Sunrise Over Fallujah (11 page)

Even though the war is supposed to be over, there
is still fighting in and around Baghdad, and the sounds of bombing just outside the city at night are awesome. It is like a thunderstorm in the distance. When the night sky lights up, our guys cheer, but it scares the crap out of me. The booming is far away, but it's inside of me, too. It's not so much the noise, it's like something shaking in my chest. The president said that our mission has been accomplished. But there are still guys getting killed, and Captain Miller said they were only counting guys who died on the spot.

“A lot of them are being rotated back to Germany or the States and might not make it down the road,” she said. “And nobody's talking about the wounds over here. Blast wounds are terrible.”

“They covering stuff up?” Marla asked.

“I don't think so.” Miller shrugged.

“They just making sure they talking in the sunshine,” Jonesy said.

“Jonesy, you only make sense about fifty percent of the time,” Marla said. “Everything else you say is beyond me.”

Jonesy grinned.

But maybe he and Miller were right. Maybe more people were dying than made the news, but I didn't want to hear about it.

When we patrol north of Baghdad, outside of the safe zone, we see a lot of dead Iraqis. This morning we found two civilian cars, both riddled with bullets, both with bodies still lying in them. A small crowd of men, some weeping, some talking quietly, stood around the car, waiting for the ambulance to take the bodies away. I keep looking away from the dead because I don't want to see them. When I do look I see that the dead are not like human beings anymore. They are not neatly laid out but twisted at obscene angles on the side of the road. Sometimes there are mourners. They sit near the bodies, wailing and tearing at their clothes. They hold their hands up to the sky, as if asking,
Why is this human being lying here?
I know that human beings are not supposed to look like this. Sometimes there are just body parts lying along the side of the road. At first I felt a little bit ashamed at how scared seeing bodies makes me, but I notice that everyone in First Squad stops talking when we come on that kind of scene. We do it in public, but this is a private war.

We have the war on two radios. Jonesy has the news on all the
time on his little portable. On our squad radio we listen to the 3
^rd
ID guys. They sound efficient except for every once in a while one of them will comment on how something got blown away. They have so much firepower that even they are impressed.

We found out that the guys from the 507
^th
were rescued.

“They said the girl Lynch might have been raped,” Coles said.

“She's lucky she's alive.” This from Jonesy.

“Shut up!” This from Marla.

I looked at her to see if she was kidding. She wasn't.

For a week we did nothing but hang around the zone. The television guys in the area were interviewing soldiers and some Iraqis willing to talk about how well the Americans had done. Jonesy went around our squad tent pretending he was interviewing guys, holding his flashlight in front of them.

“I would just like to say that we did it all for Mom's microwaved apple pie!” Jean Darcy said.

“Hi, Mom!” This from Victor.

“I'd like to thank all the little people who helped make this war possible,” said Evans. “Without you I wouldn't be where I am today.”

“Right now I'm talking to Corporal Danforth,” Jonesy said. “Where you from, son?”

“Richmond, Virginia!”

“This your first time in a combat zone?”

“No, I worked as a guard in the mall downtown across from the Marriott,” Danforth said.

“Which was rougher?” Jonesy asked. “The mall or Baghdad?”

“If I had had my body armor, the mall would have been a piece of cake,” Danforth said.

Funny thing. Pendleton was embarrassed when Jonesy spoke to him.

“I'm not too good at talking,” he said.

“Who you want to give a shout-out to?” Jonesy asked.

“My lovely wife and two daughters, Kayla and Karen.”

“Don't ask Birdy anything,” Marla said. “You'll just give him a headache.”

Jonesy signed off the news, then went into a commercial for Muddy Waters energy drink. It was funny.

Another week of sitting around. Jonesy practiced his blues and he was good at it. We did equipment maintenance, and when the supply room was restocked, we replaced anything that looked too hard to clean. It was the sand, mostly, that really screwed things up. Jonesy made a list of things that he liked about Iraq.

“The weather is good,” he said. “I don't mind the heat. And I like Baghdad, but they could build them a few more bars.”

“They don't drink over here,” Ahmed said. “It's against their religion.”

“And I like the kids,” Jonesy said. “If I was running this war, I would take all their children, bring them back to Georgia, and teach them to play the blues. Now, you ain't never heard of no blues army. Am I right?”

“Right,” I said.

Jonesy went on about what he liked and what he didn't like about Iraq. What he didn't like was people that he didn't even know shooting at him. “This is the drive-by capital of the freaking world!”

What I liked about Iraq at the moment was that I wasn't involved in any of the heavy fighting. From what I heard on the radio and from guys passing through, all of the fighting was rougher than what was making the news.

Marla and Barbara came by and asked me if I wanted to go shopping with them.

“We're going with a group of Third ID chaplains up to a mosque just north of the city. It's supposed to be safe,” Marla said. “You want to come?”

“Yeah, okay. We riding shotgun?”

“No, the chaplains have their own security,” said Barbara. “Captain Coles said we can take one Humvee. We're going to stop at a market on the way back and then at a PX they got set up in one of Saddam's palaces, so make a list of things your guys might need.”

I actually got a piece of paper and started asking guys what they wanted. But after the first guy said what he wanted, which was the horniest girl in Iraq, it got stupid big-time. Danforth from Third Squad was the most stupid when he said he wanted a girl with three breasts.

“Why don't you go tell Marla that,” I said.

The chaplains—two Asians, a black woman, and a white guy about forty—seemed like good people. They said they had been invited to the Shiite mosque by one of the local religious leaders.

We got into the Humvee and Marla told me I could get up on the squad gun if I wanted.

“If we're going shopping, I guess the war is really over,” I said.

The 3
^rd
ID and 4
^th
Marines had secured an area in downtown Baghdad they were calling “the Bubble.” It was like a “don't stick your head up after dark” zone for the Iraqis. The military's Central Command was bringing in all kinds of communications equipment, computers, and Global Positioning Systems and setting it all up in reinforced buildings within the area. The chaplains were from the 3
^rd
and they shook everybody's hands before we took off. Our route was northward through the city and just out of it to the Al Kazimayn mosque. One of the chaplains told us it was a Shiite mosque and the Shiites were friendlier to us.

“Saddam is Sunni,” he said.

The mosque was huge but delicate and probably the most beautiful building I had ever seen. The chaplains met the imam who had invited us. The imam asked us to leave our weapons in the trucks.

“They'll be fine there,” he said.

The 3
^rd
ID guys wouldn't leave their weapons and decided to stay outside of the mosque. Marla, Barbara, and I left our weapons locked in Miss Molly and went on a tour. I wasn't sure if the man who led us around was an imam or something, and didn't
want to ask him. Nothing that he was telling us made any sense to me because he was speaking about people who had been in the area or were buried at the mosque centuries before and I couldn't keep up with the names or dates.

We spent nearly an hour in the mosque and then were invited to lunch. I didn't think we should go and leave our weapons in the Humvee and neither did Marla. Barbara said she didn't care but decided to go back with us anyhow.

We mounted up and made the trip alone back to Baghdad. It was only a few miles and took about twelve minutes before we spotted the first American patrol. We got ID'd and a marine lieutenant offered me two laptop computers and a lifetime pass to Yankee Stadium in exchange for Marla and Barbara. Marla thought it was funny, but Barbara got uptight about it and cursed a blue streak as we pulled away. We met up with another marine Humvee, told them we were headed for the Bubble, and asked if they minded if we tagged along. The driver said no but he was surprised that we were armed.

“I thought Civil Affairs people didn't carry weapons,” he said. “Like chaplains.”

“The difference,” Marla said, “is that the chaplains think they've got an in with God and don't mind dying. We've got a few problems in that direction!”

The marine patrol moved slowly. The guys were young and one of them was eating a sandwich, which reminded me how hungry I was. We were in sight of the palace and I was explaining to
Marla why I didn't have a list of things to buy when a Humvee across the wide avenue blew up.

The marines opened fire immediately, scattering the people on the sidewalk and forcing cars to a screeching halt. The driver ahead of us spun his Humvee sideways, nearly tipped the thing over, and headed for the burning vehicle. Barbara was driving and she made a hard right, and stopped a few feet from the burning Humvee.

Three marines were already out and were trying to pull their comrades from the vehicle, which was now completely engulfed in flames.

“Look out for snipers!” a marine officer yelled.

I started scanning the windows and the rooftops, pointing the squad gun at anything that could possibly be a threat. A few of the marines fired at nothing in particular. They were just keeping everyone's head down.

Then I saw it. A marine was carrying the upper part of a body—I could tell it was an American's by the uniform—to another vehicle. They were producing body bags from somewhere and in minutes the dead marines were off the street.

I retched and was a heartbeat from vomiting. I could feel my mind closing down. It was too much to take in all at once. The explosion that had rocked the Humvee. The sudden bursts of gunfire. Marines leaping out of their vehicles ready to fight. The body of the dead marine.

There was a wounded Iraqi, a heavyset man who had been
carrying a bag of oranges, lying on the sidewalk. The marines searched him, then lifted him gently and moved him against the side of the building. Barbara went over and looked at him, kneeling by his side until two Iraqi men came up to them.

The marines put out the fire and then took out the equipment from the still smoldering hulk of the damaged Humvee. The vehicle, lying on its side, was just a dark shell, like a huge prehistoric animal with flames licking at its blackened ribs.

“IED.” Barbara's voice was high and a little panicky as she got back to our vehicle. “Two dead. The Iraqi is going to die, too. They didn't stand a chance.”

I had heard about the IEDs, the improvised explosive devices, but I had never seen the damage one could do before.

Two other marines were wounded and I saw their medics tending to them. The others in their unit did a quick sweep of the street, but they didn't find anybody they could identify as the trigger person.

The whole thing was over in a heartbeat. The marine patrol had been coming down the street, the IED had exploded, and now people were dead. There was no confrontation, no blurred figures flying across the busy street, no one to chase down for revenge, no one to be mad at.

A wide-eyed young marine, face smudged from the smoke, came over and told us they were leaving and that we had better get back into the safe zone. The tears on his face had traveled through the grime and stopped halfway down his cheek.

“Sometimes they take potshots at people coming to help,” he said. “Even their own people.”

“Did you see what exploded?” Marla asked.

“I don't know.” The marine looked away. “I might have. Just a paper bag about twenty feet in front of the vehicle. They plant them and set them off with cell phones. I don't know. I might have seen it. They were good people. Good marines.”

We were all dripping sweat when we got back to our base unit. Barbara and Marla came in with me. Harris was sitting on a field chest in a towel and made some stupid remark about women coming into the men's quarters.

“We met up with a marine patrol near Zarah Square,” Marla said. “They weren't more than fifty yards ahead of us when they got wasted by an IED.”

“Anybody…” Jonesy didn't finish his sentence.

“Two marines got it and an Iraqi,” Barbara said. “One of the wounded marines is in deep, too. It blew off part of his hand.”

“I didn't see that!” Marla said.

“He was just sitting there, numb,” Barbara said. “The marine medic gave him a shot which put him right out, then put a tourniquet on the arm. I hope he doesn't lose it.”

Pendleton asked what had blown up and we told him about the paper bag. He got up and punched the side of the tent. I knew how he felt. The whole thing was a nightmare. The blast had completely destroyed the marine truck and it wasn't even a direct hit.

After Barbara and Marla had sat for a while, talking about
the IED, trying to make some kind of sense of it, they got up and started to leave.

“You okay, Birdy?” Marla asked.

“Not really,” I answered. “I don't know if there's going to be an okay anymore.”

May 9, 2003

Dear Dad,

I know that we have had our differences and everything, but I want you to know how much I really love you and respect you. I never felt that you were wrong in anything you were saying, only that I had to learn everything you know on my own, even if it hurt sometimes. I really appreciate all that you have done for me and taught me over the years and think that it will come in handy in the long run.

Things are going well over here. The people are glad that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. Some of the Iraqis who are Sunnis are not as sure about what is going to happen because most of the people in this part of Iraq are Shiites. The Civil Affairs guys will have a larger and larger role now that the fighting is over. There are still some disturbances going on but I think they are just the die-hard fanatics. There is also a lot of looting going on. Jamil, the old man who works in our tent, says that there are not many jobs available. As soon as we get into the rebuilding there will be plenty of jobs and then democracy will really kick in and we'll win the peace as quickly as we won the war. At least that's what the officers are saying and I kind of believe them.

Please take care of Mom and don't let her worry too much. I'm bunking down in the Bubble, which is the Safe Zone, and it is nowhere near the areas where the Iraqis can get at us. Also, the only people who do regular patrols are the Infantry and the marines and some Special Forces guys. Most of the time I play bid whist or watch television. Easy life, right?

Your loving son, Robin