Evan Wright - Generation Kill

Lt. Col. Ferrando makes an appearance by the northern roadblock. Greater numbers of refugees are flowing in. “We’re going to have a fucking humanitarian disaster on our hands if we stay here,” he says. “We don’t have enough food and water for ourselves.”

An hour later, First Recon clears out of its position. Ferrando has finally received orders. First Recon Battalion is instructed to hightail it to Baghdad for the final assault. To get there, the Marines will backtrack down Route 7, then cut west on a circuitous path that covers nearly 300 kilometers.

THE BATTALION SPENDS two days on the road. Huge, cheering crowds turn out in towns Marines smashed through just days ago. Kids run around in muddy lots beside the road, playing soccer, screaming “Bush! Bush! Bush!” or “America! America!” It’s the Marines’ moment to be hailed as conquerors, or liberators or heroes. No one’s really sure what they are. Adoring as the crowds are, Marines know that at any moment seriously bad things can happen. As we drive past the insanely chanting mobs, Colbert waves at them, repeating in a mechanical voice, “You’re free now. Good luck. Time for us to go home.”

During the two-day journey the men continue to wrestle with the issue of deadly roadblocks. Marines in Alpha Company have also instituted what they hope will be a less lethal approach to warding off traffic by firing smoke grenades. In one of their early attempts to employ the new technique, a team in Alpha successfully stops a civilian passenger by launching a smoke grenade. Before they can call the effort a success, however, the Marines watch in horror as a second smoke grenade fired by the team skips off the pavement and, against all odds, slams into the face of an Arab walking by the road carrying a white flag. He goes down hard, dropping from their view. The men are ordered forward without having a chance to examine the guy or render aid. Later, men in the unit are told by their superiors that the man they hit in the face with the smoke grenade was okay and was even observed eating a meal when they left him. After hearing this good news, one of the Marines says, “That probably just means someone threw an MRE next to the guy’s body as we drove past.”

FIRST RECON REACHES the outskirts of Baghdad early in the morning of April 6. Hastily erected oil pipelines zigzag along the highway. They were built by Saddam to flood adjacent trenches with oil so they could be set ablaze. As a result, smoke hangs everywhere. Saddam intended these flaming oil trenches as some sort of half-assed defense, but their only effect is to add to the general state of pollution and despair. The dust storm caused by thousands of vehicles rolling past has coated all of the wrecked buildings with a thick layer of tan powder. Even the dogs running through the ruins are the color of dust.

Dead cows, bloated to twice their normal size, lie in ditches. Human corpses are scattered about as well. It’s the now familiar horrorscape of a country at war. Just before reaching the final Marine camp outside Baghdad, Espera’s vehicle swerves to avoid running over a human head lying in the road. When the vehicle turns, he looks up to see a dog eating a human corpse. “Can it get any sicker than this?” he asks.

Person, however, has an entirely different reaction. Set back from the highway, gleaming like some sort of religious shrine, there is a modern-looking glass structure with bright plastic signs in front. It’s an Iraqi version of a 7-Eleven. Though looted and smashed, it gives Person hope. “Damn!” he says. “It looks almost half-civilized here.”

BY THE EARLY HOURS of April 6, some 20,000 Marines have begun gathering on the outskirts of the city for their assault. The Army has already begun breaking off pieces of Baghdad to the south and west. Two days earlier, elements of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division seized Baghdad Airport, fifteen kilometers south of the city. The Marines, now moving to within about ten kilometers of the eastern edge of Baghdad, are gearing up for their assault to begin within the next forty-eight hours.

First Recon settles into a field of tall grass next to some blown-up industrial buildings. Marines stretch out in the greenery, resting after their two days of nonstop movement. American artillery booms continuously, a distant, throbbing rhythm. Towers of smoke rise over Baghdad in the distance. Following this last stretch of the journey, where everyone had seen the wild dogs chewing on the entrails of dead humans and livestock alike, Marines now discuss their rechristening of Iraq. They call it “Dog Land.”

Reyes explains, “For the wild dogs, war is a feast.”

It’s a feast for some commanders as well. Later in the day, after the teams have set up their positions on the perimeter and dug their holes, Ferrando circulates among the men. He drops in on Colbert’s team and offers rare praise. “They’re speaking pretty highly of First Recon at division headquarters,” Ferrando says. “The general thinks we’re slaying dragons.”

“I’m pleased to hear it, sir,” Colbert says.

Ferrando turns to leave, then hesitates. He has something to confide in Colbert, one of his top team leaders.

“Ferrando thinks tanks are going to lead the way into Baghdad,” he says, reverting to a habit he has of speaking of himself in the third person. “But we want to get in the game, too. That’s the million-dollar question. How do we get into Baghdad?”

Ferrando walks off, working on this puzzle.

After he leaves, Espera offers his own assessment of the battalion’s performance thus far in the war. “Do you realize the shit we’ve done here, the people we’ve killed? Back home in the civilian world, if we did this, we would go to prison.”

THE MEN SLEEP WELL outside of Baghdad. It is late in the morning of April 7, and Colbert is sitting in the sun behind his Humvee, staring at the grass, which in the center of the encampment is more than a meter tall. Like everyone else, Colbert is required to wear his helmet and flak vest at all times, unless he is underneath the cammie nets by his Humvee. There are times like today—when the sky is clear, the sun is shining and enemy mortars are only falling about once every couple hours—that the requirement to always wear a helmet and flak vest seems a crime. Some Marines routinely flout the rule, but not Colbert. Suddenly, he stands up, throwing his helmet down, ripping off his flak vest and stripping down to his T-shirt. “You know what?” he announces. “I’m going to run through that field waving my arms like I’m an airplane.”

Colbert runs through the grass, making jet sounds, banks into a loose turn and flies back to his Humvee. He quickly dons his gear. “Better now,” he says, strapping his helmet on again.

The men don’t have any orders today. Lt. Col. Ferrando is still working on his plan to get the battalion in on the final assault on Baghdad. Colbert, however, assembles his team for a special briefing beside his Humvee.

“There’s something I’ve been keeping from you,” Colbert says. “I wasn’t sure we were going to live to share this moment.” He produces a dusty plastic bag, reaches in and pulls out several cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli, one for each man on the team. “To celebrate,” he says.

“What the fuck is that?” Person says, spotting something else in the bag.

“Easy there, partner,” Colbert says, sliding out a virgin copy of Juggs magazine, still in its shrink-wrap.

“Fuck!” Person says. “How the fuck did you hide that from me?” Person tries to grab it.

Colbert yanks it away. “Not yet,” Colbert says. “I need some time with this alone. Just calm down. You’ll get your sloppy seconds.”