House to House: A Tale of Modern War (3 page)

Assault rifles bark. Bullets ping around us. We run along a wall, turn into an alley, and start weaving around houses and shacks. Every doorway, window, and rooftop is a potential threat. We keep our heads on a swivel as we run, looking for shooters.

We cross through two alleys before a wave of small-arms fire bursts in front of us. The rapid metallic bangs of Fitts’s M4 rifle follow hard on the heels of the lighter cracks of AK-47 fire. Fitts and a dozen good men, his nine-man squad and three from my squad, are out there unsupported. I’ve got to get to them. We home in on the sound of battle.

We cross more alleys, pass more houses. Ahead a few blocks, I catch sight of three of Fitts’s men hugging a wall and blasting away with their rifles. Where’s Fitts? I turn and lead my men up an alleyway. I intend to move parallel to his squad’s position with the intent to envelope the enemy that Fitts has encountered.

Behind us, an M4 rifle barks. I spin around and see Lieutenant Christopher Walls, our platoon leader, on the trigger. In the maze of alleyways, I know he’ll have a hard time finding us as we continue to advance. I tell Specialist John Ruiz, Private First Class Raymond Cullins, and Sergeant Alan Pratt to hang back and wait for him while I move forward to find Fitts and figure out how we can consolidate both squads.

I reach a corner, peer around, and finally spot Fitts and the rest of First Squad. They’ve taken cover up a small side street about a football field away from me. They’re twenty meters from a walled compound.

Inside the compound sits a small house with a sandbagged machine-gun nest in one window. The nest looks empty, and the gun’s barrel points skyward. Yet many of the rockets and much of the small-arms fire sizzling our way seems to be coming from this area.

Fitts is taking fire from his rear, too. Black-hooded insurgents slash through the alleys all around Fitts’s squad. Rockets zip and explode over low-walled compounds. Machine guns chatter. I can see clearly that Mahdi militia have surrounded First Squad. There’s only one option for Fitts: get his men inside a house and seize a rooftop that can be used as a defensive position. The nearest house is the one inside the walled compound. That’s the one he’ll take down. Fitts and I think alike. He doesn’t see me, but I know what he’s doing. If Fitts is able to seize that defensive position inside the compound, he’ll gain a solid foothold in this neighborhood and a position that can weather the cross fire his squad is now in. I prepare to maneuver my A Fire Team to support him.

Pratt, Collins, and Ruiz advance toward me, only to take fire from an alleyway. They stop to return fire, embroiled in a fight of their own. I realize my team won’t be able to support First Squad. We’re strung out over about fifty yards of enemy-infested urban jungle and preoccupied with our own survival.

Up the alley, I see Fitts gathering his men in a wedge formation to move on the compound and escape the crossfire. He leads them forward, opening into a reverse-horseshoe formation. Fitts is doing it by the book. As they reach just outside the compound’s wall and move toward the front gate, multiple machine guns unleash a torrent of fire at them from the upper stories of another fortified complex about three hundred meters away.

Desperately, I scan for targets. Fitts needs me to put suppressive fire on that complex, but the buildings near me mask my view. I can’t see anyone to shoot.

Fitts leads the men forward even as Misa and others loft a volley of 40mm grenades toward the fortified complex. They boom in the distance, but the incoming fire doesn’t diminish.

As Fitts’s squad approaches the compound’s entrance, they enter hell. Bullets smack around them on the street, coming from every point on the compass. Insurgents are firing from everywhere. First Squad is caught in a triple crossfire. Their only hope is to get inside the building.

As a rash of bullets tear the ground around Gross and Contreras, Fitts never hesitates. His M4 blazing, Fitts leads his squad and my B Team in a dash for the house. Tracers whiz past them like hot embers from a windblown bonfire. I seethe. I can’t see anyone to shoot. I can’t help. My first instinct is to run into the open and give our enemy someone else to shoot at.

I’m just about to move when it happens. Fitts is crouched and shooting into the other side of the compound when his right forearm snaps back violently. A spray of blood fills the air. He doesn’t break stride. He takes two more steps, switches his rifle to his left hand and braces it under his armpit. He fires it like a child’s toy with his one good arm.

Then his left arm jerks and slumps as another bullet strikes him in the left bicep, right above the elbow. His rifle tilts to the ground and he triggers several rounds into the dirt. He staggers, drops his rifle, and falls down.

Ten feet behind Fitts, Specialist Desean Ellis spins backward and screams. Even from my distant vantage point, almost a hundred meters away, I hear a terrible ripping sound, like denim jeans being torn apart. A bullet has hit him in the right quadricep. As he spins I can see a crimson stain on Ellis’s pants. He crumples to the ground.

Summoning reserves of strength, Fitts retrieves his M4 rifle and regains his feet. He pumps four or five quick shots into the house as he stumbles forward. Behind him, his men go “cyclic” with their automatic weapons’ rate of fire. Properly trained infantrymen don’t do that in close combat except in desperate circumstances. Faced with the loss of their leader, they have no choice but to turn their weapons into lethal showerheads.

A shape appears in the doorway. Fitts fires at the insurgent, triggering his weapon now with his thumb and the ring finger of his opposing hand. Sergeant Hall unleashes a volley as well. The enemy collapses in the doorway. Seconds later, another takes his place. Contreras shoots him dead with two well-placed rounds.

The abandoned machine gun in the second-story window suddenly tilts down. I see the movement and realize what it means. Somebody is manning the weapon now, and our men are in the open. I still have no clear shot. I can’t help. My stomach churns. I rage against my own helplessness.

The gun barks. Bullets erupt all around the squad. The men scramble for their lives. Fitts has no chance. I see him double over as blood fountains from his right knee, his third hit. He sags into the dirt, blood pooling around him.

I cannot believe what I’m seeing. Fitts, my closest friend, has been shot three times, and I’m powerless to help. Searing heat ripples down my spine. I lose feeling in my legs. I can’t move. I can’t think. All I can do is watch in horror. I think of Fitts’s wife. She’s back home pregnant with their third child. How am I going to explain this day to her?

I can’t look, but I have to.

Fitts is lying facedown in the dirt about ten meters from the house’s front door. Misa launches another 40mm grenade into the machine-gun nest overhead just as two men charge out the front door.

To my amazement, Fitts grasps his M4 again and opens fire. He still has plenty of fight left in him.

Specialist Michael Gross kills the first man out the door. The second, a thin man with a dark beard, bolts through the doorway and passes straight into Private First Class Jim Metcalf’s line of fire. He and Specialist Lance Ohle squeeze off several rounds and the thin man dies only a few steps from Fitts. Simultaneously two more militiamen duck out of a neighboring house. Specialist Jesse Flannery cuts them down as Contreras sprints to Fitts, picks him up, and starts to drag him backward toward the refuge of a walled compound.

“Get the fuck off me and grab security in that shack back there,” orders Fitts. Behind the squad sits a tiny shack against the interior of the compound wall. Aside from the house itself, it is their best hope. The house seems to be clear of enemy fighters. The danger lies in the incoming fire from the neighboring buildings. In the middle of the compound, Fitts and Contreras are sitting ducks.

“I’m not leaving you here,” argues Contreras.

“Get the fuck off me. Leave me here.”

Reluctantly, Contreras drops Fitts just as another burst of fire laces the squad from their left. Contreras drops to one knee, turns, and drains his magazine in the direction of the incoming. He’s exposed, but he doesn’t care. He keeps banging away at targets I can’t see. Empty shell casings fly through the gun’s ejection port and tumble down on top of Fitts, who has started to crawl forward toward the enemy.

I hear a rifle bark from somewhere in front of me. I catch sight of a dark-faced Iraqi in Ray-Bans. He’s on a roof using an Iranian-made rifle. I can’t tell if he’s on our side or not, but he seems to be suppressing the enemy around Fitts and the rest of First Squad. Not far from the compound, a rocket-toting militiaman breaks cover. Mr. Ray-Ban on the roof drops him with a series of well-placed shots.

I am so fucking confused right now.

Fitts rises to his feet. Using his rifle as a cane, he about-faces and limps the rest of the way to the compound wall without assistance. Hall moves toward Fitts, but I see him suddenly jerk and spin. A geyser of water shoots out of his CamelBak hydration pack.

“Hall, you hit, man?” shouts Misa.

“I know. I know, dude.” Hall never slows, though three bullets have just hit him in the back. Only his body armor saved him.

The squad takes cover against the inside of the compound wall. Seconds later, a rocket-propelled grenade meant for Staff Sergeant Cory Brown’s Bradley sails high and explodes against the outside of the wall.

A militiaman pops up on a rooftop, looking for a new angle from which to fire into the trapped squad. He’s the first real target I’ve had, and I unload on him. He ducks and disappears, and I fume at myself for missing him.

My zero is off.

Behind me, Pratt and Ruiz are still battling by the alleyway. Insurgents take shots at them from between two buildings. They’re in no position to help us. Bullets strike around them with high-pitched zips and whines.

I decide I need to move. I get to my feet and zig down an alleyway, then turn a corner. I stop short. I’ve come right up behind a man smoking a cigarette. His golden armband denoting membership in the Mahdi militia has fallen around his wrist.

He doesn’t notice me. He’s preoccupied with Mr. Ray-Ban on the roof only a few meters away. His back is to me. He casually continues to smoke, with his AK strapped over his right shoulder. At first I think I’m hallucinating. Does this jackoff think there are unionized smoke breaks in battle?

My weapon comes up automatically. I don’t even think. In the second it takes to set the rifle on burst-fire, my surprise gives way to cold fury. The muzzle makes contact with the back of his head.

Fuck a zero. I can’t miss now.

My finger twitches twice. Six rounds tear through his skull. His knees collapse together as if I’d just broken both his legs. As he sinks down he makes a snorting, piggish sound. I lower my barrel and trigger another three-round burst into his chest, just to be sure. He flops to the ground with a meaty slap.

His head bobbles back and forth. He snorts again. I convince myself that this is the man who shot Fitts, and I am roused to a full fury. His face looks like a bloody Halloween mask and I stomp it with my boot until he finally dies. While I spike his weapon, bending the barrel to assure that anyone who uses it again will only hurt themselves, I notice my entire boot is bathed in blood and gore.

Rockets fly. Our gunners in the Bradleys have a bead now. Specialist Shane Gossard, Staff Sergeant Brown’s Bradley gunner, blasts away at insurgent positions as they make their way to Fitts’s squad. Cantrell’s gunner, Sergeant Chad Ellis, kills two men running with bags of rockets on their backs. In the cover of this chaos, my men run and shoot their way into the compound. Finally, I get through the gate and rush to Fitts.

He’s lying on his back, his face waxen. I can tell he’s in shock.

“How you doing, bro?”

“Been better. This fucking smarts.”

That’s all he’ll say, despite taking three bullets from three different weapons.

I call Cantrell to bring in a medevac and get Fitts and Ellis out. When our platoon sergeant realizes two of his men are hurt, he goes ballistic. He speeds his Bradley to our rescue. Initially, he can’t find us, and his wrath swells until I fear he’s on the verge of an aneurism. He bellows repeatedly over the radio.

I strip Fitts of his weapon, magazines, night vision, and tools. He understands. He’s in no condition to fight, and we’ll need everything for what’s ahead. I take everything off him but his can of Copenhagen dip.

Cantrell’s Bradley arrives. Quickly, we load Fitts and Ellis aboard. Even as the ramp is raised, I hear Fitts giving orders to his men while Ellis screams for home.

The Bradley lumbers away, my best friend bleeding inside.

Moments later, we wade back into the fight. We battle from building to building. The killing continues unabated as darkness approaches. After dark, the advantage will be ours. With our night-vision equipment, we own the night. The Mahdi militiamen are fanatical but ill-trained. They only know how to die.

An Air Force F-16 jet arrives to fly back and forth overhead, bombs slung on the weapon pylons under each wing. They stay on those racks.

The pilot isn’t allowed to drop his ordnance. Division doesn’t want to have to rebuild the damage his bombs will cause. Apparently, we’re fighting a kindler, gentler war.

Welcome to the infantry. Where hajji buildings are worth more than our lives. Fine, we’ll live with the burden. It is just another test, another measure that sets us apart from the likes of that Quarter Cav major.

In Diyala, on April 9, 2004, we’re in full battle rattle. The high-intensity urban fighting we’ve practiced since basic training is now finally allowed to be unleashed on our enemy. There is no weak-stomached four-star general to hold back on our reins. We are again the First Infantry Division of Vietnam and the beaches of Normandy. We pour through compound gates, rifles shouldered, targets falling as we trigger our weapons. Mahdi militiamen sprint from corner to corner, but we are quick and accurate with our aim. We knock them right out of their shoes. Our Brads are rolling, unleashing volley after volley from their Bushmasters into the nearby buildings. Yet the militiamen refuse to give up the fight. Tracers from unseen enemy positions spiderweb overhead. They make us earn every house and every inch.