House to House: A Tale of Modern War (12 page)

Jim is a native of Saipan, an NCO with no tolerance for bullshit. The choices of driving his tank through buildings, or blazing a trail over land mines, seem more than a tad west of reckless.

“How am I supposed to know where I am, sir? I don’t have a map. Remember you lost yours and took mine.”

“You won’t need a map. I’ll tell you where to go.”

Trusting this young lieutenant is the last thing Jim wants to do.

“Goddamnit, Lieutenant, bullshit. You follow me. I am the fucking lead track.”

“Just settle down there, Sergeant.”

“Fuck you, LT.”

Sergeant Brown comes out of his hatch. He looks at me and points to his helmet/radio headset, a big smile on his face.

“You hear this guy talking to his cherry LT?”

“Sergeant Jim and Sergeant [Matthew] Phelps are my fucking heroes. Fuck that LT, Sarge. Fuck him.”

Ruiz finishes up. “Okay, Sergeant Bell, we’re good to go.” He dashes off to Meno’s track.

I climb back into our Brad. The ramp goes up and I’m sardined next to Lawson again.

I swear I can’t take much more of this bullshit. Let’s just get into the city.

We roll forward, churning sand in our wake. The rest of the platoon follows behind us. The city looms ahead. At last we hit asphalt, the road that runs east-west along the northern edge of Fallujah. We’re almost there. The treads grind across the broken pavement, crunching debris and throwing us around in back.

We swing left, pivot right, swing again, and suddenly the ramp drops. I look left into total darkness.

“Dismount left,” Brown screams over the intercom.

“Let’s go, let’s go! This is it!” I shout.

We pile out of the track. The other Brads are clustered around us so that we can all dismount and use them as cover. We spread out and take up positions alongside our Bradleys.

All around us, the darkness is broken by fires of all sizes and shapes. Buildings blaze. Rubble smolders. Debris burns in the streets. Reddish embers of fires not quite burned out dot and dash the otherwise black cityscape. As I scan for targets, I see white phosphorus everywhere around us. We’re surrounded by the stuff. It’s manna from hell. It reminds me of the burning liquid metal of
Terminator 2.
Entire rivers of flame cut through the night, dancing with little peaks of sharp red-white flames. This stuff is death to all it touches. It can’t be doused with water. Water just makes it burn hotter and higher. Fire extinguishers can’t touch the stuff either. Smothering it with sand is about the only way to put it out. Our 155mm artillery pieces have been firing it into the city well in advance of the assault, alternating between white phosphorus (WP) and high explosives (HE). The artillerists use the WP to drive the enemy out of their positions, then lob HE on them while they are out in the open. It is a tactic called “Shake and Bake” and it is deadly.

Using our Brads as cover, we watch as our gunners prep our first objective area. Tracers streak from their barrels and disappear into the buildings ahead of us. I flip my night-vision goggles down over my left eye and study the buildings. Nothing looks familiar. In fact, the entire area bears no resemblance to the dismount point we’ve studied for the past several days. We’ve practically memorized our aerial recon photos, satellite imagery, and road maps. We know every building we need to assault, every corner we need to cover down on, and every street we must lay eyes on in our assigned area.

Yet none of this looks familiar. The pre-assault bombardment has turned this part of the city into a holocaust of twisted wreckage, mangled buildings, and broken vehicles. Houses have been cleaved in two, as if some sadistic giant has performed architectural vivisection on the entire neighborhood. Floors and rooms have been laid bare, exposed to the ravages of the night’s shelling. Furniture is thrown haphazardly about. Smashed desks, burned-out sofas, faceless TVs lay in heaps within these demolished homes.

The Brads cease fire. Sergeant Jim’s Abrams tank lets loose with one more 120mm main gun round, which blows an enormous chunk off a building down the street. Then his Abrams falls silent, too.

Not a shot comes our way. The scene is eerie, suddenly quiet. It sends a chill up my spine.

Where’s the counterfire? Where are the waves of foreign muj ready to counterattack?

We wait, not quite sure what to think.

Lieutenant Meno decides to consolidate the platoon to the left of the Brads. We move over against a ruined building and take up positions. Now Meno discovers that we’ve dismounted about fifty meters from our specified point. We’re a block short of where we’re supposed to be. Not that it matters; our original plan is irrelevant. The buildings we planned to seize are little more than heaps of brick and splintered concrete.

Meno sketches a new plan, which boils down to “take any building still standing.” Using his night vision, Fitts picks out a three-story house that looks relatively intact. At least it still has walls. Fitts declares it will be our first objective.

Behind us to the north, the sound of engines grows to a steady rumble. I look back and see a glow of lights on the horizon. I can detect Bradley engines and five-ton trucks. But there are other motors, too, and I don’t recognize them. I assume they’re Marines.

A couple of five-tons roll into view. They stop right on the edge of the city. Dozens of Iraqi soldiers spill out onto the sand. Instead of pulling security, they gather in clumps and plop their gear down and collapse next to it. The next thing we know, they’re smoking and joking again, just like we’d seen earlier in the day.

Unbefuckinglievable.

“Sir,” I say to Lieutenant Meno, who is on the radio, “What the fuck is going on?”

Meno steps up toward my squad. As he does, his boot splashes into a puddle of white phosphorus and catches fire. I stare at it without reacting.

“Listen,” he says, “Something’s happened at the breach. Captain Sims is getting briefed by Ramrod 6.” Lieutenant Colonel Newell. “As soon as he knows what’s going on, he’ll disseminate to us. In the meantime, here’s what we’re gonna do….”

His pant leg catches fire. A sheet of flame races up his calf.

“Sir, you’re on fire,” somebody points out.

Meno looks down and sees the flames. He stomps his boot, but that just causes the flames to grow.

Somebody should put up a sign:
DO NOT TAUNT THE WHITE PHOSPHORUS
.

The fire eats away at his pant leg. He’s in danger of getting cooked. Several men grab him and throw him to the ground, where they roll him back and forth until the blaze is finally smothered.

Thankfully, Meno is unhurt. He is a Guamian who grew up in Inarajan, a town the size of a Photomat. He’s not a native of the infantry; he transferred from the Adjutant General branch. Nevertheless, he’s turned into a first-rate infantry platoon leader. His NCOs are hard on him, and when he makes a mistake we let him know. But there is mutual respect between us. He’s a good man, and I know that even if half his calf had been burned off, he’d still stay with us. No way would he leave his men at a moment like this. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that.

As we check him out, Staff Sergeant Jim’s voice comes over the radio, “I got a white van inbound!”

We’re under orders to destroy every vehicle we encounter. Even if it is tucked away in a garage, we’re supposed to treat it as a VBIED—Vehicle-Borne IED. A van moving through the carnage and destruction to get at us is clearly a threat.

Jim’s gunner, Sergeant Denny Taijeron, is Meno’s cousin from Guam. They went to high school together and later attended Guam Community College, where they evidently both majored in wanton urban destruction. They joined the army at the same time and came to Germany together. Taijeron doesn’t hesitate a bit. The 120mm gun fires, bathing the street in a hellish light. The shell blows the van apart. Pieces spin off into the darkness. When the smoke clears, not even a tire remains.

A second later, an AK-47 barks and an insurgent heaves into view.

Over the radio, we hear Jim say, “Check this guy out.”

The lone gunman stitches the tank with his bullets. He might as well have been an ant throwing grass seeds at a lawn mower.

“Are you fucking serious? Look at this fool.”

Another tanker’s voice replies, “Awww man, that guy is cute.”

Jim’s turret turns, the gun’s elevation changes. Suddenly, the entire street lights up again. The insurgent is vaporized.

Jim’s and Taijeron’s stock is rising by the second. They’re using main gun rounds to kill individual insurgents.

A rocket-propelled grenade sizzles from an alleyway to the south and explodes against the thick, sloped hide of the tank. The turret swings again, the 120mm tube flames.

“RPG team destroyed.”

As we listen to this, somebody remarks, “Those fucking tankers are studs.”

The radio chatter helps us pass the time. The wait is interminable, and we cannot figure out why we’re not allowed to move forward. After an hour, we learn there’s been a big snafu behind us. For whatever reason, Marine units are using our breach, and a traffic jam has swollen up around it. If the insurgents knew what was going on and could counterattack in force, we’d be in serious trouble.

Rifles ready, SAWs leveled to the south, we wait for that counterattack. We’ve been given so many worst-case-scenario briefings that the general tranquility seems more a trap than a comfort. But the waves of enemy do not come.

I fuss and fidget and grow anxious. This is not how I imagined our first hour in Fallujah. I expected to be charging ahead and laying into the swarming enemy with every weapon at our disposal. Instead, the advance has come to a complete halt before we make contact, and we’ve even dismounted. I’m frustrated by this ridiculous sitzkrieg. But at the same time I’m hyperalert and constantly running every possible scenario through my head.

That window up there…that would be a great sniper position…keep an eye on it…there’s an alleyway up ahead—it’d be an excellent spot to place an RPG team….

A combat infantryman’s job is like playing infield in baseball. You are always thinking,
What am I going to do if the ball’s hit to me?
You must constantly evaluate threats.

Let me snap off that first round. Get these kids focused on the task.

I look at my guys. They are scanning everything in front of them. Tristan Maxfield, my SAW gunner from Denver, is sweating profusely. He’s also totally focused.

I lean over to whisper in his ear, “Your first day on mission with this squad, you cut a dude in half who tried to run over LT, remember that?”

“Roger, Sergeant.”

“Not everyone has the nuts to stand in front of a speeding car and unload a hundred-fifty rounds. Right now there is a muj shithead shaving his head. Cleansing himself. Praying. And I’m not scared, ’cause I got you. And dude, you are gonna bend that motherfucker’s ribs inside out, right?”

Maxfield starts nodding his head, careful not to look away from his scan of empty windows and doors.

“Maybe we shoulda shaved our heads, too. The whole squad,” he whispers back.

“Dude, if I wanted to run around with a bunch of bald pussies, I would’ve coached my daughter’s soccer team. Scan your fucking sector and don’t let me down, dick.”

Finally, I can’t stand the wait anymore. “Hey, sir,” I call to Meno, “We’re like sitting ducks out here. Let’s take a fucking building down.”

Before he can answer, a star cluster flare explodes to the west. Our entire area is backlit. Another one follows. It explodes right where the Marines are supposed to be grabbing their foothold, so they must be the ones firing the shells. The light from the star cluster washes out our night-vision goggles.

“Jesus,” somebody mutters, “I hope that doesn’t fucking continue.”

“Yeah, how the hell are we supposed to use our NODs”—night observation devices—“if that shit keeps up?”

Meno gets on the radio. Seconds later, he shouts, “Okay, First Squad: Go! Go! Go!”

Fitts and his squad spring forward into the night. Fitts runs with an obvious limp, but he’s still more agile than me on my best day. I watch several of the men stumble over debris and wreckage, but nobody completely loses his footing. They get to the doorway of the target house and flow inside. Each man carries a SureFire flashlight on his rifle, and as the squad enters the house, Fitts tells his men to turn them on. Through the windows, we see the white light beams dancing across the interior walls as they clear each room. The squad is at its most vulnerable point now.

Oh my God. Something horrific is about to happen. The building’s wired to blow. It’s an ambush point. We’re being funneled into a trap.

My mind plays havoc with me. The wait seems to last forever.

And then it is our turn. “Second Squad! Let’s go!”

We race forward with Lawson and the machine guns in tow. Piles of debris litter our way. Some of the rubble is chest high, including torn bits of concrete with metal struts sticking out. As we run, the struts tear at our pant legs like miniature Freddy Krueger claws. I slip, catch myself, and keep going.

We reach Fitts’s house. There is no front door anymore, just a huge, inviting hole made by an exploding tank shell. We stream inside. Fitts shouts to me, “How do I get on the roof?”

Using our SureFire flashlights, we search for the stairs. I turn a corner, boots crunching on layers of broken glass, and find a doorway. My SureFire explores it, and I discover the entrance has been bricked up. In the next room, the men find another bricked-up doorway.

The enemy has prepared this house for our arrival. They know our tactics in an urban environment. They know that after we secure a house, we’ll set up watch on the rooftops. That’s where we like to fight. Roofs are the high ground with the best fields of fire.

The mortar on these bricks looks fresh, like the walls have been built in the last few days. In fact, as we study the house we’ve taken, we discover that there is only one exterior door not bricked up. Every way up is blocked. Every way out is sealed except our entry point and this back door. The insurgents are trying to funnel us into an ambush.