Evan Wright - Generation Kill

“I don’t think Delta killed any of the villagers, but they blew up a few of their huts. We gave ’em a few cases of humrats and got out of there.”

When Colbert hears the story, he just shakes his head. “This is so colossally retarded I can’t even say anything about it.”

I’m not convinced that Gunny Swarr is the most reliable source. I set out to find other people who were there. One of the men from First Recon who was with him is a captain in the battalion, with a reputation for being levelheaded and forthright. He tells me Gunny Swarr’s tale is “on the money.” Later, I talk to Ferrando, who admits, “There was a comm problem for about a week with Delta.” I go over to Delta’s position in the camp and talk to more than a half dozen of the reservists, including the Mark-19 gunner, Lance Corporal Bryan Andrews, twenty-two, who fired on the village. They corroborate essential details of Swarr’s story. Andrews adds, “I guess it worked out okay. I scared off the old man. He ran away.”

KOCHER SPENDS his free day outside Baghdad, sitting in the shade of his vehicle’s cammie nets, writing a journal intended for his wife, who’s also in the Marines. He doesn’t indulge in the open vilification of his commander, Captain America, the way some of the men do, but he tells me when I stop by that he is disturbed by Captain America’s behavior, especially his attempted bayoneting of the Iraqi prisoner the other night. “I could be a lot more personal about my feelings toward the Iraqis,” Kocher says. “My wife is here. Her civil affairs unit is in Nasiriyah. I think about her every day and the things that could happen to her. But I don’t lose control over it.”

Against his powerful forearms, the pen Kocher holds looks puny. The log he writes in is an account of the war he calls his “Bitter Journal.”

“If something happens to me, I want my wife to know the truth,” he says. “If they say we fought valiantly here, I want her to know we fought retarded. They haven’t used us right—sending us into these towns, onto the airfield, with no observation.”

Captain America approaches. One of the men by Kocher’s vehicle shouts a warning: “Here comes Dumbass.”

Captain America’s within easy earshot of their comment, but he sticks his head under the cammie netting and greets the men with a forced, though somewhat wobbly, smile. “Everyone enjoying the day off?” he asks.

The Marines freeze him out with blank stares.

“We’re fine, sir,” Kocher says.

The truth is, I feel sort of bad for Captain America. The way his men treat him reminds me of seeing a kid hazed and picked on on the playground. I sit down with him in the grass a few meters from Kocher’s vehicle. One on one, he seems likable but possesses an unfocused intensity that’s both charismatic and draining. When he stares at you, he doesn’t blink; his pupils almost vibrate.

I ask him about complaints voiced by his men that he’s been a little too zealous in his shooting from the vehicle and in his treatment the other night of the EPW (it’s technically a war crime to strike, threaten or bayonet a man once he’s been captured). Captain America denies any wrongdoing. He asserts to me that in each instance where he’s employed violence, it’s always been in response to a threat, which perhaps his Marines didn’t perceive. “Each man sees things differently in combat,” he says.

Then Captain America veers into Nietzschean speculation on the deadly nature of battle. “Some of us are not going to make it out of here. Each of us has to test the limits of his will to survive in this reality.” He leans forward and speaks in grave tones. “Right now, at any time, we could die. It almost makes you lose your sanity.” His pupils quiver with increased intensity. “The fear of dying will make you lose your sanity. But to remain calm and stay in a place where you think you will die, that is the definition of insane, too. You must become insane to survive in combat.”

LATE IN THE DAY, Marines are told to expect warning orders for their mission in the assault on Baghdad. Ferrando has figured out a way to get into the game. But other news circulating among the Marines has taken priority.

Horsehead is dead. The beloved former first sergeant in First Recon, a powerfully built 230-pound African American named Edward Smith, was felled by an enemy mortar or artillery blast while riding atop an armored vehicle outside Baghdad on April 4. He died in a military hospital the next day. Horsehead, thirty-eight, had transferred out of First Recon to an infantry unit before the war started. News of his death hits the battalion hard.

Marines in Bravo Company gather under the cammie nets, trading Horsehead stories. Reyes repeats a phrase Horsehead always used back home at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. Before loaning anyone his truck, which had an extensive sound-equalizer system, Horsehead would always say, “You can drive my truck. But don’t fuck with my volumes.” For some reason, repeating the phrase makes Reyes laugh almost to the verge of tears.

Just before sundown, the Marines hold a memorial for Horsehead in their camp. About fifteen of them gather in the grass, next to an M-4 rifle planted upright in the dirt with a helmet on it. It’s drizzling in a gray, humid twilight. One of them reads a brief eulogy.

Then they put their hands together, and their voices scream in unison as they chant the First Recon cheer in Horsehead’s memory: “Kill!”

BY EARLY MORNING on April 8, Army and Marine armored units have maneuvered into Baghdad’s suburbs to the west, south and east. Under a ceaseless American artillery and aerial bombardment, they are getting ready for the final assault into the city center, set to begin after dark. Maj. Gen. Mattis is deeply concerned about the lack of American forces to the north of Baghdad. With his Marines oriented toward the center of the city, their northern flanks are exposed. His fear is that Iraqi Republican Guard units may be massing for a counterattack in a town called Baqubah, fifty kilometers north of Baghdad, getting ready to roll down and hit the Marines’ northern flanks.

The problem is, Mattis doesn’t know what the Iraqis are doing north of Baghdad. For the past thirty-six hours, a low cover of dust and rain clouds has hampered American surveillance efforts. The farthest Marine checkpoint north of Baghdad sits about ten kilometers outside the city on the road to Baqubah. Marines have dubbed the checkpoint the “magic line.” Every time they’ve sent units to probe above the magic line in the past few days, the Marines have been hit by heavy fire. Recently, a platoon of about forty-five Iraqis attacked the Marine checkpoint and were repulsed after a short gun battle. After that, Iraqis tried to drive a car bomb into the checkpoint. It seems the Iraqis are up to something above the magic line, though it’s uncertain exactly what it might be.

The weakness in the Marines’ northern flanks gives Lt. Col. Ferrando his opening to get First Recon back into the game. After consulting with Mattis, Ferrando has volunteered to take First Recon north of the magic line, assault through the enemy ambushes and push on to Baqubah.

If the worst-case fears of Mattis are true, the Marines in First Recon will be confronting several thousand Iraqis in tanks. Baqubah is home to a Republican Division with a strength, on paper at least, of 20,000 soldiers equipped with 600 armored vehicles. Mattis knows that if the Iraqis come down in tanks, First Recon will be unable to stop them, but as he later tells me, “I knew that at least the Marines could slow them down for a few hours.”

Even in the best-case scenario—if the Iraqi tanks aren’t active—First Recon will be dashing through forty kilometers of known ambush positions. They will be the only Americans operating in the region, and by the time they reach Baqubah, they will have gone beyond the range of Marine artillery.