None Left Behind (23 page)

Fouty stirred, startled, when somebody walked up beside him. Sergeant Connell leaned on the roof lip next to him.

“You seem tired, Sergeant,” Fouty said.

“All the patrols day and night are beating us to death. I'm due for leave in April. When I get home, I'm going to sleep for days. When's the last time you were home, son?”

“I think my dad's in Mississippi. Mom's in Texas. I haven't seen them for a while.”

“Your folks know you're in Iraq?”

“I guess they do, I don't know.”

He knew the sound of an AK-47 bullet when it zipped past his head, the deafening blasts of exploding IEDs and mortar shells—but he hardly knew where his home was. He knew the screams of the wounded and had seen the tears of soldiers grieving over their dead—but he wasn't sure he remembered his father's face.

A chill breeze gusting up from fog along the river made him shiver. The awful truth he had discovered in Iraq was that war was horrible and to be avoided. Yet, if you were a soldier, the only way you could measure your worth, test it, was by going through it. Soldiers left their families, those who had families, and rushed off to war because
that was what they were supposed to do.

He doubted he would ever measure up as a soldier.

The deaths of Messer and Given had rocked Delta Company to the core. Rather than making the infantrymen timid and fearful, however, it turned them hard-core and more aggressive. The change became apparent the same day they died. Delta Company and a QRF from Alpha Company kicked in a score of doors and rounded up some dozen men with control or influence in the area for questioning. Intelligence acquired from these detainees led to a series of midnight-to-dawn raids that netted two important insurgents implicated in the bombing.

The aggressiveness continued under Delta's new young company commander, Captain John Gilbreath, who relieved Captain Jamoles. Hard-charging and as stubborn as a pit bull terrier, he was determined that when the enemy struck his men he was going to strike back. What followed were 24/7 days of ceaseless, nerve-wracking patrolling of streets and roads; hunting, fighting, and sometimes killing insurgents; making a presence and demonstrating a willingness to maintain order.

In Iraq and other Arab cultures, men derived respect through displays of powers and sometimes violence, a concept foreign to most Western countries but one the common Iraqis understood at a fundamental gut level. Anything less was interpreted as weakness—and weakness, even perceived weakness, could never hope to secure and stabilize the country. Pacifying Iraq without shedding blood was virtually impossible. The trick came in maintaining the delicate balance between protecting the population from the insurgents and showing over-aggressiveness that might drive traditional Muslim families into the radical camp.

The more Delta Company pressed the outlaws, the more they pressed back, as though desperate to stop American influence and maintain and increase their own. Insurgent mortar fire that had slacked off some began
once more to rain down on all three Malibu battle positions on a regular basis. Typically, they came in just before daylight or just after dark. Three or four rounds, then the shooters hauled ass under cover of darkness and before battalion mortars or 105mm howitzers could home in on them.

No attack, however ineffective, was left unanswered. Delta's QRF responded by searching homes, corralling likely suspects, and questioning witnesses with a new no-bullshit intensity. Locals gradually began to accord the American soldiers more respect.

“Winning hearts and minds means never having to say you're sorry,” Specialist Jimenez joked.

War was always chaotic, unpredictable, and in many ways incomprehensible, even to those involved. Crank it all up a few notches and what you had was guerrilla warfare. The enemy's presence in The Triangle was all around, always there, but blending into the surroundings and rarely recognized until it was too late. Infantrymen became people-watchers as a matter of self-defense and survival. They could generally tell if it was going to be a good day or a bad day by observing the behavior of the people.

Things were probably going to be all right if the kids came out chattering and waving and running alongside, and if the adults were going about their normal business. But watch out if the adults slipped furtively into their houses and the kids started throwing rocks and running away.

As a general rule, women were more opposed to war and disorder than men, thus more receptive to efforts to restore peace to the land and save their teenagers from being conscripted into the ranks of the fanatics. This didn't mean they were used as sources or even that they were the objects of any direct psychological operations to win them over. To do so would be against the culture's moral code. Besides, no Arab woman would dare speak out against her men. Daughters, sisters, and wives had been “honor killed” for less. Bringing in a woman for interrogation or using her to obtain information would have sparked an international incident.

Women in Iraq had few rights and even fewer privileges. They served specific purposes as cooks, cleaners, and breeders. Otherwise, they seemed to have less value than goats or sheep. November through January were raw winter months in Iraq, with lots of rain and wind. Often on a winter's
day, the Joes marveled at seeing an old truck rumbling through with the women and girls in the back of the truck exposed to the elements, and the men and boys crowded into the cab.

While the Americans watched the people, the insurgents watched them back. All the observers were not as obvious as Crazy Legs, whom the GIs permitted to continue about because he could be useful to them as a barometer—and because he would be replaced by someone less visible and therefore more harmful. And so in the winter when many of the dusty roads of summer that intersected with Malibu became muddy trails and travel became treacherous, hostile eyes watched and waited and charted the Americans' habits—when they ate, slept, patrolled; when resupply trucks arrived and departed; when the soldiers were at their peak and when they were ebbing. The U.S. Army was good at forming patterns and establishing predictable routines. That made life more comfortable for everyone involved. Including the enemy.

Rumors persisted about something “big” the insurgents might be planning. Things apparently hadn't panned out so well for them in their attempt to cut the road at 152 and leave the outpost isolated and vulnerable. That didn't mean they had given up.

Lieutenant Joe Tomasello's Fourth Platoon was patrolling on a cloudy, rain-spitting morning through a nameless settlement not far from al Taqa. A group of young men loitering in front of a market glared at the convoy. One of them drew a knife hand across his throat, as if to indicate an impending beheading.

It was well into mid-morning when Fourth Platoon's trucks rumbled back through the gate at Inchon. Gloomy overcast concealed the sun. The platoon had been out on an area patrol since 0500 after spending most of the night on a raid over near Latifiyah. Cookie Urbina had breakfast chow waiting for them in the trailer. The troops were worn out.

Joshua Parrish stopped to scratch Brown Dog's ears. The friendly pooch wagged his tail and begged in his special way for the soldier to bring him a treat when he came back out. Mayhem, Fletcher, Sergeant Tony Smith, Private Michael Smith, and all the others piled on through the door to the rich aroma of scrambled powdered eggs, butter biscuits, and hot coffee. Nothing was too good for the troops.

They shucked their battle rattle, stacked arms, and were just settling down at the long table when Lieutenant Tomasello and Platoon Sergeant Garrett rushed in after having presented their After Action to the commander. The look on their faces said everything. No rest for the weary. James Cook scalded his tongue trying to get down a cup of coffee before the boot slammed.

“Get your shit back on,” Sergeant Garrett said. “We're heading back out.”

Bitch all they wanted, it did no good. Fourth Platoon was the day's QRF.

A Raven UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) had gone down and had to be retrieved. It was a small surveillance aircraft with a four-foot wingspan and a body a little larger than a remote-controlled model plane. An operator on the ground flew it through a visor he wore that displayed images from a small video camera mounted in the aircraft's nose. The plane was crash-landing somewhere near Malibu Road between 152 and 153 when
the camera went out; it continued to send its emergency locator signal. The pilot, Sergeant Dorr, thought it had been shot down.

The trucks roared out of Inchon with Tomasello's vehicle in the lead. Specialist Michael Smith drove. James Cook occupied the gunner's turret hatch while the Raven pilot took the back seat behind the lieutenant.

Specialist Edwin Caldero drove the second truck, with gunner-medic Bryan Brown in the hatch, Sergeant Joshua Parrish in the TC slot, and an IA interpreter named Izzat holding down the back seat.

The third truck was Sergeant Garrett's, being driven by a new kid named Wilson. Sergeant Tony Smith, the chunky Italian from somewhere in New England, rode behind the machine gun in the turret.

Corporal Mayhem Menahem TC'd from the front dismount seat of the fourth truck, with PFC Justin Fletcher at the wheel and Scribner in the hatch.

All the soldiers had the same thought in mind: this could be a trap using the Raven as bait. They kept particularly alert as the trucks sped through the curves toward the aircraft's last-plotted location. There was the feel of spitting rain and a taste of danger in the air.

The trucks failed to make it through the curves. A carefully concealed IED erupted beneath the wheels of Corporal Mayhem's fourth truck with a deafening, heart-stopping roar that picked the hummer off the road and flipped it through the air like a child's toy. Mayhem glimpsed ground and sky exchanging places. The truck landed back on its wheels on the embankment, doors and hatch ripped off and occupants flung out into the roadside ditch near the concertina Second Platoon had been laying in recent weeks.

Mayhem blacked out when his body struck the ground.

The attack was choreographed for maximum effect, and well-coordinated to stop the trucks and trap the soldiers in a kill zone. Command-detonated explosions in a daisy chain disabled trucks two and three almost at the same instant. Sergeant Garrett's number three lurched off the ground in a burst of smoke and went dead in place. Caldero, driving number two, fought his hummer on through the smoke of the explosion until he lost inertia on four blown tires and a busted axle and came to a stop.

Only Tomasello's lead vehicle survived the bomb meant for it and escaped the kill zone, driver Mike Smith twisting the wheel and jamming his foot hard against the accelerator just in time. The bomb went off to one side instead of underneath. Smith gunned on through the danger per SOP before braking for a SITREP and a possible fight.

Up in the turret with the two-forty, James Cook saw smoke boiling like a forest fire engulfing the road and cutting off sight of Mayhem's fourth truck. The other two hummers were dead in the water with more smoke seeping all around them, some from fires in their engines.

“Turn around! Go back!” Tomasello ordered.

Mike Smith cut a sharp donut and headed back into the maelstrom, Cook hanging on in the turret and searching for targets. Smoke burned his eyes and brought tears.

The attackers weren't through yet. Hardly had Tomasello's truck re-entered the curve than a waiting IED nailed it. Tomasello, in the front passenger's seat, was holding on against the acceleration, braced back into his seat with his legs spread. The IED blasted a hole through the floorboard directly between his knees, filling the compartment with smoke and eardrum-bursting energy. He would have lost both legs and perhaps his life but for the coincidence of having had his legs spread.

The truck was still running. “Keep going!” Tomasello shouted. “I'm good, I'm good. I just can't hear a fucking word.”

Neither could anyone else. They were yelling at each other as loud as they could to compensate for ruptured eardrums.

Nearer now, through the twisting whirlpools of smoke, Cook picked up a visual of Mayhem's truck wrecked at the side of the road with its doors and rear hatch missing. Two of the Joes lay sprawled not far from the humvee, whether dead or not Cook couldn't tell. They weren't moving.

The third crewman, Justin Fletcher, was up on the road staggering around in a daze, like he had no idea where he was. His helmet was missing and his ACUs were scorched and torn.

The orchestra was just warming up. The chorus chimed in suddenly. Mortar tubes hidden in brush on the river side of the road and from a scattering of houses in the farmland began
thu-wumping
shells at the convoy.
They were small 60mm foot tubes, but their shells packed a wallop against troops in the open.

Geysers vented in a series of thundering booms, stomping around among the disabled trucks and filling the air with the burr of shrapnel. The ground shook so hard that Sergeant Parrish had the impression of T-Rex's first appearance in
Jurassic Park.

Now for the symphony's main score. From out in the reeds and among the palms appeared a swarm of black-garbed fedayeen advancing toward the trucks at a lurching run, firing AK-47s and shooting rockets with the RPG's double-explosion signature—once when the rocket was unleashed, the second when the grenade struck its target. The concertina wire in the ditch wouldn't stop them; mortars were blowing gaps through it.

Every GI still cognizant of his surroundings and not addled by all the detonations understood that the attackers had the platoon trapped and intended to wipe it out to the last man. Fourth Platoon was in a fight for its life.

The experience of combat took a more or less predictable pattern. First came the shock of being under attack; followed by acceptance; then by trained, instinctive responses to it. In the beginning, the Joes would be so scared when something happened that they thought their hearts would stop beating. Once they had been through it a couple of times, however, they learned to depend upon their training, react to it, and almost subconsciously do what a soldier must. It never ceased to be terrifying, but it did become less daunting.