Tom Sileo (13 page)

Travis wasn't angry with his sister's husband. Just like Ryan and her parents, Dave simply wanted him to come home safely. But tonight wasn't about the heavy stuff. Travis just wanted to listen to some music by the car, watch the postgame traffic dissipate, and enjoy the Eagles' victory.

“Don't worry,” he said to Dave, patting him on the back. “Everything's going to be alright.”

Nearly seventy thousand green-and-white-clad Philadelphia Eagles fans packed Lincoln Financial Field that night, but only a handful had fought for their country in Iraq or Afghanistan. Travis was one of them, and probably the only fan who would spend Super Bowl Sunday patrolling the streets of Fallujah. Even after a prior Iraq deployment, it was impossible for the seasoned Marine officer to predict what would happen after leaving the City of Brotherly Love. Travis was only sure of one thing: he was willing to die for every single person in that stadium.

After Dave got home from the game and gave his wife a hug, Ryan asked him how the night went. Dave said it was fun, but at the same time, he couldn't stop thinking about the exchange he'd had with Travis as they left the stadium.

“I hope I didn't offend Trav by joking around about tripping him and breaking his ankle,” Dave said to his wife.

“Oh come on, Dave, I'm sure he knows you're just worried about him,” Ryan said. “We all are.”

“Yeah, but one thing he said afterward really stuck with me,” Dave said. “He talked about the Marines who'd have to go over there instead if he didn't go back.”

After a pause, Dave repeated Travis's words.

“If not me, then who . . . “

A few days later, Amy was at work in Arnold, Maryland, when a surprise visitor walked in. She gasped.

It was Brendan, who smiled and opened his huge arms to give her a hug. The Navy officer had just come from nearby Silver Spring, where he had surprised his mom, and couldn't wait to embrace Amy after three months in Iraq. He was finally home.

Later in the week, Brendan was calling friends to let them know he was back in the States. During one call, Amy wasn't sure who was on the other end of the line.

“It's your favorite,” Brendan said with a smile.

Amy knew instantly that it was Travis. He and Brendan were coordinating hanging out during Travis's planned visit to Annapolis, where he would serve as a groomsman in the wedding of his friend Ben Mathews, whom Brendan had once given the friendliest of bloody noses at football practice.

“I can't believe Brendan surprised me like that,” Amy said to Travis. “Did you know?”

“Guilty as charged,” he said with a laugh.

“Well listen, Trav, I'm thrilled to have him home, but I want you to stay safe over there, too,” Amy said. “I'll probably be at work when you come down to Maryland, so if I don't see you, good luck over there.”

“Thanks, Amy,” Travis said. “Take care of the big guy for me.”

A few days later Travis and Brendan met up for the weekend in Annapolis before attending the Sunday Washington Redskins–Philadelphia Eagles game at FedEx Field in nearby Landover.

When they had gone to previous Redskins-Eagles games together in Philadelphia, Brendan had boldly entered a notoriously hostile environment to cheer on his hometown team. But sporting their sense of humor and mature realization that the winner of a football game didn't have a huge impact on the world, Brendan and Travis would occasionally trade jerseys and pretend to root for the opposing team. One time when Travis was being yelled at by a fellow Eagles fan, Brendan collapsed into his seat with laughter.

As always, the afternoon was filled with cold beer, great stories, and some friendly trash talk after the Eagles pulled out a 21–19 victory. The former roommates had once again switched jerseys to fool the fans around them.

“It's not going to be easy over there,” Travis told his good friend as they walked out of the Redskins' stadium. “But I guess doing something important never is.”

“Well, if there's one motto I try to live by, it's this,” Brendan said. “If you make the most of what you are doing, there is no way to regret what you are doing.”

“Thanks,” said Travis. “I'll remember that one.”

More than a hundred American troops were killed in Iraq in December 2006, including Major Megan McClung, the highest-ranking female Marine officer to die in the Iraq war and the first female Naval Academy graduate to be killed in combat. McClung was a thirty-four-year-old former classmate of now Major Doug Zembiec, the Naval Academy wrestler-turned-warrior whom Travis admired. She was killed along with two US Army soldiers by an enemy roadside bomb in Al Anbar province on December 6, less than three weeks before Travis was scheduled to arrive.

“It'll be tough for both of us,” Travis now said. “But just think, the next time we hang out . . . you'll be a SEAL.”

“Yeah, if I can make it through BUD/S,” Brendan replied.

“You will,” Travis assured him. “Just pretend I'm there trying to finish first.”

“That might work,” Brendan said with a grin. “And the next time I see you, you'll have made it out of Fallujah twice and probably be a captain.”

Brendan, in a rare display of emotion, reached out to pat his friend on the back.

“You stay safe over there,” Brendan said.

“I'll try,” Travis said. “I'll definitely try.”

After a few days that felt like old times, the onetime roommates were once again going their separate ways, like thousands of friends and family members separated by war. While predicting the future was impossible for any warrior deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan, the close friends couldn't have known that particular day's significance. It was the last time Brendan and Travis would see each other alive.

5

NO GREATER HONOR

A
ll First Lieutenant Travis Manion could taste was chlorine as he vomited on the bombed-out rooftop of a Fallujah government building on the morning of March 28, 2007. Surrounded by explosions, vapor, gunfire, and debris as he looked down at a chaotic scene resembling the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, the twenty-six-year-old Marine Corps officer for 3-2-1 MiTT felt as though he'd just swallowed a gallon of water from a filthy pool. This was the hellish reality of the Iraq war, in which Travis was embroiled in an al Qaeda chemical attack using two one-thousand-pound chlorine bombs.

Earlier, just after sunrise, American and Iraqi forces were scrambling to evacuate wounded personnel and secure the Fallujah Government Center's vulnerable perimeter when Travis and two fellow Marines appeared on the roof to relieve US Navy Lieutenant (SEAL) Eric Greitens and a young Marine, who were providing cover for troops below. Greitens had first awakened to deafening blasts and strange burning sensations at around 5:00 a.m., when terrorists unleashed chemical warfare on American troops, Iraqi soldiers, and bystanders.

“In the barracks, I heard men coughing around me, the air thick with dust. Then the burning started,” Greitens later wrote in his
book,
The Heart and the Fist
. “It felt as if someone had shoved an open-flame lighter inside my mouth, the flames scorching my throat and lungs.”

Greitens was in the western barracks when gunfire and the massive first explosion rocked the entire compound. Travis, meanwhile, was asleep at the nearby civilian military operations center. He jumped out of his bunk when he heard the first explosion. It didn't sound like the usual mortar fire from al Qaeda and groups of Iraqi insurgents. This had to be something even more serious.

Before several of his fellow Marines, including First Lieutenant Chris Kim and Staff Sergeant Paul Petty, had the chance to blink, Travis was already dashing toward the command operations center (COC), which he helped operate, to radio Iraqi soldiers at the building to his west, where Greitens, other Americans, and their Iraqi partners were under attack.

“What the fuck is going on?” a bleary-eyed Petty shouted.

“I don't know, but I'm going over to the COC to find Manion,” said Kim, quickly putting on his fatigues. “Meet us over there.”

Travis was already on the radio to the Iraqis.

“This is the COC,” he said. “We need to know if you have suffered any casualties.”

The chaos of the attack, along with the already difficult language barrier, rendered Travis's efforts all but useless. Then an equally deafening second explosion shook the entire Fallujah Government Center, which put the Marines of 3-2-1 MiTT squarely in the middle of a coordinated, all-out terrorist assault.

As gunfire echoed through the compound and lights flickered all around the Marines, Petty came darting down the hall to find Travis putting together a plan.

“Shit, I think we lost radio contact in that last explosion,” Travis said. “We need to get the hell over there and help those guys.”

“What we need is a four-man team,” he continued, looking at Kim. “Chris, grab two men and come with me.”

“What do you want me to do, Lieutenant?” Petty, still confused after waking up to the alarming jolt, asked Travis.

“We need airpower and tanks,” Travis said. “You're the communications guy, so get up on the roof and get us some communications.”

“Yes, sir,” said Petty, who had trusted and admired Travis since they trained at Twentynine Palms together before their first deployment. Whether it was having a few beers after a long day of training, stacking sandbags during the historic October 2005 Iraqi constitutional referendum, or conducting raids on high-value targets, Petty, who enlisted out of love for God and country, always felt safe around Lieutenants Manion and Kim. If they asked him to follow them to the gates of hell, Petty wouldn't hesitate.

As bursts of enemy gunfire and blasts from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) rattled out from the west, Petty carried a large antenna and other radio equipment to the south building's roof. By that time Travis had already loaded his M-4 rifle, which had an M-203 grenade launcher attached. Travis was already known for using the grenade launcher, which many of the Marines referred to as his “badass M-203,” effectively on the battlefield.

With bullets flying everywhere, presumably from insurgents outside the gates and Iraqi Army soldiers firing back, Travis, Kim, and two fellow Marines ran a distance of about two football fields to the western building, which was covered with powder and residue from the chemical bombs. The white-walled barracks building, which looked like it was being pummeled during the frigid World War II battle of Stalingrad, was riddled with bullet holes and all but gutted on one side.

Although gunfire was sporadic and vigilant guards had just stopped two more terrorists at the gate, who had detonated their suicide vests, the situation remained perilous for Travis and everyone else inside the blood- and chlorine-soaked compound. If the outside looked like Stalingrad, the inside of the barracks felt like a Russian bathhouse. It was hot, uncomfortable, and smelled like a collection of large pools.

Travis, coughing and trying to cover his nose and mouth, asked Iraqi soldiers if they were alright as they ran past him trying to escape the dispersing chlorine. He didn't see any dead bodies, but assumed there were many in need of help. In order to evacuate the wounded, however, Travis knew someone had to guard against another attack. He again looked toward First Lieutenant Kim.