House to House: A Tale of Modern War (26 page)

The power of Christ compels you. The power of Christ compels you.

I’ve got to do this thing. I take a long breath. The air is stagnant, full of smoke and body odor. I try not to gag. Another deep breath. The foul air acts like a slap in the face. I’m back in control, alert and aware.

I’m ready. I’ve got total clarity and am of singular purpose. I whisper a short prayer and stand up.

“GO! GO! GO! GO! GET OUT!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

At a crouch, I move up the wall and cross into the living room, the SAW leveled, my finger tense on the trigger. A few quick strides and I step into the doorway to the stairwell room. I’m in the fatal funnel.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Failed Test of Manhood

My sudden appearance catches the enemy off guard. I expect the AKs to open up again as soon as I expose myself. But they don’t. Instead, I squeeze the trigger and hold it down. Hellfire starts flying toward the enemy. Mathieu’s SAW is impeccably clean and well maintained, and I am confident that it will not jam.

The insurgents under the stairs react with discipline and speed. The one on the left hammers the doorway with both AKs. The other mans the PKM, and I can see his weapon chewing through its ammo belt.

Bullets bash into the wall to my left. The door-frame splinters. Tracers hiss this way and that, bouncing off the bricks and ceiling. I’m in a firestorm, totally exposed. I’m amazed I haven’t been hit.

I sidestep through the doorway and to the left, trying to get a section of the stairwell between me and the enemy for at least a little cover. I hold my own trigger down, abandoning any pretense of disciplined fire. The SAW booms and goes cyclic, spitting bullets at an incredible rate. They carve chunks out of the Jersey barriers. Bits of concrete spin crazily around the room.

I stay on the trigger. More bullets slam into the Jersey barriers and penetrate to their hard foam centers. Hunks of the foam pop out of the holes I’ve made and cartwheel through the room. The fuckers under the stairs still fire back, but they are wildly inaccurate. Their tracers ricochet in dizzying patterns—
wall, ceiling, floor, wall.

My SAW’s barrel acts like a torch, illuminating the room with rapid-fire muzzle flashes. I’ve got a much better view now. I can see my straight-teethed assailants staring malevolently at me as they shoot. I sweep the SAW toward one and really hammer at him. He ducks to avoid getting his head blown off. I’ve got him pinned.

I may not be able to speak with canonical authority on the power of Christ, but I know a compelling weapon when I see one. An M249 SAW is like a bullwhip. I swing it at the other insurgent. My rounds—725 a minute—slap into the wall, the stairs, and the barriers. He dives for cover. Both of them are on the defensive now, pinned and unable to fight back.

In the living room behind me, Fitts barks orders and the platoon kicks into action. They peel off from the wall one by one and sprint across the room into the foyer. Within seconds, they clear the house and weave through the gauntlet of the courtyard out to the street.

My men are safe.

Trigger still depressed, my mind races. I’ve suppressed the enemy. Now I should kill them. My heart urges me forward around the stairwell.

Get out there. Clear the room and juice these guys.

I try to step forward, but my feet won’t move. My legs feel like they’re chained to the floor. I can’t advance the ten feet needed to end the fight.

Don’t be a bitch. Move forward. Do not nut up.

I strain against my own body. I cannot move. The SAW’s bolt clacks back and forth as it chews through my ammo supply.

Okay, I probably have about a hundred and ten rounds left. What if I make a push and get on the stairs?

No. My body still refuses. My heart rages.

I “Z” the SAW along the barriers. More foam explodes out to cascade onto the floor. It looks like snowfall in hell in the fire-lit gloom.

Okay, I’ve got probably less than a hundred rounds left. It’s time to move. Get forward. Finish this. Finish this
now.

I push. I swear. My legs won’t budge. The enemy remains unhurt, hiding behind the ripped-up barriers.

I can’t do it. My heart seethes with contempt. Then my SAW runs away from me. Sometimes, with that weapon, once you go cyclic you can’t stop it. I ease off the trigger but it remains locked back. The bolt charges on its own. The gun spews at least fifty more rounds, then clunks on an empty chamber. I’m out of ammunition.

I’m still in the stairwell room. Any second, the fuckers under the stairs will pop their heads back up, see that I’m an open target, and finish me. My legs suddenly free up. I’ve got to get out.

Run. RUN.

I spin right and bolt through the doorway, thinking McDaniel and his 240 will be in the foyer to cover my escape. I don’t see Misa anywhere. But both the living room and foyer are empty. I charge through both and out the front door. As I fly into the courtyard, an automatic weapon clatters.

“Give me another automatic weapon,” I scream, still standing in the courtyard.

“Yo, pull back,” Fitts yells.

“I need 203s. Give me some 203 fire.”

Bullets crack over my left shoulder and hit the outer wall in front of me. I keep running, my legs pumping furiously. And then I’m through the gate and with my men. Misa appears at the gate and throws me to the side of the outside wall on the street.

“I got you. You’re good, man,” he says to me.

We’re safe. The wall should shield us from the machine gun in the kitchen and give us time to reorganize. The platoon is scattered all over the place. Some of the men hug the wall on the left side of the gate, some are on the right. Others mill about uncertainly. Everyone is shouting. Above the din, Fitts tries to count heads. He wants to be sure nobody has been left behind.

“Team leaders report,” I shout.

From down the street, Misa replies first, even though he’s one of Fitts’s guys, “I’ve got Ruiz and Sucholas.”

“What the fuck? Give me a goddamned up on your guys.”

Somebody else shouts, “I’ve got Metcalf, Flannery, and Ohle. Metcalf is up. We’re green.”

Around me, I’ve got two of Fitts’s soldiers, one of mine, and one man from Lawson’s weapons squad.

Fitts barks orders, trying to piece together a fire team from the disorganized mess the platoon has become. Everyone is talking over each other.

“Where they at?”

“I need a heads-up. Gimme a fucking heads-up.”

“Bring those Bradleys up here,” Fitts barks.

Knapp tosses a frag over the wall.
PFOMPT!

I grab another drum of ammunition for my SAW. I grab Maxfield and Stuckert.

“Hey, SAW gunners suppress.”

All three light machine guns lay into the roof line of the house.

“Here’s what we are gonna do—” Fitts is cut off by all the confusion.

I try to cut in, “Is anyone hurt? Is anyone still in the house?”

Nobody answers.

“Did anyone get shot on the way out?”

No answer. Everyone’s still absorbed with their own issues.

“I need to know, goddamnit. Do you all have your shit?”

Fitts gathers part of the platoon. He intends to clear and occupy the two houses across the street, to gain a vantage point over the enemy. He points at one house that has three stories. “We’ll get up there and lay down a base of fire!” Fitts is doing it by the book.

My shouting does no good. Nobody answers me. I start to pace, growing more furious with myself. There’s no escaping this: I cut and ran. When shit got hot, I ran. I’m an NCO. I’m supposed to lead by example.

What the hell kind of example was that?

“Give me my fucking rifle. Who has my fucking rifle?” I am livid with myself.

I gave up the SAW, now I need a weapon. Mathieu shows up in front of me. He hands me my M4 and says, “There’s a malfunction with your M4. It’s jammed. It looks like something hit the trigger well.”

He stands there in the street and gives me a detailed report on my weapon. Bullets are still zipping overhead every now and then. We’re in a battle, and Mathieu is trying painfully hard to be thorough. But I’ve got other things to worry about. I interrupt him, “Mathieu, go get me a PEQ-2 Alpha!”

This is an infrared targeting system that fits atop our rifles. All you need to do is point the infrared laser at something and pull the trigger. You can even shoot from the hip, it doesn’t matter. The bullets will tear holes in whatever the laser pinpoints. Even better, it can only be seen while wearing night-vision goggles. This way, the enemy won’t know he’s lased. For close-quarters fighting, this beats an iron sight or a red-dot scope hands down. It allows for speed, maneuverability, stealth, and quick firing.

Santos materializes out of the night and hands me his M16. The weapon is long and heavy and it has a full stock. Seated on the gun’s rail is the laser sight I want. Nestled under the barrel is the blunt, reassuring presence of Santos’s grenade launcher. This makes the weapon even heavier and more cumbersome, both detrimental in a close-quarters firefight.

I take the M16 and a thought occurs to me. If I go back into the house and die, the enemy will get my weapon and ammunition. I remember the insurgent we killed yesterday who had an M16.

I wonder what happened to the American who owned that rifle.

I start handing my extra magazines to Santos and Mathieu. I usually carry fifteen mags in the pouches on the right side of my chest. I keep three for myself. The others go to the men. If I die inside the house, the enemy will not get much ammo off my dead body.

The crack of a machine gun splinters our sense of safety. I watch Stuckert sink his head into his hands as he throws himself against the wall. A line of bullets gouge fragments out of the wall above his head. Stuckert looks up, pissed. He suddenly pivots out into the street. SAW shouldered, he scans for a target. An AK on semiauto blasts a few rounds at him. Bullet sparks flare in the street around him. He’s undeterred. He takes aim on the rooftops and uncorks a long, angry burst.

“Why don’t you fucking die already?” he shouts as his SAW bucks against him.

I key my radio, “Get a Bradley up here now.” We need support. The fuckers are trying to pin us down on the goddamned street. I’m beyond furious; I feel responsible. Had I closed the deal inside the house, they would not be shooting at my men. If somebody dies now, it will be my fault. I should have crossed that stairwell room, stuck the SAW into the space between the stairs and the Jersey barriers, and just unloaded. I’d imagined that scenario a hundred times in training. I had prayed to be tested like that. I should have handled things differently. A true leader would have.

Bullets sweep the street again. A rash of sparks surges around me and several other men. Fitts’s group blasts back with grenades and M16s.

“I should’ve assaulted that faggot by fire. I AM A GODDAMNED INFANTRYMAN! WE ARE NOT RUNNING AWAY! Get me a Bradley up here now.” I look up and see Sergeant Jose Rodriguez looking at me as if I have lost my mind. Maybe I have. He holds the radio to his now gaping mouth. He says nothing, but I can see fear in his eyes. Is he afraid of the enemy—or me?

I put my face inches from Rodriguez’s, “I want a Bradley up here
now.
”

Rodriguez doesn’t react. I whack him across his helmet.

Fitts grabs me.

“Hey, chill out, bro. I need a heads-up. We’re gonna bring a Brad up here. Don’t lose focus on the fact that we got buildings unsecured all around us. We need you to calm the fuck down.”

More near misses register off the asphalt.

“Oh fuck, we’re all going to die,” comes a voice thick with fear and panic.

I’ve got to end that shit right now. “We’re not going to die,” I shout into the night, “
they’re
going to fucking die. We’ve got this under control, so just shut the fuck up, check in with your team leaders, and make sure everyone’s fucking good.”

That puts a clamp on the panic. We’ve got to fight back. Stuckert has no angle on the enemy. The grenades seem ineffective. We’ve got to do something else.

A round just misses Private First Class McDaniel.

“Jesus!” someone screams.

“C’mon. Where are they shooting from?”

Another round nearly takes out Stuckert.

“I almost got shot in the fucking head,” McDaniel says in disbelief.

Stuckert scans everywhere looking for the man who is trying to kill him. “Where is this fucking dude?”

I step toward a group of soldiers clustered against the wall. “Give me your grenades.”

The men start pulling frags off their kits. I turn to Sergeant Knapp and say, “Knapper, you ready? Alley-oop. Hooah?”

“Hooah, Sarge.”

Knapp is the only one looking like he’s in control at the moment. He sidles up to the wall and waits for me.

Someone tosses me a frag. I pull the tape off the spoon, slip the pin out, and toss the grenade to Knapp. Knapp catches it one-handed and launches it over the wall, aiming at the palm-lined garden inside the courtyard and the roof of the house. His arm is like a cannon. He can throw a football like a pro and blaze a baseball knee-high to the plate from center field. The man is an athlete with confidence to burn. We need that.

BOOM!
The grenade explodes somewhere over by the palm grove.

I catch another grenade, prep it, and lob it at Knapp. Effortlessly, he slings it over the wall. His arm is simply amazing. In training, I saw him throw inert grenades fifty, sixty meters. He’s a human mortar.

“Get another one ready. Another one. Another one. Another one,” I scream in a rage to those around me moving too slow. “You listen to me, you stubborn fucks. Grab whatever you got and toss it to Sergeant Knapp.”

We alley-oop three more grenades. He shows no sign of nerves as I throw sizzling frags at him. Had he dropped one, he’d have been done. Instead, he pitches them at the enemy, and for the moment their fire slackens.

Right then, Cantrell’s Bradley lumbers up the street. The platoon scatters as the Brad arrives. Some get behind it for cover. Others move down the wall out of the track’s probable line of fire. Fitts divides his group into two maneuver elements. They shotgun the locks off the gates and disappear into the houses across the street.