The War I Always Wanted (16 page)

Phil stood watching as Captain B. asked if anyone had a clue as to how to unload it. The commander didn't want to leave the
artillery unattended while it was still capable of wreaking havoc. Davis set his round down and said, “I bet I can do it. It doesn't look too hard.”

He stepped up onto the platform and then sat down in the anti-aircraft gunner's seat.

The large caliber ammunition I held said “57-MM, High Explosive.” I didn't like it for some reason, though. Because it was larger, it gave me the irrational feeling that it was more volatile than the grenades I'd been used to carrying. I set it down and then turned to Estrada who was poking around some other pieces of equipment. We made eye contact and then I just shrugged and said, “Huh.”

We stepped out onto the dirt road away from the cannon. I had my hands on my hips and I was scanning the whole field, wondering who I should call and how we should handle this. I thought it was a bad idea to leave the pieces out there unattended.

Davis squinted his eyes, searching for the triple-A equivalent of a charging handle. When his hand found something that seemed like it would eject the round, he smiled. Then the corporal looked up at the captain and lieutenant and said, “Oh here, I think you just pull this down . . . .”

The explosion tore through the orchard with a thunderous roar. Estrada and I turned and we ran. We didn't say anything. We didn't even look at each other. We just ran. I began sprinting back down the dirt road. Estrada went another way, darting into the field.

* * *

Captain B., Davis, and Phil watched in wide-eyed horror as the round skipped off the ground like a stone on water, careening into the orchard in front of them and disappearing.

I was running at full speed wearing an armor-plated vest, carrying 210 rounds of ammunition, and an M4. It did not slow me down one bit. My arms were pumping in long sweeping motions, my legs stretching out to grab longer and longer pieces of ground with each stride. I could see the humvees on the road—far, far away.

Estrada was running in a diagonal direction from me. I could see that he was already in the center of the grassy field. The poor guy was running zigzags in a weak effort to make himself a harder target to hit.

As I ran I was convinced that we had just walked into an Iraqi ambush. I was certain that they had just blown a claymore mine and for some reason were delaying the act of opening fire on us. Maybe they were surprised it had missed us.

I began gulping air as my lungs started to burn under the weight of my equipment. As I got closer, I could see Krueger's gunner steadying his aim on the Mk 19, ready to open fire on anything that moved.

By the time I got back to the incline at the edge of the highway my lungs were nearly bursting. Somehow I dragged myself safely back to the trucks. In gasping breaths, I tried to ask Krueger if anyone had seen anything. “Did you . . . did you guys . . . did you see . . ?” I stopped trying to talk and just pointed in the general direction of the Iraqi guns.

The range of normality is expanded in a war zone. After a while, you get so desensitized that big guns can become little guns, and big deals can become not-so-big deals. Like when
someone accidentally fires a high explosive round at you from a crew-served anti-aircraft cannon—in the middle of a bustling city, not two hundred yards from an expressway.

When Phil told me later that night what happened, I just thought it was kind of amusing and gave him an eyebrow raise and shrug of the shoulders. By the time Davis had launched the 57mm anti-aircraft round at Estrada and me, I was serene about the fact that, on a battlefield, things tend to go flying where they're not supposed to.

The morning has dawned clear and sunny. For us, nothing has changed. Our mission is still to block and call in mortars—and to await word on whether Zia's Afghan troops will sweep through the valley or not. From what I understand, they are still in Gardez regrouping and recovering. After spending the night staving off frostbite, Zia's indecision is not something about which I want to hear. As usual, Sergeant Collins wants to charge down into the valley, end it, and go home. I have mixed feelings about that, but know that what either of us wants has absolutely no bearing on the situation
.

By midmorning half the platoon is actively scanning for movement in the valley, while the other half thaws out in the warm sun. The day's bombs have just begun to fall on Takhur Gar, Terghul Gar, and the valley. After thirty-six hours in the Shah-e-Kot, this is already beginning to feel like a regular day at the office
.

For some reason, no matter how much I prepare, I am never ready for the moment when it comes
.

This time it is the dreaded whistle—although it actually sounds more like an extended
zzzZZZ.
It has been the last noise heard by thousands of soldiers around the world for decades. It is the sound of incoming. I look to the sky. I see it falling. It is dark, maybe black. It
is fifty feet off the ground. It is falling. It is falling fast. It will land on my platoon. It will not negotiate
.

When it impacts, I will no longer exist
.

This is it. This is my only thought in the one second before I die. I can't get down before it hits. I am moving in water—in slow motion. I am trying to dive—trying to live. I must get as flat as possible
.

It strikes the earth within feet of Private Paguaga. I can't recall hearing the sound that comes with the impact. I am only aware that I am still alive. I start yelling
, “Mortars! Mortars! Mortars!”
I hear other voices calling out:
“Incoming! Incoming!”
I am trying to bury my face into the ground and call out orders at the same time
.

We have been targeted. In a matter of seconds the sky will start raining mortars. And we're just sitting here. We're not dug in. We have no cover. And we sure as hell haven't received any warning
.

For a second we wait. Everyone is flat on the ground. No one knows what to do—run or hold. We are trained to run—to get out of the impact area—but in this case we have been ordered to hold this ground. Another few seconds pass. Suddenly from ground zero comes a raised arm. It is Private Paguaga. He is still lying flat, but waving his arm for all to see
.

“I'm okay!” he calls out in his thick Nicaraguan accent. “I'm okay! I'm okay!” At this point I am struck by the fact that the projectile—whatever it was—had not detonated. It had been a dud. But now we await the rest. I lay there bracing myself
.

The air has become quiet again and the CP is silent as well. They seem just as confused as we are
.

Then Taylor summons me to the radio
.

Of the select group of humans who have heard the sound of a satellite-guided bomb right before impact, not many have
survived to tell the world what the noise is. It's more of a
zing
than a whistle. The movies got it all wrong. It sounds like the sky is unzipping itself.

When an American F-16 mistakenly drops a two-thousand-pound bomb on your platoon—a bomb with a two percent failure rate—you don't forget it. But it becomes more of a big deal later. When it happens, you just think,
wow, that was close
, and you leave it at that. You think,
somebody better tell those motherfuckers to redirect
.

It's not until later that it starts to work on your head. A two-thousand-pound bomb falls on you and the chance that you get to continue living at that moment is one in fifty. It's only when you get home that the idea that you should be dead begins to creep in.

The fog of war in Baghdad rapidly deteriorated into the fog of looting and anarchy. People were using whatever they could to move furniture and the like—cars filled to their ceilings, little white pickup trucks with beds stacked four feet high. I saw two guys driving a yellow front-end loader—the front end of which was loaded with filing cabinets and tables. When this happened, Secretary Rumsfeld, a man with no combat experience, just raised his eyebrows, squinted, and remarked smugly, “Freedom is untidy.”

We were clearing two walled Baath Party estates that had been squeezed between the Tigris and the refinery. Someone had bombed the hell out of the first building I entered. One had missed—landing in the back yard by pool, leaving a crater fifteen feet in diameter. Another had not. It had been a direct hit, blowing off most of the backside of the mansion.
The blast had shredded the sides, leaving only the very front somewhat as it had looked before the explosion. Concrete and sandstone hung precipitously from what was left of the second story, while spindly strands of reinforcing steel round bar delicately held large chunks of the ruined structure together. The front columns were cracked and had shifted in places, giving them an ancient Greek look. They seemed desperate to maintain control of the building's crumbling façade.

We only hesitated for a moment—out of concern for a possible collapse—before going in. When we did, we found there was nothing left. We went through every single room in the place, walking over and sifting through rubble in each one. From the debris, I was able to pull a single brass door handle. Everything else had been looted. Furniture, light fixtures, electrical outlets, wiring, doorknobs, everything.

As we were picking through the ruins, Sergeant Croom came in from the other compound. The first thing he said to me was, “Don't go in the back yard. Motherfuckers'll shoot at you from across the river.”

After a while I walked out of the crumbling front door onto the soft, green grass that made up the front yard. I wanted to see the other mansion. There were bits and pieces of the house covering the lawn, having been ejected during the blast. I walked out, walked down some cracked steps, onto the grass, and then stepped off a four-foot drop-off. I was right beside my truck. Someone had adorned the hood of it with an Iraqi helmet.

I thought about Croom's advice.
Motherfuckers'll shoot at you from across the river
. As I walked past the mansion in which I'd just been, I could barely see to the other side of the river—
the property was raised about four feet, shielding me from the back of the house and beyond. As I moved closer to the gate, the raised portion sloped to an end. In front of me was a sixty-foot span through which I would have to move in plain view of the river. It looked to have been about four hundred yards from where I stood to the other side of the river.

I stood there for a minute weighing the chances. I didn't think anyone could hit a moving target with an AK-47 at over four hundred yards. But I was still hesitant. I was wondering if perhaps today just wasn't my day.

Then I thought about all the soldiers who had gone before me in wars past—soldiers who had moved through withering barrages of machine gun fire at close range, dodging hand grenades at every step. I thought about it and wanted to slap myself for being such a pussy.

I stepped out from behind the cover, wanting to move quickly, but still casually enough to look cool in case anybody I knew was watching. I moved in a sort of ambling shuffle. Then, halfway across the sixty-foot expanse, I heard the crack of the rifle. My head ducked instinctively and I kept moving, safely making it to the other side. I hadn't felt the bullet or heard an impact—which was about what I would expect from someone with an AK from that far away. Nowhere close. But it was there. Somebody had been watching—and waiting.

The new building was far less exciting than the first one. It hadn't been bombed, and that has a lot to do with how fun it is to explore a place. When I walked back to the gap between the properties that offered no cover, I didn't hesitate. I didn't sprint, but I didn't shuffle either. It was more of a
stride
. With my M4 in my right hand, my left arm outstretched toward the
river, and my middle finger raised defiantly, I ran. This time there was only the sound of boots clocking on concrete and labored breathing.

It almost hurt my feelings.

Later that afternoon we found ourselves back in the field with the anti-aircraft guns. Delta Company had been tasked with cleaning up the debris, mostly the unused ammunition. We were stacking the 57mm rounds in the beds of the humvees when Captain B. received a call on the radio that the scout sniper team on the second floor of the mansion was currently exchanging fire with somebody on the ground floor of the building. The Voice simply told him to bail them out—and fast.

Captain B. stepped out of his truck, still gripping the outstretched hand mike. There were several of us who had been standing near him during the conversation. He was obviously flustered, his face becoming redder by the second as it always did when he was pissed. He look at the group of us and asked, “Does anybody know how the hell to get there from here?”

“Yeah, I know how to get there,” I replied, putting on my helmet. “We spent over an hour there this afternoon.”

“Okay. We're leaving in thirty seconds.”

Soft dirt and green grass were churned up as Sergeant Whipple, in the lead, sped out of the field as if his truck had been fired from a cannon. We drove in a line toward the refinery, Captain B. and Corporal Davis in tow.

During the frantic drive a radio call informed me that the shooting had ceased. It said that the scouts had exchanged gunfire, driving off the looters. They said they had fired shots,
hitting the looters' vehicle as it sped away. But for some reason, still holed up on the second floor, now the scouts suspected the looters had returned.

When we pulled to a stop in front of the mansion, everyone poured out of their vehicles and ran like in the TV show
Cops
. Somewhere along the way, formal infantry tactics had fallen by the wayside.

By the time I made it to the foyer, Sergeant Estrada was already hauling a looter out of the mansion with a firm grip on the man's arm. Behind him, my guys hustled two other looters outside. One was a woman.