House to House: A Tale of Modern War (6 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Beyond Redemption

November 4, 2004

The night grows cold, but we don’t move. Fallujah weighs on our minds. Fitts doesn’t speak, but I know his thoughts are the same as mine. We will face the challenge of our lifetimes in Fallujah. I’d be more worried, but with Fitts back in the platoon, I have the sense that we will get through this.

By all rights, Colin Fitts shouldn’t even be in Iraq. Three bullet wounds is usually a ticket to a medical retirement and a disability check. Not for Fitts. He flowed through the casualty pipeline from Diyala and Baghdad through Germany before landing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He stuck around stateside long enough to see his third child born, then bullied his way back to Germany where a friendly sergeant gave him a pass on his PT test.

One summer day, he showed up again. There was no fanfare, but I’ll never forget him limping back into the company area. My morale soared. Lieutenant Colonel Newell even decorated him with the Bronze Star for valor.

The truth is Fitts should not be back with us. His body has not healed completely. He walks with a limp. His arms ache. His leg is always stiff, and there are times I find him in great pain.

It is hard not to love a guy who will sacrifice this much for you.

We make small talk on the ramp for about an hour before we are cleared to go home. We pack up and our Brads drive us back to our barracks, where we discover dozens of Het and Hemmit tractor trailers parked next to our company area. These are the huge rigs used to move our tanks and Bradleys over long distances. The transportation guys have practically taken over all the open ground. Scattered around their gigantic trucks are sacks of laundry, overstuffed rucksacks, and piles of gear. Their arrival confirms that big plans are afoot. Fallujah is a go.

We stow our gear and head off for chow. As Fitts and I approach the mess hall, we catch sight of Lieutenant Colonel Peter Newell. He is surrounded by concentric circles of reporters and cameramen. They jostle each other to get closer and compete to ask questions. It’s surprising to find such a commotion here, in the war’s backwater. Even during the Shia uprising last spring, there have been few reporters out here in Diyala. The journalists have come to FOB Normandy to ride with us into Fallujah. It is clear now. Unlike last April, there will be no stand-down on this one.

The sight of so many media types puts us in a foul mood. Good infantrymen have no interest in playing nursemaid to reporters in the midst of combat.

Fitts opens the mess hall door. As we step inside, I nearly fall on my ass. To our astonishment, the place has been spruced up just in time for the reporters. Instead of the packed dirt and concrete floor, the mess hall now sports faux-marble tiling. Trouble is, whoever dreamed this up forgot to factor in how slippery it would be, especially to Joes wearing sand-speckled boots.

Making our way to get our dinner trays is like trying to walk across an ice rink. On the far side of the tables, I watch as a young private slips and falls. He crashes down on his back, food, silverware, and dishes flying in all directions.

Reporters are everywhere. They’ve taken over the mess and now they huddle around us and gawk. These journalists are spotlessly dressed in designer khakis from Banana Republic. It is hard not to be nauseated.

Another Joe slips and falls flat. The reporters take this all in but make no comments. The soldiers, embarrassed, pick themselves up.

Right outside the chow hall, a reporter hands a smoke to a soldier and lights it for him. All of a sudden, the rest of the herd has the same idea. Hands reach into pockets and thumbs flick a dozen smokes in front of the weary Joes.

“This is going to be so fucking stupid,” I say to Hector Diaz, Alpha Company’s supply sergeant.

Sergeant Cory Brown, a hulking Montanan, grabs a tray next to us and gets in line next to Fitts. He’s our most experienced Bradley commander, but isn’t exactly a rocket scientist, and I’m in the mood to stir the pot a bit.

“Diaz. Check this shit out,” I whisper as I turn to Brown.

“Hey Grizzly,” I say, “these fucking reporters ate the last steak, man. Dude picked it up, took a bite out of it, and then spit into the trash can. Can you believe that asshole? Fucking Reuters. I would take that from an AP guy, but fucking Reuters? Are you serious?”

Brown goes from zero to pissed in a heartbeat. “What’s his name? Rory Turds? Royters? HEY, WHO IS REUTERS?!”

Fitts grabs his arm, “Brown, he’s just fucking with you, dude. Reuters is a press service.”

“I don’t give a fuck who he is! He spit a good steak in the trash, and I’m going to beat his dumb ass.”

Diaz and I break out laughing. Alpha Company’s First Sergeant, Peter Smith, storms over. Raised in Germany by an American father and a German mother, his accent is so thick it could repel grenade shrapnel. Though he might feel more at home at Oktoberfest than a Fourth of July parade, our senior enlisted man in Alpha Company is a brilliant soldier.

“Bellavia and Fitts,” he says, “Get a hold of Mongo. I don’t need his dumb ass making a fucking scene in front of the press corps.”

I try to act indignant, “First Sergeant, what am I, the Retard Whisperer? I can’t control this dude. That’s Fitts’s job.”

“I don’t give a fuck whose job it is. Do it or Cory’ll end up wearing corporal rank and a lacrosse helmet to work.”

Fitts and I try to calm down Brown, who still seems to be looking for the reporter who spit out the steak.

As we sit down to eat our chow, Lieutenant Ed Iwan walks over to us with a journalist who has been shadowing him. Iwan, our husky red-headed Executive Officer, has had the job for all of four months. Much to his disgust, Iwan had been conducting an impromptu interview with this reporter from the chow line through to the salad bar and now in front of our table. Iwan rests his tray down as he applies dressing to his salad. Iwan squints with an ersatz concern that would rival the best-trained Julliard graduate. He smiles politely to the most ridiculous questions regarding the upcoming Fallujah operation.

“Oh, I don’t know much about nuclear weapons or the space program. I think that is way above the pay grade of a junior army infantry officer. But Staff Sergeants Fitts and Bellavia could answer this probably better than I could.” Iwan gives us a deliberate eyebrow raise as he warmly shakes the reporters hand.

Fitts and I stare at each other as the reporter fires questions at us without a proper introduction. Iwan darts away into the mass of strangers loitering about in our new dining facility.

“How would you describe combat to average Americans back home?”

“Combat? You ever play paintball, sir?” I ask him with complete seriousness.

“No, but I am aware of the sport.”

“Tell America that combat is like paintball. With the exception that the enemy is motivated by fanatical devotion and uses bullets as they attempt to kill you. But basically it’s the same thing.”

“Make sure you get that ‘killing with bullets’ part,” Fitts adds.

“Do either of you fly helicopters?”

Iwan comes back to our table this time with two other reporters. He takes the now confused journalist away from us and drops off our platoon’s embedded reporters for Fallujah. Fitts and I shake hands with Michael Ware and his photographer, a scowling Russian named Yuri Kozyrev. These two stand in stark contrast to their brownnosing and perpetually confused cohorts. No starched Banana Republic garb for them. Bandoliers of camera batteries crisscross their chests. They wear green cargo pants that are quite possibly filthier than anything Specialist Tristan Maxfield wears. Maxfield is one of my best soldiers, but he emphatically refuses to practice even the basics of personal grooming. His stench has long since become the stuff of legend and earned my squad the sobriquet “The Dirty Boys.”

Ware and Yuri eat like us, too. They don’t bother with silverware, napkins, or table manners. They just dig in with their hands, soaking up gravy with swift swipes of bread across their plates, as if they don’t know how long they will have to eat or when they’ll get another meal. They devour everything. In any restaurant back home, they’d be asked to leave, but I’m warming up to them. Their manners are strangely appropriate for this room that formerly hosted autopsies.

I’ve heard of Michael Ware. He’s a
Time
magazine journalist who developed deep ties to the insurgents in Baghdad. He embedded with the Mahdi militia during the summer 2004 offensive in An Najaf. On several occasions, he was nearly killed by American tank fire. Al Qaeda passed him beheading videos until he stopped accepting them in September. He also wrote a heart-stopping piece about a pitched firefight in Samarra. He is the face of Western journalism to the jihadists. He’s also an Aussie, a fact that he periodically plays up by emphasizing his accent.

Around us in the chow hall, two worlds collide. Infantrymen suck their dinner-soiled fingers clean while elitist journalists fastidiously wield silverware and dab the corners of their mouths with napkins. It is too much for me. I dump my tray and flee into the safety of the night.

In the darkness, I light a smoke and take a long drag. I pass a small courtyard and spot Chaplain Ric Brown with a halo of soldiers around him. They’re praying.

At first, I can’t tell who is in the group. But as my eyes adjust to the darkness, I make out a few faces. One soldier has his head bowed, with a copy of the New Testament tucked under one arm.

I find a wall and perch on it. The night swallows most of Chaplain Brown’s prayer, but I do catch a snippet or two. He is earnest, a good man who seems to rise above all the depravity we face outside the wire. We all respect him. Once, a couple of Georgian (former Soviet republic) soldiers started to rough him up after he ordered them to remove pornography from their computers. Every American in the area charged over to Chaplain Brown’s rescue.

The prayer ends, and the men begin to drift away. I smoke in silence, thinking about my own faith, or what’s left of it. I have three brothers, two of whom graduated from seminary. One became a minister. When I was five, my two oldest brothers got into a wrestling match and one suffered a neck injury. I remember seeing him lying on the floor, choking and gagging as foam flecked his lips. I fell to my knees and prayed for him with everything I had. I didn’t know what else to do.

A few minutes later, he opened his eyes. After that, throughout my childhood, I actually believed that I could save people with the power of my prayers. Later, when a family friend I prayed for died, I blamed myself for not praying hard enough. I had nightmares about those I had failed to save by somehow not praying with complete devotion. The guilt assailed me for months each time this happened.

I take another drag from the cigarette and begin to walk again. I make a detour and head for the latrines. Just as I get there, a hand reaches out of the night and grabs my arm.

“Sergeant Bellavia,” says the gentle voice of Chaplain Brown, “would you like to pray with me?”

I am a Christian, but my time in Iraq has convinced me that God doesn’t want to hear from me anymore. I’ve done things that even He can never forgive. I’ve done them consciously; I’ve made decisions I must live with for years to come. I am not a victim. In each instance, I heard my conscience call for restraint. I told it to shut the fuck up and let me handle my business.

All the sins I’ve committed, I’ve done them with one objective: to keep my men alive. Those kids in my squad, those kids of mine, they are everything. My wife doesn’t understand this job or why I do it. My son is too young. My dad wouldn’t get it if I tried to explain. My mom would have a heart attack. The need to keep my men alive makes everything else negotiable, and everyone and everything a potential threat.

My mind flashes to April 9 again, when we burst into a house full of men, women, and children. I separated the men. The children screamed. The women sobbed hysterically. My squad found AKs and an RPK machine gun in closets around the house. They were still warm, and the men reeked of gunpowder. They laughed at our situation as our Bradleys fired and rockets boomed outside.

One man waved his finger and mockingly lectured me, “Geneva conventions. You must do good, Amreekee. You good Amreekee.”

I couldn’t leave them in the house with one of my soldiers as a guard, as we were already short of men. I couldn’t leave them alone either. They would have shot us in the back as we left. I decided to flex-cuff them to their front gate, and return for them after the fight ended. But as we left the house and advanced up the street, a wave of machine-gun fire ripped over us. I looked back. The four men had somehow broken loose from the gate and were running for it in all directions. A Bradley cut one down, and as the 25mm shells hit him, he exploded. His flex-cuffed arms spun across the street and smacked to the pavement.

One bound insurgent started to crawl back to his compound. A bearded man from another house ran out to cut his flex-cuffs loose with large pruning shears. I moved into the open danger area and shot the rescuer repeatedly. My rounds sparked off his shears as they shattered into pieces.

Machine-gun fire raked the ground around us. The flex-cuffed insurgent doubled over, hit by an errant enemy bullet. Writhing in pain, he began to scream only feet away from his own house. His family heard him, and two sobbing children came out to see what had become of their father. I tossed a smoke grenade that scattered the children back to the safety of their home. I did it to keep the kids from getting harmed, but also to deny their father a chance to say good-bye. My brothers who died in the field got no such opportunity to say good-bye to those they loved, and I will afford none to this man. I wanted him to die alone, shrouded in smoke, choking on his own blood.

Their father, utterly despondent, stared at me with pleading eyes as the white smoke filled the air around him. He died without another chance to see his children. I robbed him of his final earthly joy. I delighted as I watched his life ebb away. It felt just.