Evan Wright - Generation Kill

Fick watches the ongoing destruction in the city, then adds, “If Iraq stays a flaming cesspool until the end of time, does anyone really care? Does it fucking matter?”

Fick’s talk a week earlier at the cigarette factory of giving his men a purpose by restoring order in Iraq seems like ancient history. Fick appears to have lost his belief in his mission here. The problem is not so much that the city has unraveled before his eyes in the past week—he pretty much expected Baghdad to be in total chaos. Instead, what’s come undone is his belief that the Americans have any kind of occupation plan to remedy the situation. “Our impact on establishing order is just about zero,” he says. “As far as I can see, there’s no American plan for Baghdad. Maybe it’s coming, but I don’t see any signs of it.” But he adds, leaving room for optimism, “A platoon commander’s situational awareness doesn’t extend very far.”

In the morning the platoon drives down to the entrance of the park. There’s a road bridge leading into it, with a tower sort of like Seattle’s Space Needle rising beyond. It turns out this is Baghdad’s amusement park, complete with roller coasters, hot-dog stands and buildings with giant pictures of Disney characters painted on them (no doubt in fiendish violation of international trademark law). The platoon stops by the bridge outside the park. Cars are driving in and out. Meesh finds out that there’s a fuel depot in the park, and citizens are entering to steal gasoline. The Marines block off the bridge, turning away traffic in preparation for moving into the park.

A beat-up red Volkswagen Passat speeds toward them. Marines aim their weapons at it. The car stops nearby. There’s a woman at the wheel with a fifteen-year-old girl in the passenger seat. The girl looks out at the Marines, smiling almost flirtatiously.

The driver gets out. A worried-looking middle-age woman in a brightly colored shawl, she’s the girl’s mother. Her name is Mariane Abas, and she tells Meesh that eight days ago while playing outside their house north of Baghdad, her daughter, Suhar, was hit in the leg by shrapnel from a bomb that seemed to come out of nowhere—perhaps from a high-flying U.S. plane. Doc Bryan opens the door. Suhar smiles at him. Her leg is in a cast. Doc Bryan and Colbert turn the girl sideways, extending her leg out of the car.

“Doc, you’ve got fifteen minutes,” Fick says. “We’ve got to move into the park.”

Doc Bryan cuts away the cast. The girl screams. Her mother climbs in on the driver’s side and wraps her arms around her daughter’s head and chest, holding her in place as she writhes in agony. Whatever hit the girl’s leg ripped chunks of flesh off from her calf to her thigh. The bones were broken as well. Whoever treated her stuffed the wounds with cotton, which Doc Bryan now must rip out. Pus oozes out. She has a high fever, a bad septic infection. On top of this, her foot was set in the cast with the toes pointing down, so if she lives and her bones heal, she’ll walk with a lame foot.

“We’ve got to get her to a hospital,” Doc Bryan says. “This infection is going to kill her.”

Fick radios the battalion, requesting permission to medevac the girl. It’s denied. The platoon delays its mission for two hours, while Doc Bryan does his best to clean the wounds out. The girl wails and sobs most of the time. Her mother holds her head. Doc Bryan curses softly.

Fick walks away, turning his back on the girl. “This is fucking up our mission,” he says, pissed off at the girl for showing up with her horrific wounds. “A week after liberating this city, the American military can’t provide aid to a girl probably hit by one of our bombs,” he says, pissed off at the war.

DESPITE AN APATHY that’s set in among many Marines over the futility of their missions in Baghdad, Colbert remains committed. When a resident of one neighborhood comes forward complaining of an unexploded bomb in a garden where children play, Colbert enlists Espera’s (grudging, extremely reluctant) aid to destroy it with a C-4 charge, though neither of them is specifically trained in ordnance removal, and the platoon is under orders to avoid handling unexploded rounds. Later, Colbert climbs into a five-foot-deep hole in a risky effort to locate and destroy an unexploded artillery round next to a home. Fick, concerned that he might kill himself, orders him to cease the operation.

Colbert despairs when he hears reports of other units accidentally firing on civilians. One episode reported on the BBC enrages him. U.S. soldiers, newly arrived in Iraq to begin the occupation, accidently slaughtered several Iraqi children playing on abandoned tanks. Under the ROE, the children were technically “armed” since they were on tanks, so the GIs opened fire. Maj. Gen. Mattis would later call this shooting “the most calamitous engagement of the war.” After he hears of it, Colbert rails, “They are screwing this up. Those fucking idiots. Don’t they realize the world already hates us?”

Espera tries to console him by sharing some wisdom he learned on the streets of L.A. Espera explains that if he were writing a memoir of his days as a car repo man before joining the Marines, he would title it Nobody Gives a Fuck. According to Espera, the ideal place and time to repossess or steal an automobile is a crowded parking lot in the middle of the afternoon. “Jump in, drive that bitch off with the car alarm going—nobody’s going to stop you, nobody’s going to even look at you,” he says. “You know why? Nobody gives a fuck. In my line of work, that was the key to everything. The only people that will fuck you up are do-gooders. I can’t stand do-gooders.”

As Colbert continues to fulminate over mounting civilian casualties and their effect on undermining the American victory, Espera throws his arm over his shoulder. “Relax, Devil Dog,” Espera says. “The only thing we have to worry about are the fucking do-gooders. Luckily, there’s not too many of those.”

EARLY ON APRIL 18, the men in First Recon are told they will be departing Baghdad. Though they haven’t completed their mission to “restore a sense of security,” few regret the order to leave.

Their final night in Baghdad is spent camped in the playing field of the soccer stadium that once belonged to Saddam’s son Uday. Tonight, the usual gun battles fought by locals start before sunset. Recon Marines keeping watch high up on the bleachers come under fire. As rounds zing past, one of the men up in the bleachers, caught by surprise, stumbles as he tries to pull his machine gun off the fence and take cover. His arms flail while he tries to regain his balance. More gunshots ring out. Marines watching on the grass below burst into laughter.

Later, several Marines in First Recon gather in a dark corner of the stadium to drink toasts to a one-armed Iraqi man in Baghdad who sold them locally distilled gin for five American dollars per fifth. Generally, it doesn’t require any alcohol to lower the Marines’ inhibitions. But now, with the gin flowing, a Marine brings up a subject so taboo I doubt he’d ever broach it sober among his buddies. “You know,” he says, “I’ve fired 203-grenade rounds into windows, through a door once. But the thing I wish I’d seen—I wish I could have seen a grenade go into someone’s body and blow it up. You know what I’m saying?” The other Marines just listen silently in the darkness.

AT FIRST LIGHT ON APRIL 19, the battalion leaves Baghdad on a deserted super-highway and sets up camp sixty kilometers south of the city. The encampment offers a familiar setting—Humvees nestled beneath cammie nets in a barren field surrounded by low berms. The next morning, April 20, is Easter Sunday. It’s almost like Florida weather this morning. It’s humid and bright, but there are clouds in the sky as well, and it rains periodically through the sunlight.