House to House: A Tale of Modern War (14 page)

This gives me an idea. I grab Ruiz, our rocket man. He’s fired more AT4s than any three others in our battalion. These 84mm rockets aren’t terribly accurate, but they can do a lot of damage. Ever since Muqdadiyah, we’ve made a point of carrying them and using them. Ruiz is our expert.

Together, we start to prep an AT4 rocket. Meno ends his hushed conversation with Fitts and heads for the roof. Fitts, no longer distracted, sees what we’re doing and comes over.

“What the fuck are you about to do now?”

“I’m gonna shoot this propane tank with a rocket,” I reply.

“Why?”

“So it will explode.”

“Ok? Why?”

“Well, we have to instigate something. You know there are fucking dudes watching us out there,” I wave my hands to the south. “We’ve got no Brads or tanks—they’re still back at the entry point. If we blow this thing up, I guarantee the motherfuckers will start shooting at us. Then we can kill them.”

“Dude, that is a big fucking tank. What do you think the blast radius will be on that bitch?”

I do my best to counter with a no-bullshit assessment. “Fittsy, I’m thinking like five…ten…maybe fifty-nine…meters. I have no idea, bro. But it is going to be really fucking loud.”

Fitts nods. “It’s worth a try. Just make sure Ruiz hits it.”

As we finish prepping the rocket, Captain Sims and his command group arrive and climb onto the next-door rooftop. Most of the platoon remains up there, but Knapp’s team comes down to me.

“Okay, listen Knapp,” I begin as he reaches me, “you’re gonna be the first one out. We’re gonna go through this fucking door at the back of the courtyard. You’re gonna run across the street—five meters at most—and take down that big motherfucking house over there.” I point to a house that looks relatively intact. Knapp nods his head.

“Ruiz, you got that AT4 ready?”

“Yeah, Sarge.”

I move to the doorway. Fitts follows me. I pop my head out into the street and lase the propane tank. Eighty-five meters. I turn and whisper to Ruiz, “Dude, aim high. If you don’t hit the tank, you’ll hit a building and somebody will shoot us. The whole point of this is to get someone to instigate a fight. We need to start killing these fuckers. Got it?”

Ruiz nods his head.

Just then, I hear glass crunching.
Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh.
It sounds like somebody’s out there, walking through the rubble in flip-flops. I snap my night vision down and scan the street. From around a corner just short of the propane tank comes a single man. He’s got an AK slung over his shoulder, which makes a small metallic
ting
as it hits his leg with every other step. His hands are full. He’s carrying something. As he rounds the corner and starts walking straight for our position, I can see it is a car battery. Insurgents use them to detonate large IEDs.

The sight of our enemy sends a bolt of terror straight through my system. I’ve seen Mahdi militiamen up close before. I’ve seen the face of our enemy. But here, in Fallujah, this is different. These fighters are supposed to be the most committed jihadists in the world. They are the enemy’s first team.

And one of them is walking straight for us, his weapon on his shoulder.

He does not see me. That realization dissipates the momentary spasm of terror. Now I’m in control. I am not the hunted. The enemy is right here, before me. And I have the upper hand.

My heart had been fluttering faster than a hummingbird’s only a split second ago. Now, I’m suffused with calm and my heart rate drops to normal. I edge my head back into the courtyard and whisper to Fitts, “Oh my God. Oh my God. Check this out!”

Fitts moves to me, his Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun at the ready. “Whatcha got, bro? Whatcha got?”

Fitts and I peer around into the street again, and I point out the insurgent. He’s taken another dozen steps toward us now, and is probably about fifty meters from us. He’s got a big bushy, mountain-man beard and is covered with filth. His clothes are smeared with gunk. His face is splotched with grime. He looks like a street person.

Fitts and I observe him. I shoulder my M4. I’ll take the first shot, as Fitts’s shotgun has no night optics.

Swish…swish…swish…
footfalls in a hellish night. This man is about to die.

It is unusual for me to be the hunter. Usually, we react to ambushes set by others. Usually, we use our skill and firepower to avoid being the prey.

Sergeant First Class Cantrell loves to hunt. His mother back in Missouri has sent him a steady stream of hunting videos and magazines. Months ago, out of complete boredom, I started watching some DVDs with him. I’ve never hunted before, but these videos contain nuggets of useful information, some of which proved helpful during our counter-IED missions. Now I recall one video showing how the best hunters will make a little noise just before they shoot a buck. They do it because the deer will turn and present them a better target picture to shoot.

I wonder if that will work now?

The insurgent takes another half-dozen steps.

“Hey,” I say in an almost casual tone.

He stops and looks up, just like the buck in the hunting video. It gives me a magnificent feeling.

I squeeze my trigger.

A tracer streaks out of my barrel and disappears into his chest. A small puff of smoke, like exhaust from a cigarette, plumes from the hit.

Did I get him in the lung?

I squeeze the trigger again. The tracer hits him in the shoulder.

His eyes bulge. It is his turn to be gripped by terror.

I squeeze again.

He keens in agony.

One more. He howls, a long, mewling, pain-wracked scream.

Yet he is still standing. The battery’s still in his hands. He’s too surprised to drop it and reach for his weapon.

Fitts swings around the gate and rests his shotgun right atop my Kevlar helmet. His forearms jam down on my shoulders. He uses me as a damned tripod.

The shotgun roars. A spurt of flame jets two feet out of the barrel, bathing the street in a red-orange glow. The fin-stabilized slug tears a chunk of the insurgent’s arm clean off.

He racks another slug, levels the shotgun on my head again and fires. The slug blows a hole through the insurgent’s hip. He fires again and hits him in the other hip.

Total silence. The jihadist drops the battery and sags into the street. He lays unmoving for several seconds. Suddenly, a SAW on our rooftop unleashes a burst into him. It is overkill. The bullets pockmark the street and pepper the corpse, which doesn’t flinch. Fitts and I have done enough damage.

My grandmother always taught me to fight fair and never hit a guy when he’s not looking.

Wrong, Grandma. That’s the best time to hit him. If you get a free shot, knock the corn out of his shit.

“You see that?” Fitts asks, a big grin on his face. He feels the same way I do. He flicks his night vision up as I smile back.

“I can’t fucking hear. Did you have to use me as your fucking tripod?” I ask.

Fitts slaps me on the shoulder and just keeps grinning. “That
was
unnecessary, wasn’t it?”

Ruiz appears and looks out over the street. “Whoa, awesome,” he reports.

Sims calls down from the roof. “Nice shot.”

“You saw him, sir?”

“Yeah, I saw him.”

“Why didn’t you shoot him, sir?”

“I wanted to see where he went. Besides, he was no danger to us…at least not until he hooked that battery up.”

I take another look down the street.

Never hit a man when he’s down? Bullshit. Show me a better time.

Combat distilled to its purest human form is a test of manhood. Who is the better soldier? Who is the better man? Which warrior will emerge triumphant and which will lie in a heap in the street? In modern warfare, that man-to-man challenge is often hidden by modern technology—the splash of artillery fire can be random, a rocket or bomb or IED can be anonymous. Those things make combat a roll of the dice. Either you die, or you don’t; your own skill doesn’t have a lot to do with it. But on this street and in these houses, it can be man-to-man. My skills against his. I caught him napping and he died. That is how the game is played. Tomorrow I might be the corpse in a heap on the street. But tonight I am alive, and I rejoice in that fact.

I scream at the top of my lungs. It is a victory cry. I am euphoric. I have killed the enemy and survived. Infantrymen live on the edge. We are hyperalert, hyperaware of our own mortality. It makes us feel more alive, more powerful. Death is ever-present, our constant companion. We can use it or be victimized by it. We either let the violence swallow us whole or it will drive us insane. There is no room for Chaplain Brown out here.

As infantrymen, our entire existence is a series of tests: Are you man enough? Are you tough enough? Do you have the nuts for this? Can you pull the trigger? Can you kill? Can you survive?

Yes.

I feel loose inside, like my vital organs have been rearranged by the euphoria that consumes me. I scream again. Battle madness grips me. Combat is a descent into the darkest parts of the human soul. A place where the most exalted nobility and the most wretched baseness reside naturally together. What a man finds there defines how he measures himself for the rest of his life. Do we release our grip on our basic humanity to be better soldiers? Do we surrender to the insanity around us and ride its wave wherever it may take us?

Yes.

I embrace the battle. I welcome it into my soul. Damn the consequences later, I am committed, and there’s no road back.

I cup my hands to my mouth and take a long breath. “You can’t kill me!” I rage into the night, “You hear me, fuckers? You can’t kill me! You will never kill me!”

“Bell, chill the fuck out.” Fitts is crouched next to me, working a wad of dip in his cheek.

Too late.

I am the madness.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Doorways

“Dude, you sound like a retard. Stop screaming already.”

Fitts brings me back to reality. I quit howling. This is not the time to be a philosopher. Silence fills the street as I calm down.

Fitts and I confer. We discard the idea of firing the rocket into the propane tank. The enemy knows we’re here; we no longer need to instigate anything.

Footfalls down the street signal the enemy is on the move. We peer down toward the municipal building but see nothing. More footfalls. Glass crunches. It sounds like several people.

“Are they coming at us, or running away?”

“Shhh.”

We listen. The footfalls grow distant.

“Dude. You scared ’em off with your rant,” says Fitts.

“Yeah. And the shotgun rounds you put into Johnny Taliban were what, supposed to lure them in?”

Fitts glares at me, and I realize he’s pissed off by my display. “I’m just saying…nah, fuck it. Go ahead, scream like an idiot.”

Ruiz comes up to us. Fitts’s shotgun work has rocked his eardrums as badly as mine. “WHAT? DO YOU NEED ME, SERGEANT BELL?”

We shake our head no as Fitts spits a wad of dip on the wall.

“Fitts, you’re filled with negativity. We need to have an intervention here. This shit motivates me. This is my joy. Remember the old days. It used to be your joy. Where’s that guy? Can he come out and kill terrorists with his pal?”

“Sorry I don’t ooze with optimism. Getting shot repeatedly kinda took the fun out of it for me.”

We’re no longer joking with each other, and I realize just how deeply April 9 has affected my friend. A moment ago, we’d both been smiling over our kill. I took it too far, and now we’re both uncomfortable. It has highlighted the two directions we’ve gone since that day in Muqdadiyah. I love this job. Fitts doesn’t anymore, but he’ll do it because he believes in it.

“Fitts, you’re different,” I stammer.

He looks down at Ruiz, who is still scanning the street.

“Let’s not have this conversation in front of Ruiz.”

“Dude, he’s completely deaf. Seriously. Check it out. RUIZ. RUIZ.”

Ruiz doesn’t respond.

Lieutenant Meno shouts down from the roof, “What are you guys screaming about?”

“Nothing, sir. We got it.”

We grow silent. There’s a breach between Fitts and me now that didn’t used to exist. It is out in the open, and we’ve both acknowledged it. It leaves me puzzled and dejected.

Our street is quiet. We return to business and decide to move south down the street and take over a house with a better view of the municipal building. Our tanks and Brads are still to our north, apparently unable to get through on any of the main roads. We’ll have to continue our advance without them. This makes both Fitts and I very nervous.

A mech infantry company is only half-complete with just the dismounts. We fight as an integrated team with our tracks. We complement each other. They are our heavy support. We are their eyes and ears. It is a perfect balance, and to be most effective, we have to work together.

Still, we must press ahead. We cannot let the insurgents fall back and regroup. We’ve grabbed a foothold in the city. Now we must exploit it and drive as deep as we can.

I call for my Alpha Team leader. Knapp dashes up to me. Six foot one and about 205, he’s tough and rangy, with a cannon for an arm, the product of his years as a high-school quarterback. He joined the army in 2001 and made E-5, buck sergeant, in only two years, a phenomenal rate of advance. He’d been Brigade Soldier of the Quarter before we’d left Germany for Iraq.

“Knappy, I want you to take down that house across the street. The big bitch.”

“Roger, Sarge.”

Knapp turns to his guys, gives a few quick orders, and moves to the back gate. Sergeant Hugh Hall, Fitts’s B Team leader, throws a grenade toward the municipal building. When it explodes, smoke and dirt swirl around the street. We fire a few 40mm M203 rounds for good measure. They blow up and add to the makeshift smoke screen. Misa steps through the gate and bowls another frag down the street. If anyone’s left down there, they’re either suppressed or blinded.