Princes of War (11 page)

The Wolfhounds had stopped to investigate. The IED blew marble-to-baseball-sized holes into the lower part of the car’s passenger door. The passenger had taken the brunt of the blast and his body was completely disfigured. His buttocks and hips had essentially disappeared, and the lower part of his back was split open, exposing a section of spine that looked like splintered wood. A bloody mess of thousands of particles of flesh was sprayed over what remained of the car’s interior. The driver took the rest of the explosion. Due to the direction of the blast, angled from road level through the lower part of the passenger’s door and up, the driver’s shoulders and head were smashed, but his lower body was largely unscathed. His upper right arm was ripped from the shoulder, and dangled from thin strips of ligaments. His right forearm and hand were sliced off. A chunk of that hand with three fingers still attached lay charred on the smoking remnants of the car’s dashboard. What remained of his head was a messy clump of flesh about the size of a pink grapefruit. Moose remembered wondering what the man had originally looked like.

In his mind, for a moment, he put these two dismembered guys on polished metal tables in a well-lit morgue. He pictured them naked and washed, wounds exposed and visible. Imagining this, he recreated all the details of their destruction.

Then Moose remembered a 10-year-old kid who had his left hand blown off when a mortar round that he’d carried home to show his father exploded. The father was unhurt. He carried the boy to the Wolfhound convoy to seek aid.

And there was Ramirez, and the two Civil Affairs soldiers.

Moose reached forward and stroked the big .50 cal.

D24 hit a sharp bump on the road.

“I’m still here!” Moose yelped.

“Ayeee, yep. Passed your flying lessons. Been there. Done that,” rejoined Cuebas.

“You didn’t pass, buddy.”

“The hell I didn’t. The next time we come to a bumpy area, I’m undoing your harness. Let you fly out and join Hajji on a pilgrimage.”

“You might get away with it, Mex. You could sneak daylight by a rooster.”

“Ayeee. Not a Mex. I’m Puerto Rican.”

“I’m the Mex, and I like to party,” said Ortiz, D24’s driver.

“Drop the bullshit,” Cooke ordered.

“Slowing down,” Turnbeck reported. “More congestion ahead.”

“Fucking move,” Ortiz said. “Geeeet out of the way!” The car driver couldn’t hear this, but he finally crawled to the side of the road.

“Sometimes we must scare these people shitless,” Moose said, after a pause.

A car that looked like a taxi came down the wrong side of the street.

“You idiot.”

“We’re smart and we’re doing it.”

The Wolfhounds jumped the street median and drove against the civilian traffic. The oncoming cars pulled hurriedly to the side. A man and three children rushed across the street. He grasped two of the children’s hands as if he were afraid he might lose them. One was a girl, maybe 12 or 13 years old. The other two were boys, perhaps between six and nine. All wore filthy clothing, clothing probably worn for weeks.

The Wolfhounds approached a bridge.

“Slow mover on the overpass. Left to right,” Turnbeck reported.

“And right to left,” someone called out, as a second vehicle drove onto the overpass, going in the other direction.

The first car was almost directly above them on the overpass as D22 drove under it.

Seconds later, as D24 drove under, Moose remembered a story he had heard about a VBIED detonating on a bridge and blowing it up.

The platoon merged on a wider highway, and traffic became lighter. A cart full of propane tanks stood on the left side of the road up ahead—a man, probably the dealer, standing beside it.

“Propane. Exactly what I love,” said Moose, as the convoy passed.

The tanks, rusty and beaten up, looked as if they had been hauled out of a landfill somewhere. Propane tanks had been used in bomb attacks. The Iraqis used propane for kitchen cooking.

More road bumps, this time potholes. The road looked carpet bombed.

Moose noticed several cots on the roof of one house. In hot weather, some Iraqis slept outside on their roofs. Most neighborhoods had no air conditioners.

“Red stationary vehicle. Single occupant,” reported Turnbeck.

Seconds later, he said, “No problem. Think it’s a woman. It is a woman.”

Two mules strolled off the right median, a large brown one and a smaller white one.

“Rather see horses,” said Lee.

“We ought to make soldiers out of them,” Moose suggested.

“Looks like you and your girlfriend,” Cuebas ribbed Moose.

“Fuck you.”

Ahead, the convoy was channeled by curbs on the side of the road and a concrete median.

“New palm trees in the median.”

“Ayeee. They need water,” Cuebas said, mournfully. “Maybe a gift from Puerto Rican taxpayers.”

“The whole country needs water,” Ortiz said. “Let’s spit on them.”

“Be quiet. Here we go,” Cooke said, as more traffic coalesced.

“Obstacle ahead,” Turnbeck reported.

Someone had pulled a big piece of bent metal out on the street to constrict traffic. It looked like a section of guardrail or materials torn off a metal building. The convoy slowed down. Next to the piece of metal was a civilian dump truck. The truck was packed with thin twisted strands of something in the back bed. Soldiers looked as they passed. Dried vines? Metal wires? Maybe that metal piece had fallen out of the truck. Nobody knew.

The convoy moved stop-and-go through the slowed civilian traffic. No way to get around. Two- and three-story buildings paralleled the roadside. Moose continued his regular scan and swivel with the .50 caliber. He could see the gunners in the three trucks ahead of him scanning.

“Move. Move!”

Cars inched out of the way.

The Wolfhounds cleared and moved on, the Humvees groaning angrily.

“Yeah. That’s it.”

“Go baby, go.”

A large pool of water filled the road ahead. Probably a leak somewhere. “Water flooding the road,” said Turnbeck. Most of the platoon saw it.

“Push through,” Wynn commanded.

“A little shit-water never hurt anybody,” Singleton commented.

They drove through the water, picking up speed. Ahead, up on the left, a field spotted with clumps of dying grass bordered the road. Two goats and maybe a dozen sheep grazed, tended by a small boy.

Moose felt an urge to snarl at the boy, to let the boy know he was not from here, that he was a mean, powerful American who could do as he wished.

They drove fast again on open road. Even with his head exposed out of the turret, Moose could feel the brutal temperature enveloping him in an insidious cloud. A man could easily fall asleep in this heat. As hot as it was, if he closed his eyes he could pretend he was drunk and home in the States. But the image wouldn’t last. He didn’t want to be home anyway—he was happy right here.

7

After getting underway, Wynn, needing assurance, did some self-examination. Most men had the same questions about themselves, he believed. They always did. Once basic survival was secure—not a big issue anymore for the typical American—more complex motivations such as personal desires and ambitions became drivers. Wynn’s own life had led to the Army. But why?

Arlington National Cemetery had made a big impact on him. All his converging inner impulses and interests, the military readings, the talks with his grandfather, all those had moved him in the direction of the military. So he’d joined ROTC the last two years in college.

A weekend trip to DC had been crucial. He and three or four of his fraternity brothers at Temple used to go down to DC once or twice a quarter during their sophomore year. One of his fraternity brothers’ father owned an apartment in Georgetown. The night before they visited Arlington had been one long party. The bars and girls of Georgetown had kept them up much too late. Wynn and Phil Craven had run track back then, and both loved running along the Potomac River. Morning came too soon, but out they went to run, still half-drunk. Seeing the famous cemetery up on the high ground on the Virginia side of the river while running, they decided to visit Arlington later that day.

After a late breakfast, the four of them walked to Arlington from the Lincoln Memorial, across the Arlington Memorial Bridge. On the way they had talked about the usual things young and virile college men talk about when their worries are little and their responsibilities even less. He remembered passing through the cemetery visitor’s gate. Soon the clean rows of white stone markers welcomed them like an audience of honored souls. The boys quieted, each retreating to his thoughts. Wynn felt that he’d suddenly come under intense scrutiny. Each way he turned were hundreds of grave markers. Sleek and silent, uniform and restrained, these markers spoke for thousands and to thousands daily: row after row of thin white stones equally spaced on green lawns and low hills, some shaded by grand trees, some near larger monuments. He was among heroes. He wanted to take that feeling with him the rest of his life. The best response was silent reflection. Silence meant more than words.

Wynn, wondering if his introspection was noticed, glanced around D21. Everyone was quiet; his men, too, were in their own thoughts. After a few bends in the road, he saw a donkey tied to a wall. Wynn looked for the owner. On the other side of the wall a small boy stood behind a makeshift table. The table held three jugs of pink liquid, probably gasoline for sale. Behind him an old man sat on his haunches.

In Arlington, they passed graves with inscriptions like a roll call of America’s conflicts: Vietnam, and Korea, and World War II veterans. The order varied because of the dates of death and interment. Young veterans lay side by side with old. Navy Vets next to Army Vets. Some had spouses interred with them. The great majority of graves had the small standard white markers, their simplicity of line and shape reflecting a call to common purpose and rectitude. The same could be said for most of the inscriptions. Few had flowery rhetoric. Most simply had name and rank, wars served in, and abbreviations of awards received. The majesty of the place spoke for them all.

Wynn knew what the cemetery meant to America. He understood why so many had chosen burial here. Death has been called the loneliest place—but maybe those who have served their country can rest better in the company of those who have likewise served. That way they could never be lonely.

Turnbeck reported civilian cargo trucks parked half a kilometer down the road. It didn’t look odd. Probably the truckers had stopped to eat or something.

“Two of them,” Turnbeck said as the convoy neared.

Wynn eyed the trucks distrustfully. At first he saw no one.

“Drivers out front,” Turnbeck reported.

Wynn noticed a group of three men standing by the lead truck. These trucks, like most in Iraq, came from the European second-hand market. Still emblazoned on their sides were the German names Gasser AG and Nicklaus Bauhaus.

The convoy kept moving at a steady speed, the Humvees growling comfortably. After a while they passed another small canal in which a heavyset woman squatted. She might be relieving herself. Two naked children waited near her.

Wynn and his friends’ visit to Arlington had been before 9/11, of course. No new war deaths yet. So they hadn’t seen gravesites of anyone they knew personally. Getting the general experience of the place had been their intent. Today it would be different. Today he knew eight people buried there, including Ramirez.

Before leaving they had visited, as most do, President Kennedy’s grave. Robert Kennedy, buried next to his brother, had his own memorial. On it was inscribed, “To tame the savageness of man, and make gentle the life of this world.”

If that was the aim of service, Wynn thought it worthy. Since that visit to Arlington, he had begun associating military service with service in the broader, nobler sense. Service in arms was perhaps the most respected service. He wanted that respect, too. He didn’t know if he had been born with that desire or had caught it like an infection. Either way, he knew that was part of why he was here in Iraq. To be part of that experience—to be in that company.

As the Wolfhounds neared the objective, radio traffic intensified. Ahead, Moose saw the IP scheduled to help them. The convoy slowed and two IP trucks fell in behind them. Wynn, using the second frequency on D24’s radio, called the battalion TOC and reported that they were two minutes out from the objective. Then he radioed the platoon, ordering them to report when they had parked in their designated locations and were ready for the teams to dismount.

A few boys, shouting excitedly, ran alongside the Humvees. The kids screamed and jumped. Inside the vehicles—with engines running and headsets on—the soldiers could not hear the children. Seconds later, their numbers doubled, and at least ten kids now ran dangerously close, all shouting—a chorus melee pleading for something: candy, toys, clothes, or even dreams of conquest.

The unit had been in this area of the city for less than a week. As the convoy made another turn, it approached the main crossroad of Abo Shabi, a primarily Sunni Arab neighborhood on the southwest side of the city on the boundary of the W14 and W15 sectors. Although local Iraqi Police were participating, for security reasons the Americans had not told them the exact location until the night before. Nevertheless, Moose suspected the children had heard from the police that they were coming.

As the platoon positioned, more children assembled, maybe 25 kids now. A couple gave thumbs-up signs. Others shouted, “Mister, mister.” A few teenagers looked more cautious, sullen.

The platoon executed the security plan. D22 had already proceeded to the end of the street, about 50 meters ahead. D24 would stay back at the previous t-intersection with one of the Iraqi police vehicles. D23 would tail D21, maintaining security in the center of the street. While the two pre-designated Wolfhound teams conducted census interviews on opposite sides of the street, Wynn and Cengo, with a two-man security team, walked the street, sometimes joining one census team, sometimes engaging residents who appeared to want longer conversations.