee,” she tells me. No, there are none. I don’t know what to think. The LCMR pinged us a grid out this way, but even if she knew where they were, she wouldn’t tell me. The last company in here arrested a city council member to bring him to the base incognito so they could talk. He was beheaded the next day. Its not very likely anyone would volunteer information unless they were under duress. I call the other half of the squad, and order them to move out towards our position, keeping an eye out as they go.

As we walk around her home, the children glance nervously at us. Her husband returns, and gives us no information. He offers us some orange drink that looks and tastes like Tang. I’m sweating buckets, so I drink some before we move out. Not bad, but I don’t want to know where the water comes from. Probably some well contaminated with shit water.

The next house we come to has a man that looks suspiciously like one of our high value targets (HVT). I have a printout of photos and descriptions of HVTs on the opposite side of the vehicle list. I decide to search his house. One of my Marines finds a two-liter bottle of gasoline. Strange. I immediately order the occupants into one room and post two guards on them. An emerging tactic of the insurgents is to place a flammable enhancer, such as a bottle of gas, alongside an IED, so if the explosion isn’t enough to penetrate our armor, we’ll be consumed in flames.

We tear the place apart, and find PVC pipe, a soldering kit, some circuit boards, and spare wiring. The pipe is just big enough to fit an RPG rocket, it could be wired as an IED. Upon further inspection, the circuit board appeared to have come from a car stereo. I move to investigate the car near the home, which resembles another BOLO vehicle (Be On the Look Out for – a term used to describe a list of vehicles or personnel to be looking for). This vehicle is inoperable, however, and after a bit of questioning, I decide that there isn’t enough evidence to detain this individual.

As we head towards the city again, a young Iraqi boy comes up to us, beckoning that we come to his home. I look to the house to see his father waving us in. They had prepared some chai tea for us. We sit down, drink up, and thank the man and his family. They seem happy to have us here.

*            *             *

First squad should be in place near the palm groves, so I call Lieutenant Brusch on the radio, “Fox 3, this is 3/2, over.”

“Perna, I want you to move into an overwatch position at grid KC 592 768, how copy, over?”

“Roger. KC 592 768. ETA ten mikes,” I reply. We can make it in about ten minutes, I think. The palm groves consist of the land on either side of the Euphrates river that used to be a part of the riverbed before the Haditha Dam was put in place many years ago. On the land based side, there is a 20 meter high section of cliffs, rocks, hills, and trails leading to the rest of the town.

“Our intention is to sweep from north to south, and call on you for support if need be. Once we hit the Echo 3 sector, we’ll go firm and wait for you to join us and then return to base,” Brusch says.

“Roger that sir, we’ll be in position to reach you within five mikes if something goes down, 3/2 out,” I reply.

By the time we get to the house to set our overwatch, 3/1 is already further south than I expect, stopping in a home to wait for us. We continue moving, coming to a ditch, and across the road my point man greets an Iraqi. The man says nothing back and starts to move away.

Finley yells, “ Awgapf!” Stop! The man runs into a nearby house. Naturally, we pursue. I send Cooper’s team around to the back of the house to block escape, then kick in the front door. We come across two women and two children, put them into the living room, shut the door, and lock it. I turn to face three men, all what we call “military aged males”. We ask if they have weapons, though a search of the home by Finley, Denison, and Chavez turns up nothing.

Inside one man’s pocket we find 95,000 Iraqi dinars. A fat wad of cash. I radio to Fox Main to see what I should do. Even without cause, we can detain an individual for questioning less than 24 hours.

“Fox Main, 3/2. We’ve got an individual here with 95,000 dinars on him, should we bring him in?”

“Negative, 32, that’s only worth $60 American. Main out.”

I turn to Dunaway, “Get the fuck outta here. That shit is worth sixty bucks. I thought I knew a lot about Iraq, but they never mentioned how much their fucking money is worth in any of those pre-deployment briefs.”

“Fuck it. This guy is bad, I can feel it,” he replies. Jdun stares the kid down. I let him sweat a little bit, then let him go. I can tell from the look in his eyes he’s not right, but there isn’t shit I can do. He’s got that smug look like Sammy the Bull getting pulled over by the cops and knowing they have to let him go. We’ll see him again, I’m sure of it.

I decide we should find a better place closer to the palm groves, hopefully we’ll get into a fire fight. Dunaway is chomping at the bit for some action, and the junior Marines all say the same, although some of them have a look in their eyes that betrays their true feelings. It’s cool, I’ve been there before. Coop is all for it. Me too. I didn’t come ten thousand miles to walk around and drink fucking chai.

I’m still nervous, however. Not at the thought of getting into a firefight, but about how my junior Marines will react. Are they trained well enough? Are they going to freak out? What’s going to happen? How am I going to control all these men under fire? Shut the fuck up, I tell myself. I know that the Marines are going to follow my lead, and their fire team leaders.

I had a conversation about it with Cooper and JDun a few weeks earlier in Kuwait.

“Look, we gotta be the first ones to kick down the door. We have to be the first guys returning fire, closing with the enemy, and the first one in the building. If you go into a hostile area first, the Marines will follow you.”

“For sure Pern, you know I got you,” Dunaway says.

“Fuck yeah dude, you think I’m gonna let one of them boots get the first kill? I’m all over that shit!” Coop replies.

By ‘boot’ he was referring to the junior guys. The term boot goes back to the days of Marines swabbing the decks of Navy ships. The new guys’ feet weren’t used to the salty breeze, so they would wear boots to stop their feet from getting cracked and chapped. Hence, boot.

We stop by a house that has a decent view of the palm groves, and a very friendly Iraqi man makes some more tea for us. Perhaps too friendly. He asks who the leader of the group is, sets me down in the place of honor in the home, and offers me some shitty palm date candy. He even turns on the TV to some local music station. He seems to support our cause, but I have the sinking feeling that the reason he is able to act like this is because he is in very high standing with the insurgency. It’s possible they would leave him alone if respected as a town or tribal leader so as not to alienate the people, he could be playing both sides, or just paying them off.

“3/2 this is 3/1,” the radio belches.

“Send your traffic 3/1,” I reply.

“Hey, we’re going to RTB (return to base) in 15 mikes, we’ll see you there, over,”

“Roger.”

We’re on our own now. After sitting down for a while, watching the Iraqi TV, maintaining security, I decide to head through the palm groves on our way back, check the area out, and see if we can’t draw some hostile fire.

I want to shake this stigma around the palm groves the Marines have. I want the insurgents to know we’re not afraid to go down there. Intelligence reports tell of daisy-chained IEDs close together, IEDs at head level with trip wires, men in trees with rifles, random throwing of hand grenades, and more. This is not a place to be fucking around. We tread lightly, following the path of the man in front of us in case there are land mines. That way, only one of us gets blown up at a time. Tactics.

“Jesus Christ, it’s like the fucking ‘Nam down here!” Cooper says. I feel the same way. Palm trees blocking the sunlight, can’t see more than 10 meters in either direction, it’s ambush territory. When we reach the souk, the local market, we hear doors closing. All the women and children are going inside, all the shops are shutting down. If this doesn’t put you on edge, you’re in the wrong fucking business.

We keep moving, seeing the same three nervous males from the last house walking down the middle of the road. We greet them again, and still get the same response as before, until one of them recognizes me. Yeah, they’re definitely terrorist fucks. We push on, trekking through the palm groves, but draw no fire. Only blank stares and halfhearted waving from children. We pass by a cave charred by explosions, and march up a road towards the base.

About 300 meters from the FOB, Finley spots a suspicious looking brick hung on the side of a wall. I halt the patrol.

“What is it?” I ask him.

“I don’t know, Corporal, but it might be an IED.”

“Alright, find some cover. I’ll check it out.”

I move closer. It’s just a brick hanging off the side of the wall, with some type of wire holding it there. I can’t positively ID any wires or explosives, but decide to bypass it anyway. We go through what seemed like a whorehouse. There are eight good-looking young Iraqi women, leering at us and saying hello in their best English. It sounded as provocative as they could make it. Whatever. Like I want some nasty piece of Iraqi ass.

We make it back safely, and most of the guys are worn out. Myself included, but I can’t let them see me tired. The new armor is wearing us down quick. We add new side SAPI plates (Small Arms Protective Insert – the actual bulletproof plate inserted into a flak jacket) to protect our ribcage and not only does it add ten pounds, it takes away breathability. Hotter and heavier. Best of both worlds. Now we’re losing our vigilance. The most dangerous time is not going out on patrol, it’s coming back. We came in a straight line right back to the FOB. The insurgents know exactly where we’re going, it takes nothing to plan an ambush. Today we make it back with no incident, but we have to go out and do the same thing tomorrow.

I’m fucking spent. We were outside the wire for nine hours today in 110 degree weather. That’s not exactly the kind of workload I expected to have on our first day. Fuck it, there’s always tomorrow.

September 23, 2006

The last guys from Lima Company, the Marines we relieve, are heading home today. Our mission is to leave the wire before 0700 to draw possible insurgent attacks away from the road. We’ll help them get out of here in one piece. Miller almost made it, it’s the least we can do.

Lieutenant Brusch decides to come with us, and at the last moment we are told to taking four Iraqi Army personnel with us. The commanding officer (CO), Captain Davis, pushes back our time of departure another hour. Goddamn bullshit delay. We’re ready to go, and this comes up. We head back to the room, chill for a bit, and then get downstairs once again.

The IA guys are late, so we push back departure another hour in order for their commander to organize them. Surely there’s just a lack of communication and these guys don’t have their heads completely up their asses. We finally get everyone to the briefing room.

After the patrol brief, I mix them up into our patrol. My two point men, Finley and Denison, then Marine, Iraqi, Marine, Iraqi, and so on. As we head out the base, and down the street, they appear to operate decently, covering danger areas, turning back vehicles, probing everything. They were definitely trained by Marines. At least they’re not total amateurs.

I set up another counter-mortar OP near the northern edge of Barwanah, about a click east of yesterday’s, and sit tight. Lt. Brusch and I are discussing, based on the terrain, where the most likely spots to set up a mortar system would be. Sure enough, at 1013, we hear three muffled explosions. Another round of 120 mm barrage. One round hits the roof of the FOB, another on the Combat Operation Center (COC), and another over the company Gunny’s room. Two rounds extra that did not detonate, also hit the roof, one of them lodged directly into one of the guard posts, with the Marine inside. Fuck.

None of the rounds penetrate the reinforced concrete school building that we are using as our base, and no one outside is hurt. It’s only a matter of time until someone is hit if we can’t stop these attacks. We scan the area intently. If the mortar team is anywhere nearby, we will find them. One of my Marines notes some hasty loading and unloading of a white truck, which then speeds away from an area of town called the fish market. I gather up a team of six, plus Lieutenant Brusch, two Iraqis, and head over. We find nothing but fish and automotive shops, and another squad out on patrol. We head back to our OP to finish out mortar prime time.

After 1400, I decide to go check out the fish market area in depth on our way back to the FOB, going by a building destroyed by a handful of JDAMs, Joint Direct Attack Munitions. They’re GPS guided bombs that come in regular, large, and super size. Pretty gnarly shit. The building is totally destroyed, a few brown dried blood stains marring the once clear exterior. They got super sized.

We cut across Barwanah Road, a site of constant IED attacks, and into an Iraqi man’s courtyard. The man has a stash of propane tanks about 60 deep, and a vehicle that resembles one on the BOLO lost. Some IEDs are made out of this exact same type of tank. We search his home and vehicle, but can’t find any ordnance. All we need is one trace of explosives, blasting cap, weapons, just something. We find nothing, and are forced to let him remain free.

I am not happy about the way we have to conduct business. My gut feeling tells me this guy is trouble, yet there is nothing I can do about it. Even these Iraqis, in a land of no laws, no police, terrorists running around killing people, even they are afforded the same rights as a United States citizen. I decide to head back to base and call it a day. We make one more stop to rest and drink water, and get back to the FOB safely. Debrief, turn in ammo, rest to do it all over again tomorrow.

“Hey Perna,” Lieutenant Brusch says, catching me leaving the COC. “Today is the first day of Ramadan. Intelligence tells us to expect attacks to double, which are already up 250% in the last month. Keep things tight out there.”

“It’s going to be a long fucking deployment, sir.”

“Yes it is.”

*             *             *

I wake up in the morning at 0330. I can’t sleep right. I keep thinking about making a mistake and one of my guys dying. I keep having dreams flashing back to Afghanistan. There’s a recurring one where I am hiding behind a gravestone, and we ambush a Taliban unit, squad sized. They return fire with machine guns and RPG’s, and one of the RPG’s is fired directly towards me. It skids along the ground, bouncing, and stops by my side. It doesn’t detonate, and I roll over and hug the warhead. Then I wake up, heart pounding, adrenaline rushing through my system. It fades, and I relax into a light sleep once more.

* * *

Today is the first day my squad will stand post at the FOB. There are eight reinforced posts, each manned by a single Marine. Lt. Brusch tells me the schedule, eight hours on post, standing, alone. Then eight hours on a Quick Reaction Force (QRF), then eight hours rest. The first half of the day goes by without incident.

There is nothing more boring in a combat zone than standing post. The Marines are just standing there, in full gear, no one to talk to, watching the same piece of ground for hours and hours on end. A man’s mind starts to wander, and reflect on past experiences, plan for the future, want things he can’t have. While deployed to Afghanistan, I figured my entire life out, three times over. I would imagine building my perfect dream house, imagining every nail that would go into the wood. There is that much time.

During lunch, there are a few explosions. Some 60 mm mortar rounds land about one hundred meters short of the firm base. They sounded like kids setting off party poppers compared to those 120’s.

“Dog, I’ll fucking catch one of those sixties and throw it back at the motherfuckers,” Coop says over the radio.

“No shit, right? Those 60’s are weak.” I reply.

It isn’t very accurate fire at all. They must have quickly set up nearby to shot a off couple rounds in handheld, a mode of firing where the mortar is placed on the ground, held in place, roughly aimed, and then picked up. The 120’s on the other hand, take a bit more time to set up.

I believe that the large mortar system is in the back of a truck. All the insurgents have to do is drive up to a designated spot, drop a few mortar rounds, and drive off. That’s the only way to explain how they are so accurate on the first round, every time. Also why we never catch them. They’re mobile, I just know it.

These mortars are the bane of our existence. Just going to take a piss I pass nine mortar impacts. I’m only exposed outside for maybe ten meters total, and there’s nine fucking craters. The door to our room, made of thin sheet metal, has so many shrapnel holes through it that we have to arrange our beds out of the line of the door. Walk outside the room and on the catwalk there are three and four inch chunks blown out of the walls. On the roof, where there are two posts holding security, there are multiple craters. Seeing it in the movies is one thing, but living it is entirely different. Fuck being scared shitless, I’m scared to shit.

The day drags on. There isn’t any combat yet. The insurgents must be watching us, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, knowing there’s a new unit in town. Just after dinner, a massive amount of small arms fire breaks out just 800 meters from the base. First Platoon is in quite the battle. Their task to provide security around a possible Improvised Explosive Device just turned kinetic. Lance Corporal Josh Gainey is attempting to get innocent civilians out of the street when he is shot multiple times. He refuses medical treatment and maintains control of his fire team until the fight is over.

MAP platoon is activated from their counter mortar over watch to respond for a medevac. Five minutes en route, they receive heavy small arms fire just outside the city. My squad, on QRF at the time, is activated to head out. This is what we came here for. Fuck all that liberal bullshit about we need to bring the troops home, those poor guys, or the government made them go. Every man here volunteered during a war, to go fight that war. There isn’t a sorry man among us. Nobody forced this upon us. Jdun, Coop, and I all have sadistic grins on our faces. This is what we live for. The attitude of my fire team leaders pumps up the junior guys. Even they are excited. I love it. There is no group of guys tougher than a squad of Marines with killing on their minds.

We get a quick brief from the watch officer, Lieutenant Brusch, who is in charge of the COC during the platoon’s guard cycle. First platoon locates an IED on the road that 4/1 is going to use to medevac Gainey. Corporal Blackmon, from 2/2, and I are about to take both our squads out to reinforce them.

We coordinate nearby routes to get to the battle, and go condition 1 at the gate. Gunny Jordan joins us at the last minute, fumbling with his M4. Right as we get outside the gate, Captain Davis calls me on the radio.

“3/2 this is Fox 6, be advised you are standing down, over.”

“What? Sir, we’re already outside the gate!” I reply.

“Negative, 3/2, you are to stand down, reinforce the posts if the base gets attacked, over.”

Are you fucking serious? I think. We’re on the way already! “Roger that, sir,” I say, not willing to disobey orders at this point in the game. Gunny Jordan and 1st Sgt Moran join Blackmon’s squad. We stand down for now. Fucking inept CO. We were already outside the wire. I can’t describe how that feels. Knowing my brother out there is hit, the only thing I want to do is get into the fight.

Not ten minutes later, another firefight breaks out. This time, Blackmon’s squad is hit. We are in the shit now. One-three splits up into three 4-man elements in mutual support, and one of them is hit hard, getting pinned down outside a building across the street from 1st Platoon. The other two teams pull into the house where Gainey is shot up, and set up a strongpoint defense. At the same time, MAP Platoon deals with their firefight outside the city, when some vehicles pull up, drive by shooting like gangsters, and pull away. They engage them and are tied down for the moment.

Blackmon’s squad, on mission to reinforce 1/3, starts taking fire. On the roof of a building at Barwanah Road and Burger King, Private First Class Dunford is shot in the neck and is in serious condition. He’s bleeding profusely. They charge into a nearby home and set up a hasty fighting position. Dunford gets patched up. The bullet rips through his trapezius muscle, shredding some nerves, but narrowly missing his carotid artery. Lucky son of a bitch.

My squad is called into the COC again to reinforce the rest of the company, but we have to stand down another time as Corporal Davis, with 2/3, is sent out to reinforce his own platoon. I’ve been standing in the COC this whole time listening to this shit on the radio, ready to go! What the fuck? I think, gazing at Captain Davis.

That’s the last of Marines on the base. We are now the only squad left at the FOB besides the eight men standing guard. If we are attacked here, there are just 16 of us to hold down the whole base, as more than 77 Marines are now engaged outside the wire.

The COC is a mess. The radio operator is trying to coordinate radio traffic from six different squads. The watch officer is trying to figure out where all the friendly units are. The Forward Air Controller is calling for a medevac, and Staff Non-Commissioned Officers from 1st and 2nd platoons are running in and out trying to make sense of where their squads need to go. I remain in there, ready to fight. My squad can be up here ready to go in less than a minute.

MAP platoon’s 1st squad is on their way to 1/3’s position, but have to take a roundabout route to get around the IED. Davis is on his way to reinforce Blackmon and get Dunford out of there and on the medevac bird.

Davis rolls out with Captain Davis, skirting the edge of Estrada road. Estrada and Barwanah is a rough intersection. That is where Lance Corporal Miller was killed by the anti-personnel IED. They stay off the road. Davis’s squad comes to the scene from the south at a 90-degree offset.

Two Marines from Blackmon’s squad spot the man that fucked up Dunford, and mark his position firing tracer rounds from their M16s. The firing increases substantially as all Marines in the team are pointed on target. As Blackmon’s squad assaults the front of the home, Davis and another Marine head to the rear of the building to cut off the escape route. Blackmon charges in the front door, and the insurgent tries to slip out the rear where he is promptly tackled by Corporal Davis. The man is subdued after a short struggle, flex-cuffed, then blindfolded. He is brought back to the FOB and immediately placed in a holding cell. The firing stops, and the gunfight is over.

*             *             *

The Quick Reaction Force is assigned to watch any detainees that come back to the base, so I assign two of my guys to watch the detainee. Turns out it’s the same guy who gave us chai yesterday and seemed a bit too friendly. His nickname is Gordo, Denison tells me, because he lives off the street named Gordon Biersch, after the restaurant/brewery.

He seemed a little shady, but consistently let Marines into his home and allowed them to search it. Once, Denison says, the home came under accurate sniper fire, probably initiated by Gordo after Marines allowed him to leave the home. After this bit of information, I decide not to let occupants leave their homes anymore. I’ll just put them in a safe room so they can’t divulge our location to insurgents.

After we secure Gordo in a holding cell, MAP platoon is finally able to reach Gainey’s position, secure the area, and get him to the medevac site. They secure the LZ and prepare to receive Dunford as well. The bird flies in shortly thereafter and evacuates them to Al Asad surgical, where Dunford is put under the knife and immediately operated on.

1/3 and 2/3 are tasked to stay in the area, go firm, set up a defense, and remain in place overnight. After they receive their tasking, I assume my post as COG (Corporal of the Guard – in charge of base security for a shift) at 2400. That’s midnight. It’s a six hour shift and I won’t be off until morning. The same cliche runs through my mind all night. It’s quiet… a little too quiet.

* * *

I sit back in the chair with a cup of muddy coffee. Looking back on the first week of our deployment to Iraq, I can’t help but think that we’re in for a long haul. There were six firefights today. Two Marines seriously wounded in their first fight. The insurgents in this city had engaged almost the entire company in battle, and all but one escaped. Sure, Marines had shot a few, but nothing was found except spilled blood and spent bullet casings.

I bear quite the responsibility. If I make a mistake, someone may get killed. A lot of guys my age are working dead-beat jobs, security cameras trained on them to make sure they aren’t stealing cash from the register.

My commanding officer puts me in complete control. I plan the patrol routes, I develop tactics, techniques, and procedures to deal with the varying threats we will be facing. I order a young Marine to do something that may cost him his life, and he does it, without question, such is the belief in a Corporal of the United States Marine Corps. What happens if I order a Marine to do something that leads to his death? What will that do to me? What really matters in this war? Am I strong enough to carry on?