Collateral (12 page)

for kilometers) a minute.
Fallujah,

here we come! Get ready for a major

ass-whooping. Did you hear about

that sonofabitch suicide bomber

at that funeral? Crazy bastard!

If he harbored the tiniest hint

of fear, he never confessed it,

and it never, ever showed. In fact,

he felt immortal. Untouchable.

The way he'd been trained to believe.

Personally, I was thrilled for him.

Petrified for me. Fallujah.

I did my research, and it scared

the crap out of me. When this

whole Iraq mess started, Fallujah

was, according to everything I read,

the “deadliest city” in the country,

a stronghold of insurgency, and

who knew, exactly, who the bad

guys were or where they hid

their weapons? When coalition

forces first went in, casualties

were assumed—and that included

civilians. Bombs aren't selective.

And grenades truly are colorblind.

Killing women and children

is not conducive to goodwill.

It took years to rebuild, and

by the time Cole arrived in Iraq,

the corner had been turned.

That's what they were saying,

and I clung to that. Cole and his

buddies, however, were primed

for a fight. And that worried me

more than the very real threat

of IEDs or stray bullets. The peace

that had been forged was fragile.

Depending on who was doing

the talking, the silence in the streets

represented a suffocating culture.

The Iraqi police force was no kinder

to Fallujah citizens than U.S. soldiers,

looking for trouble where perhaps none

lurked. Or perhaps it did. The situation

was confused, even if it wasn't chaotic.

In the Anbar Province, communication

became less frequent, and actual calls

were rare. He did send fairly regular e-mails

from Camp Fallujah's Internet café.

At first, they were tinged with excitement.

YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE THIS PLACE. IMAGINE

A GHOST TOWN. TOMBSTONE OR SOMETHING
.

ONLY IT'S A GHOST CITY. MOST OF IT HASN'T

BEEN REBUILT SINCE THE 2004 OFFENSIVE
.

IT LOOKS LIKE A BUNCH OF STONE SKELETONS
.

BUT, SOMEWHERE IN THE GUTS OF THOSE

RUINS ARE FUCKING INSURGENTS, BUSY

BUILDING IEDS AND POKING THEIR HEADS

UP JUST LONG ENOUGH TO TAKE POTSHOTS

AT US. BY GOD, WE'RE GOING TO SMOKE

THE MOTHERFUCKERS OUT AND SQUASH

THEM LIKE HORNETS. AND IF THEY'RE PISSED

HORNETS, SO MUCH THE BETTER. ON ANOTHER

NOTE, PLEASE SEND SOUR CANDY AND CIGS
.

DOESN'T MATTER WHAT KIND. I CAN TRADE
.

LOVE YOU. MISS YOU. I'D SAY WISH YOU WERE

HERE BUT I DON'T. TOO MANY PERVS AROUND
.

E-mail often became gripe mail.

The Fallujah action had slowed

in the months before Cole's unit

arrived. Courageous Marines spent

less time actively being brave and

more time training Iraqi policemen

to handle local issues. The city

had been divided into walled-off

sections. The locals were required

to travel by foot and show military-

issued ID in order to move between

neighborhoods. As Cole wrote,

WE MAN CHECKPOINTS AND KEEP

CURFEWS AND HELP REBUILD

INFRASTRUCTURE. ALL OF US ARE

JONESING FOR ACTION. AIN'T HAPPENING
.

He complained a lot that first swing,

but I was happy to hear casualty

counts for his unit remained steady

at zero. Once in a while, an e-mail

would hint at ugliness.
HAD A LITTLE

EXCITEMENT. CAUGHT TWO DUDES

TRYING TO PLANT AN IED. WE BLEW

THAT MOFO SKY HIGH. ALMOST FELT

SORRY FOR THOSE HAJJIS THOUGH
.

THE IRAQIS HAULED THEM OFF OUT

OF SIGHT. CAN'T SAY FOR SURE BUT

I DOUBT THEY MADE IT TO LOCKUP
.

I became aware of free press

stories leaking out of Iraq. Stories

about detaining Sunni Arabs

for no other reason than that's what

they were, and locking them up for

months or more, no judge, no jury,

not even a day in court. Sometimes

their families didn't hear of their fate

for a very long time. Sometimes

they just disappeared. Other stories

made it very clear that all the American

goodwill we saw on videos—delivering

boxes of food or handing out candy

to children—was tolerated, not

celebrated, as we in the U.S. believed.

Tootsie Pops and MREs hardly

compensated for destroying

the Fallujah economy or executing

its men. Farmers and storekeepers

often met the same fate as tried-

and-true insurgents. But, who knew

who was who? Especially with

the growing Awakening movement—

former insurgents bought off by the U.S.,

in the hopes that three hundred

dollars a month would temper their

extremist ways. The Awakening forces

were paid to patrol neighborhoods,

help with the rebuilding, and maybe

do a little spying. It didn't make them

love the Americans any more, but

they didn't care much for al Qaeda,

either. In theory, the idea worked well.

In reality, it was working to a point.

Except, what if it wasn't? Iraq is a land

of tribes, and as more and more sheiks

signed on to the program, infighting

was unavoidable. Not only that, but

with millions in aid pouring in, every

tribal leader wanted a piece of the pie.

And, as Cole wrote,
WHO KNOWS IF ALL

THESE DUDES ARE REALLY SHEIKS OR NOT?

SEEMS LIKE HALF OF WHAT WE DO IS TRYING

TO FIGURE THAT OUT, OR KEEPING SUNNI

HAJJIS FROM MURDERING SHIITE HAJJIS OVER

WHO GETS WHAT. GODDAMN. WHY DON'T

WE JUST LET THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS KILL

EACH OTHER AND BE DONE WITH THIS MESS?

It was a mess, but less a mess than

before the surge that made it a mess.

At least, that's how the brass saw it.

In the years since the 2004 siege,

Fallujah doctors had seen a huge

swell of infant mortality and serious

birth defects, including a two-headed

baby and too many born paralyzed.

Breast and brain cancers increased

fourfold, childhood cancers

twelvefold, and leukemia cases

skyrocketed to thirty-eight times

usual levels. Not only the sheer

numbers, but also the speed of this

rise was reminiscent of another

wartime nightmare—Hiroshima.

Scientists went looking for reasons.

What they found—evidence of white

phosphorous, napalm, and uranium

in civilian neighborhoods—would

cause enough of a stir that denial

was useless. The blame rose higher

than the offices of military brass.

It went all the way to the boardroom

of the Commander in Chief and his

advisors. By that time, the grumbling

had long since begun that the war

in Iraq was a sham, a fabrication.

Six months before the initial invasion,

Congressman Dennis Kucinich took

an unpopular stand, saying there was

no credible evidence Iraq had weapons

of mass destruction, nor provided aid

to al Qaeda, either before 9/11 or since.

And, “Unilateral action against Iraq will cost

the United States the support of the world

community.” Eventually, even our staunch

ally, England, would lose respect.

I was still in high school then and, though

I heard plenty of antiwar sentiment

coming out of my parents' mouths,

I had more important things on my mind.

Cheerleading. Honor choir. My latest crush.

Those are what I worried about.

Not invented excuses for a war on

the other side of the world. I would

never have predicted it would mean

one damn thing to me in the future.

But as that long, gray autumn

of 2007 wore on, I couldn't help

but wonder if what we were accomplishing—

or not—was worth sending our warriors,

especially one of them, into harm's way.

The casualty count kept rising.

When they added up the number

of dead U.S. soldiers in December,

2007 would go down as the deadliest

year yet in Iraq. Sometimes I didn't

hear from Cole for days at a time.

Though I did my best not to think

about what that might mean,

I would flash on possibilities,

none of them good. I was back in

school, and at the time still thought

I'd be an educator, so I was student

teaching part-time. Nothing like

helping first graders learn to spell

and add to lift the focus off oneself,

at least for a little while. Though

I didn't mention it to Cole (a rabid

Republican), I was out stumping for

Hillary Clinton. I figured it was past

time for a woman to run the show, and

hopefully extricate us from the quagmire.

Two-thirds of the country wanted us

out of Iraq by then. And sixty percent

of military families agreed that we should

not have gone in there to begin with.

None of that helped grunt morale,

which plunged, at least for many.

I didn't pick up on the exact level

of his frustration until after he came

back from that first tour. While he was

over there, he did what was asked

of him without complaining within

earshot of the POGS who ran the show.

In his mind, he was defending

his country, his buddies, his mom,

and me. In that order, something

I didn't figure out right away.

Looking back, I realize how little

we really knew about each other.

For instance, he had no clue

that my birthday was the last day

of November, or that it made me

a Sagittarius, which surprised

me when I did a rudimentary

astrology study because I felt

much more like a Capricorn.

Later I found out Cole called

those daily columns “horrorscopes.”

I spent that birthday alone,

even though it was a Friday

and my girlfriends were going

dancing. It just didn't seem

right to celebrate another year

of living when the guy I loved

might very well be dying.

I hadn't heard a word from him

since Thanksgiving Day, when

he actually got to call long

enough to let me know chow

was a real turkey-and-trimmings

feast. Eight days with zero

communication were a stark

reminder that, as Cole's girlfriend,

if something bad happened,

it might take a while for me to find

out. I was only “somebody” to him.

I went to my classes. Taught

first graders. Checked my e-mail

a lot. Came away disappointed.

Nervous. Scared. The weird

thing was, taut with anxiety,

every day with no word only

made me love him more.

When I finally heard from him,

I had no room for anger. Only relief.

Relief was enough. That time.

He did not tell me everything.

SORRY FOR MY SILENCE. HOPE YOU

DIDN'T WORRY. I WAS ON PATROL

OUTSIDE THE WIRE. SAW A LITTLE

ACTION, NONE OF IT OURS. AT LEAST

NONE I CAN CONFESS. ROOTED OUT

SOME BAD GUYS. BOUGHT OFF A LOT

MORE. THIS IS GETTING OLD. WITH LUCK
,

I'LL BE BACK IN FEBRUARY. THAT MEANS

CHRISTMAS AT CAMP FALLUJAH. THINK

SANTA CAN FIND US HERE? IF YOU SEE

HIM, WOULD YOU ASK HIM TO SEND

SOMETHING TO READ? GODDAMN

BOREDOM IS KILLING MY GOOD MOOD
.

AND I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE. LOVE YOU
.