House to House: A Tale of Modern War (34 page)

In the summer of 2005, I left the army and returned to civilian life. It was the toughest decision I ever had to make. I loved being an NCO, and I missed it every day.

After I returned home, I witnessed another battle raging on the television over Iraq. From Washington, the rancor and defeatism over the war shocked me. As other veterans of the Global War on Terror started to trickle home, we shared the feelings of the disenfranchised. We who sacrificed were being ignored by the World War II and Vietnam generations now holding seats of power in our government. I joined Wade Zirkle in forming Vets for Freedom, a nonpartisan political action committee dedicated to supporting our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I want to believe the war is a noble effort, but I fear it may end ignobly.

Most Americans had no idea what was really going on in Iraq in 2004. Some didn’t want to know. For years we have been spoiled by one-sided, sterile air wars. That kind of warfare has more in common with PlayStation games than with Hue City or Seoul in 1950. Or Fallujah in 2004.

Even those who read the paper or watched the evening news didn’t get it. The reason for that was clear: the type of reporting in Iraq left much to be desired. The Michael Wares of the war were few and far between. The majority of the journalists covering Iraq stayed in the Baghdad hotels, where Arab stringers with dubious motives fed them their raw material.

In most mainstream news agencies today, we read stories and see images that stem from foreign national stringers without journalistic schooling. Rarely do these stringers get a prominent byline. The home-front audience has no idea of their ethnic, political, or religious bias. Oftentimes, the footage we see of IEDs blowing up is actually filmed by the insurgent cell that triggered the blast. Then the nightly news plays the video at six and eleven. The line between good and evil is now permanently smudged in Iraq.

I refused to sit on the sidelines of this fight, not after all that had happened to my unit in Diyala and Fallujah. In June 2006, I returned to Iraq to bear witness to the fighting in Anbar Province. This time, I came to Iraq as a journalist, determined to tell the truth about what I’d seen. I was there as a correspondent for the
Weekly Standard,
which gave me the credentials to cover Iraq from the point of view of someone who had been there before.

I spent most of my time in Ramadi, where I embedded with both American and Iraqi army units. There, I found what Ware and the other reporters who were with us in Fallujah discovered: soldiers don’t like journalists. After all the negative stories, after beating Abu Ghraib to death on the front page of every American newspaper, the average soldier does not trust anyone associated with the media. The warrior class, bleeding in Iraq, has been painted with two brushes: that of the victim and that of the felon. They appreciate neither.

As I went out on patrol with these men, I realized how out of place I was. Despite having been a combat infantryman, in this context, without my own unit to lead, I was alone. If something were to happen to me, no one would really care. I was just a whore chasing a story.

I didn’t belong. I never realized how much I missed Fitts and the boys until that moment. They had been the focal point of my life for so long that when I did go home in 2005, my departure from the army left a hole inside me. I tried to fill it with the trip back to Iraq, but instead I made it worse.

I saw Fitts in Kuwait a few days before I returned to Iraq. In 2005, he volunteered to go to Baghdad and train Iraqi commandos. He went out on dozens of missions with them over ten months. As I got in theater in June 2006, his second tour was complete and he was ready to return to Germany. I found him in Kuwait, busily spitting dip into the sand while he sat with his peers and swapped stories of their exploits in Baghdad. I joined them, and for one brief moment I felt like I was one of them again. He and I talked about the old days. Of course, he had to show everyone his scars from April 9. But as we reminisced, I realized I’d probably never see Fitts again. He’s made the Army his home and career.

It was a bittersweet thought. There are never happy endings in the Army. There is no closure, not with friends or enemies. I can’t say that I ever expected to see Captain Sims or Lieutenant Iwan or Command Sergeant Major Faulkenburg again after I left the service. But Fitts meant more to me, and now I had to realize that that part of my life was behind me forever. The comradeship we shared would never be experienced again.

Several weeks later, with my reporter duties done, I made a lone journey to Fallujah. I moved through the morning sun and tried not to attract too much attention to myself.

I started at the house overlooking Highway 10. It was here that Pratt was wounded. As I stared up at it, I wondered if there were still bloodstains on the roof. I couldn’t check; somebody was living in the house. Next door, the house that had been there was little more than rubble. I climbed inside it and the old memories started to flow back. Two years ago, we staked our lives in this fight.

I turned and moved north, chomping on a Slim Jim as I traveled. I was heading for the breach site. Before I’d left New York, I had bought a few flowers from a vendor at JFK airport. They’d been with me on this entire trip, wilting in my backpack in the heat of the Middle East. They weren’t much, but they would have to serve as my homage to those we lost.

I zigzagged through desolate neighborhoods full of ruined buildings. Hardly a soul graced the streets. The scars of battle were evident everywhere: broken houses, ruined buildings, and bullet-marked walls. The people who remained here lived with these reminders every day. They could not escape the lost families, lost loved ones. Just existing in this half–ghost town required facing these tragedies every day.

I reached the area where Sergeant Major Faulkenburg died. I found no plaque, no memorial in his honor. Instead, I discovered a falafel stand. Its owner and his customers had no idea of the significance of this place. Even if they did know why this was hallowed soil for me, I wondered if they would care.

I pulled one wizened carnation out of my backpack and laid it reverently on the ground. It was the best I could do for a man I loved and respected. Sick with grief and guilt, I tried to say a prayer.

God and I still had much to work out. On that street corner I realized that before I asked for His blessing over this soil, I had to figure out how to ask for forgiveness.

Heart reeling, I turned away from the breach. This trip had been a mistake. I should have never come back.

Yet I continued. Quitting would have been cowardice.

I hiked south to Highway 10 and pushed into the industrial district.

I tried to find the locations where Lieutenant Edward Iwan and Sergeant J. C. Matteson died. When they fell on November 12, our platoon was several blocks away, already locked in a desperate battle on the second floor of that massive factory building, I didn’t see Iwan get hit. I learned of Iwan’s death from Fitts while we were pinned down by enemy fire. The news enraged me. In a fight, fury and hate are fuel for an infantryman. Iwan’s death was like that—fuel for us. After the word spread, we fought like banshees that morning. In a real sense, Iwan helped us one final time, and we were able to survive this ordeal because of the strength our love for him gave us.

My thoughts turn to an article I read in the Jacksonville
Times-Union
after coming home from Iraq. The story focused on a forty-six-year-old Navy chaplain named Father Ron Camarda, who happened to be in the operating room when Major DeWitt convinced the Marine surgeons to try and save Lieutenant Iwan.

Father Camarda assisted the doctors until hope was lost. Finally, they left Lieutenant Iwan in the chaplain’s care. Father Camarda gave my XO last rites. Then as his life slipped away, this Catholic priest stroked Lieutenant Iwan’s hair and softly sang “Oh Holy Night” to him. When he finished, Father Camarda kissed him and said, “Edward, I love you.” In that, he said what all of his fellow brothers of Alpha Company would have wanted to say but never got the chance.

A single tear escaped from the LT; he died as it slipped down his cheek.

In the midst of all the hatred, the killing, and the sheer evil we faced, Lieutenant Edward Iwan faced death surrounded by the last thing I could ever imagine existed in a combat zone. Grace.

After reading the article back home, I could hardly breathe. Now its words returned to me and I thought about Father Camarda, a man of God and a savior to those of us, the the veterans of Fallujah.

I wandered through the streets of this broken city. The industrial district was still little more than rubble even two years later. Not much had been rebuilt. In the end, I made my best guess and put two carnations on the sidewalk for Lieutenant Iwan and our fallen scout.

Edward, I love you.

Those were the last words my XO heard.

I had one carnation left. This one was for Captain Sims.

I walked west, deeper into the industrial district. I came to one intersection and paused to look around. It seemed familiar. I gazed up at the ruins of a building and recognized it as the one we defended during of our fierce battle on the twelfth. It was here that our platoon made its last stand. We would have all been killed or wounded had it not been for Staff Sergeant Fitts that day.

Withering small-arms fire scythed through our building from the west. All of us were hunkered down behind piles of brick, or an interior wall, or whatever we could find. We had more targets than we could handle. We were all killing insurgents, but more flooded toward us to take their places. We were getting overwhelmed. The enemy seemed to almost toy with our desperate situation. A sniper disabled one of our M240 Bravo machine guns, rather than taking the easier head shot on Specialist Joe Swanson.

The volume of incoming fire swelled. Together Sergeant Charles Knapp and Swanson stuck their Kevlar helmets onto poles and raised them up into the open to draw fire. A sniper put three bullets millimeters away from Swanson’s in quick succession. His accuracy chilled us.

And then rockets impacted amid our positions with equally expert aim. One streaked into our building and ping-ponged around. It almost killed Sergeant Jose Rodriguez, who braced himself for the impact by closing his eyes and turning away. The rocket was a dud and failed to explode.

We had no choice but to keep firing. A few minutes later, an insurgent broke cover and shot at us from an adjacent alleyway. Sucholas launched two 40mm grenades toward the man, but both missed. He loaded a third grenade into his M203 and fired again. This time, a bright streak shot from his weapon and embedded itself in the insurgent’s chest. The sight left us all stunned. Sucholas had accidentally loaded a green star cluster 40mm grenade into his launcher. Composed largely of white phosphorus, the shell burned the frenzied insurgent from the inside out. He fizzled, popped, and screamed for what seemed like an eternity as his death agony was masked by wisps of green smoke.

Finally, Staff Sergeant Jim and our Bradleys broke through the enemy resistance. Fitts knew that they were our only chance, and they needed to be positioned exactly right in the intersection below to do the most damage at the least risk to themselves. The problem was, from inside the building, we couldn’t get a good view of the intersection. At the same time, a bottleneck developed in the street between the tanks and the Brads. With the track commanders buttoned up and unable to see, they were having a hard time getting out of each other’s way.

Ignoring the fusillade of incoming bullets, Fitts leaned out the second floor of our building. Holding on to a section of intact exterior wall, he dangled himself precariously over the side of the factory, a radio in his free hand. AK rounds cracked and whined all around him. Several impacted on the wall right next to him. He hung himself out there, spotted the logjam in the side street, and talked the vehicle commanders through it. The whole time he spoke to them over his radio, Fitts was the most exposed human in Fallujah.

Staff Sergeant Jim’s tank drove into the fight. A rocket-propelled grenade just missed Fitts. Unfazed, Fitts refused to take cover. Instead, he called out targets for Staff Sergeant Jim. His tank surged forward, its 120mm booming. The big Abrams smashed through a compound wall and blasted insurgents into pink sprays of meat and blood with its main gun. Jim’s tank became our savior; his crew crushed the counterattack that threatened to take us all down. Mangy man-eating dogs followed behind him and devoured the remains of his victims. At one point, when the tank paused, I saw the mutts licking its tracks.

Later on, an insurgent in a second-floor window fired on Iwan’s old Bradley, now commanded by Sergeant First Class John Ryan. It was suicide by Bushmaster cannon. Ryan’s gunner, Sergeant Tyler Colly, blew the insurgent clean out of the building. A tangle of electrical wires snared him like a fly in a spiderweb. He hung there, dripping gore on the snapping dogs below. Others shot him down, and when he splattered to the ground, the dogs went berserk.

Six hours into the fight, the few surviving insurgents fled before the armored juggernaut and the fight ended. My young soldiers withstood the worst the enemy could offer and refused to bend. Instead, they stood brother-to-brother and faced the foe together.

It had been a ghastly yet magnificent day of battle. I’d seen my men perform with the utmost devotion. At the same time, I realized that this grisly violence had numbed me. I feared that for the rest of my life, I would never sober to the true reality of its horror.

It all came back to me as I took one last look at the ruined building and the intersection around me. It had been almost two years. Time was short, and I had one last place to visit. I walked on as my emotions played havoc with me. I missed my platoon more than ever now.

At last, I reached the neighborhood where Captain Sims was killed. People milled about in the street. The appearance of a lone westerner caused many to gape at me. It became awkward, and potentially dangerous.