Evan Wright - Generation Kill

Ferrando tells Mattis his battalion will seize the field. It’s a bold decision, since Ferrando believes that if reports of armor on the field are true, the mission will result in “tens or hundreds of casualties among my men.”

AT SIX-TWENTY in the morning, Colbert, who’d crawled into his Ranger grave ninety minutes earlier to catch some shut-eye, is awakened by Fick. “We are assaulting the airfield,” he tells him. “We have ten minutes to get on the field.”

The Marines race around the Humvee, pulling down the cammie nets, throwing gear inside. It’s a clear, cold morning. Frost comes out of everyone’s mouths as they jump in the vehicle, weapons clattering. Everyone’s fumbling around, still trying to wake up and shake off that ache that comes from sleeplessness. In my case, just seeing the morning light hurts. “Well,” Colbert tells his team. “We’re assaulting an airfield. I know as much about this as any of you do.” He laughs, shaking his head. “Person, do we have a map?”

By six twenty-eight the roughly forty vehicles from Alpha, Bravo and Charlie companies begin rolling out of the encampment to assault the airfield.

STILL EXTREMELY WORRIED about the prospect of his men encountering armor or AAA on the field, Ferrando changes the ROE. He radios his company commanders and tells them, “Everyone on the field is declared hostile.”

In Vietnam the U.S. military sometimes designated certain areas “free-fire zones.” Because of the large numbers of civilian casualties produced by these, the term fell out of vogue. Ferrando’s order amounts to the same thing. Declaring everyone hostile means the Marines may or should shoot any human they encounter. When Capt. Patterson is issued the order, he says, “There’s no fucking way I’m going to pass that to my men.” In his mind, he later explains, turning the airfield into a free-fire zone does not help his men. Their problem is physics. AAA guns and tanks outrange and overpower everything they have on the Humvees. If his Marines race onto the field cutting people down, regardless of whether or not they’re armed, it’s not going to help them battle heavy guns. Besides this, in Patterson’s opinion, Ferrando “doesn’t have the right to change the Rules of Engagement.” Patterson tells his top enlisted man, “Don’t pass the word of the changed ROE over the radio. Our guys are smart enough to evaluate the situation within the existing ROE.”

IN COLBERT’S VEHICLE we are getting up to about forty miles per hour when word comes over the radio of the change in the ROE. “Everyone is declared hostile on the field,” Colbert shouts. “You see anybody, shoot ’em!” he adds.

Colbert is multitasking like a madman. He’s got his weapon out the window, looking for targets. He’s on the radio, communicating with Fick and the other teams. They’re trying to figure out how to contact the A-10 attack jets overhead. The Marines don’t have the right comms to reach them. “I don’t want to get schwacked by the A-10s,” Colbert shouts. “They’re goddamn Army. They shoot Marines.” (As they did three days ago at Nasiriyah.) On top of this, Colbert has maps out, and is trying to figure out where the airfield actually is with respect to the road we are driving down. His maps indicate there are fences around the field. He and Person debate whether to smash through the fences or to stop and cut through them with bolt cutters.

“The bolt cutters are under the seat in the back,” Person says. “We can’t get at them.”

“Smash through the fence, then.”

Next to me in the rear seat, Trombley says, “I see men running two hundred meters. Ten o’clock!”

“Are they armed?” Colbert asks.

“There’s something,” Trombley says. “A white truck.”

“Everyone’s declared hostile,” Colbert says. “Light them the fuck up.”

Trombley fires two short bursts from the SAW. “Shooting motherfuckers like it’s cool,” he says, amused with himself.

A Marine machine gun behind us kicks in.

I look out Trombley’s window and see a mud hut and a bunch of camels. The camels are running madly in all directions, some just a couple of meters from our Humvee. I can’t figure out what the hell Trombley was shooting at.

Hasser standing in the turret, begins pounding the roof of the Humvee, screaming “Fuck!”

“What is it?” Colbert shouts.

“The Mark-19 is down!” Hasser yells. “Jammed!”

“My Mark-19 is down!” Colbert screams on the radio. Being the lead vehicle of the company, racing onto an airfield to fight tanks and AAA guns without a heavy weapon is a disaster in the making. “I repeat, my Mark- 19 is down!”

It’s the first time Fick has ever heard Iceman lose control on comms. “Calm the fuck down,” Fick orders Colbert. “I’m putting Team Two in front.”

THOUGH MARINES in Bravo Company have fired only three short machine-gun bursts so far, Captain America, rolling directly behind us, gets on the comms, screaming, “They’re shooting everywhere! We are under fire!”

Seemingly caught up in the spirit of the free-fire zone, Captain America sticks his East German AK out the window and begins shooting. Riding in the back of Captain America’s Humvee is twenty-one year-old Lance Corporal Andy Crosby. He sees a hut outside with people and animals. “What the fuck are you doing?” he yells at his commander. But Captain America continues blazing away. At one point, ricochets from his weapon ping off scrap metal by the road and zing back toward his men in the Humvee. “We’re getting ricochets!” Crosby shouts.

THERE’S NO FENCE at the airfield. It’s just long swaths of concrete tarmac concealed behind low berms. We don’t even see the airfield until we’ve nearly driven on top of it. There are weeds growing out of cracks in the tarmac and bomb craters in the middle. There’s nothing on it. The Humvees fan out and race into the bermed fields, searching for enemy positions.

“Oh, my God!” Person laughs. “He’s got his bayonet out.”

Captain America runs across the field ahead of his Humvee, bayonet fixed on his M-16, ready to savage enemy forces. He turns every few paces and dramatically waves his men forward, like an action hero.

“He thinks he’s Rambo,” Person guffaws. “That retard is in charge of people?”

We stop. Marines observe low huts far in the distance that could be either primitive barracks or homes. Captain America runs up to Kocher’s team and shouts, “Engage the buildings!”

Redman, the .50-cal gunner, looks at him, deadpanning to hide his contempt. A veteran of Afghanistan, he’s a big, placid guy and talks like a surfer even though he’s originally from Phoenix, Arizona. “Dude,” Redman says, “that building is four thousand meters away.” He adds a remark that pretty much anyone in boot camp knows. “The range on my .50-cal is two thousand meters.”

“Well, move into position, then. Engage it.” He stalks off.

They roll forward. Kocher observes the building through binoculars. “No, Redman. We’re not engaging. There’s women and children inside.”

We roll back from the field. A-10s cut down low directly overhead. The British never come. The Marines beat them to the field. It’s a beautiful, clear day. In the sunlight—the first we’ve seen in days—dust, impregnated in everyone’s MOPP suits, curls off like cigarette smoke. Everyone looks like they’re smoldering. “Gentlemen, we just seized an airfield,” Colbert says. “That was pretty ninja.”

AN HOUR LATER, the Marines have set up a camp off the edge of the airfield. They are told they will stay here for a day or longer. For the first time in a week, many of the Marines take their boots and socks off. They unfurl cammie nets for shade and lounge beside their Humvees. The dirt here, augmented by a luxuriously thick piling of dung from camels who graze on the local scrubweed, is pillow-soft. Distant artillery thunders with a steady, calming rhythm. Half the platoon is on watch, and everybody else is snoozing.