Joker One (20 page)

I
had imagined how I would react in this situation. First I would be overcome by emotions, which I would have to tamp down quickly. Once I’d done that, I hoped that I’d then make cool, dispassionate decisions about how to maneuver the rest of my Marines against our enemies. But looking at the smoke where Brooks’s team used to be, I felt nothing at all. In fact I wasn’t even aware of making any sort of conscious decision to react. I found myself running, as fast as I could, back toward the scene of the explosion, with Yebra trailing a few feet behind me, shouting into the radio as he reported the situation to the COC. I remember thinking that I’d never heard my RO speak so loudly before. Looking over to my left, I could see Bowen and his Marines crouched down in a long line near the wall in front of the al-Haq mosque. As I sprinted past them, part of me noticed the distinct bull-whip-like sounds of bullets cracking their way along as they passed close by. For the first time, I understood on a gut level what it meant to “take fire.” I sped up the run—despite the shooting, I couldn’t be bothered with taking cover. I needed to get my missing fire team; it was possible that if they weren’t dead, then they were badly wounded and unable to take cover. I also needed to sort out who was attacking us, and from where, so that I could make decisions on how to maneuver third squad. About three seconds into the run, in which time I had covered about twenty meters, I called Bowen on the PRR, panting from the exertion.

“One-Three … Flip the squad around … Patrol column … We’re going to see what’s happened to Brooks … and then push back into Farouq to pursue. Over.”

“Roger that, sir,” Bowen replied crisply, without any hesitation at all.

Still running, I looked over, saw him rise, grab his point man, and shove the Marine toward the smoke. Shouting at the rest of the squad to get up, damn it, Bowen started running backward as well, getting everyone else following him toward the explosion. About two seconds later I heard a voice talking through the PRR. It was Brooks.

“Sir. I’m good. My team is good. No injuries. We’ve spotted two guys firing an RPG about two hundred meters south, down the street into the Farouq area. They’re gone now, sir, but someone’s shooting at us from the west.”

I was so sure that Brooks was dead or seriously wounded that at first I didn’t believe my ears. Then he appeared out of the smoke, a magician’s apparition,
running toward me, his team emerging one by one behind him. Their eyes were as big and white as dinner plates. Approaching them, I slowed down. The front of third squad caught up with me, and Brooks and his team fell back to their usual place at the rear of the column. Together now, we all pushed right back the way we had come, running through the now-settling dust of the RPG explosion. We were still taking fire but I couldn’t hear the rounds cracking nearby anymore. Our enemies had either stopped aiming at us or had stopped getting lucky—probably the latter, given what I now know about the typical insurgent’s spray-and-pray marksmanship. What they lacked in accuracy they made up for in volume.

With most of third squad across the road, I paused my advance briefly and grabbed Yebra. It was the first time anyone in the company had come under fire, and I wanted to report what happened to the COC myself. Everyone there was likely on high alert, having no doubt heard the explosion and the rifle fire and Yebra’s shouted reports, and I didn’t want them to launch the QRF because I had failed to communicate. Every time someone left the base they put themselves at risk, and I didn’t want to put Quist and his guys in danger unless I absolutely couldn’t manage the situation myself.

It had been at least a minute since the first explosion, and Yebra was already getting hounded over the radio. “Joker One, this is Joker Six. What the hell is happening out there? I say again, what is happening out there? Give me a SITREP [situation report] now! Over.”

I stopped moving and tried to slow my breathing. It was my first fire-fight; I didn’t want to sound frantic or panicked on the radio, since how you sound when you call in during your first enemy contact can come to define how you’re viewed by those above and below you for the rest of your tour. Frantic-sounding lieutenants lose everyone’s confidence immediately; they end up getting second-guessed a lot. Calm-sounding lieutenants make everyone believe that the situation is well under control, and people listen to their recommendations and take them seriously. The underlying reality in each case may be the same, and the lieutenant’s state of mind in each case may be the same, but on the radio, appearances are everything.

I quickly composed a contact report in my head, then grabbed the handset from Yebra. I took a deep breath and began talking. I thought my voice sounded steady and calm, but it was hard for me to tell. I hoped that I was coming across the way I needed to.

“Joker COC, this is One-Actual. Be advised we have just taken one RPG and some small-arms fire from an estimated three to five enemy about two hundred meters south of the mosque, in the Farouq area. Break. Still under some light fire from the west, estimate no weapons heavier than AKs. Break. I have no casualties at this time. Break. We are going to pursue west and search for the enemy. Break. Recommend QRF be mounted, ready to go. No need for them yet. Over.”

“One-Actual, this is Six. I copy all. QRF is mounting as we speak. If you need us, give me a call.”

“Roger that, Six. I am pursuing at this time. Over.”

“Roger, One. Six standing by.”

“Roger. Out.”

By now, third squad had nearly passed me up, and I motored my way back up to the front, about thirty meters to the west in a narrow alleyway. The two men at the very front of the squad, Dotson and Cabrera, had taken cover behind a large mound of dirt, and they pointed out the location where they thought the AK-47 fire had been coming from. The shooting had just stopped; it looked like the enemy had broken contact. Bowen, meanwhile, maneuvered the rest of the squad deeper into the Farouq area, trying to cut off our attackers’ escape route. Third squad was now strung out in a narrow column along an entire north-south city block. Along with Dotson and Cabrera, I now stood at the very rear of the squad.

I picked up again and moved south, resuming a position near third squad’s front. We moved again, farther south, gliding along through the late afternoon sun in the bent-kneed combat crouch, weapons held up against our shoulders, heads pressed to our buttstocks, looking over the sights, daring someone to take a shot at us. Unlike earlier when we had been smiling and waving, we now looked ready and eager to shoot, and everything that moved had a muzzle immediately swiveled toward it. The streets were mostly deserted, but the few Iraqis who did see us took off running.

We managed to open a few compound gates near where the fire had come from, and we gave their inner courtyards a quick search to see whether the gunmen had holed up inside. We found nothing. We patrolled for a few more blocks, but by now our chances of catching our attackers were close to zero. There were literally hundreds of houses in which the gunmen could have hidden, and Brooks had told me that the RPG team
had taken off west on a motorcycle immediately after firing their weapon. We were learning the hard way that in this city, all that an enemy had to do to escape was simply drop his weapon and step around the nearest corner. After about half an hour of searching, we turned around and headed back to the Outpost.

“Joker Six, this is One-Actual. Be advised, we have found nothing here. The attackers escaped. Over.”

“Roger, One-Actual. I’m going to take the QRF out and look around the area. Over.”

I was so surprised that I forgot all tactical dialogue. “Why? You’re not going to find anything.”

Captain Bronzi’s voice came back, tight with anger. “One-Actual, we’re going out because I fucking think it’s necessary. Last time I checked, I was still CO. Over.”

I shook my head. I thought he was putting people at risk unnecessarily, but it was his call.

“Roger that, Six. Anything else? Over.”

“Negative, One. Come back to the Outpost. Six out.”

“One out.”

W
e patrolled the half mile back to the Outpost as quickly as our heavy

gear loads would let us. Once inside its gates, we pulled off our helmets, unloaded our weapons, and started the quick inspections to make certain that we had all of our sensitive items—spare barrels for the SAWs, for example. Everyone was drenched with sweat and still breathing hard. Brooks’s team was covered in the dirt and dust from the explosion that had stuck to the exposed, sweat-laden skin of their necks and faces.

Inspections completed, we headed back to the platoon’s house for a debrief session. When we got to the platoon’s courtyard, we found first and second squads already assembled, silently waiting as we trooped in. Their men had already stripped out of their gear, so as the sun set behind us, a mixed crowed of hard-looking, armored warriors and pale, skinny high school kids gathered in a tight half circle around me for the after-action question-and-answer session.

Strangely, I still didn’t feel anything—no relief at our lack of casualties,
no anger at first squad and the mix-up with the COC, nothing. I was still in that strange emotionless combat mode, totally focused on the event and on understanding fully what had happened so that we could better forestall being ambushed again. I didn’t know why COC hadn’t registered first squad’s arrival or why first squad hadn’t been able to find us at the police station. I didn’t know how our enemies had hit us from two directions at once or exactly how far away from Brooks that RPG had exploded. My sole concern was answering as many of these outstanding questions as I could, and that concern took all of my attention.

So, M-16 and gear still slung across my sweat-soaked chest, I began the debrief with my assembled platoon. First I summarized the events as best I understood them—after all, as the commander I had the best overall picture of the fight because my primary job was to build that picture. Next I asked what the rest of third squad had seen that I hadn’t. I was amazed at how many of the young Marines spoke up, and as the entire picture of the day’s short firefight emerged, we learned a couple of things. First, RPGs travel slowly enough that you can see them in flight, and they’ll skip off the pavement like Frisbees if they don’t hit it at a steep enough angle. We learned this fact because Brooks had seen the RPG warhead zipping at him as he crossed the road, and he had somehow managed to jump as the rocket passed beneath him, skipping off the pavement just a few feet in front of him and continuing on to impact the traffic circle just five meters away.

This is how we learned the second thing, which is that the rocket warhead can tear concrete to pieces. An RPG warhead looks much like an American football with a finned cylinder about eighteen inches long sticking out of one end. That football can carry a lot of explosive, all of which detonates as soon as it hits something. The RPG that Brooks had hopped had dug a huge divot out of the foot-wide concrete traffic circle, much as a golfer does to the fairway on a bad drive.

Third, any proper RPG makes two explosions—one when it fires, and one when it detonates. If you hear only one boom, then no need to worry. The warhead hasn’t been armed, or it’s a dud. Though we had already learned a decent amount about RPGs in training, such as how many millimeters of rolled homogenous armor they can penetrate and how their shaped charge mechanism spews molten copper in a thin stream upon detonation, these smaller, equally relevant details were news to us.

We also learned something else, something far more important and far more disturbing. During the fighting, I had thought that no one had gotten more than a quick glimpse of our attackers, but I was wrong. Bowen informed me that he thought Dotson and Cabrera—the point men—had both had a chance to observe the gunmen for at least twenty seconds. Puzzled, I asked them about it, and they told me that yes, they had indeed seen two of our attackers. I immediately asked them if they had fired. Nervously, Dotson and Cabrera looked at each other; then Cabrera replied simply, “Uh, no, sir. We didn’t fire our weapons, sir.”

I was furious. “What the hell is wrong with you? We’re Marines—we kill people who attack us. Why on earth would you not shoot?”

Dotson and Cabrera glanced at each other again, then Dotson replied, quietly. “Uh, sir, we didn’t fire back because the guys were surrounded by a crowd of little kids, sir. Maybe twenty, they were all around. The guys, they were just holding up their AKs in the middle of the kids and firing them wildly our way. Without a scope, sir, I was worried that if I fired, I would hit the little kids.” He looked down at his feet, shuffled them, and then looked back up at me and said softly, “I thought that was what you wanted, sir.”

My heart swelled with pride in my Marines at exactly the same time that I kicked myself for yelling at them before I had all the facts. Dotson and Cabrera had done exactly what we had trained them to do—stop, think, and put themselves at greater risk if they believed that there was any danger to innocent civilians from their reactions. Immediately, I publicly back -pedaled.

“Guys, I didn’t know that. You did exactly the right thing. I’m proud of you. Everyone else, if you find yourself in that situation, do exactly what Cabrera and Dotson did.”

Hearing this, all of the Marines nodded, and I ended the debrief and let them disperse. We had learned something more valuable and disturbing than the flight characteristics of an RPG. The insurgents would use kids for cover. We knew that the militias in Somalia had used this tactic to great effect during their street battles with Rangers in Mogadishu, but we hadn’t heard many reports of it happening in Iraq. The idea that someone would use small children—both girls and boys—as nothing more than disposable body armor is so foreign, so beyond the pale of basic morality and decency,
that you have trouble believing it until it happens to you. It’s kind of like a car crash: Until you’re in one, you can know that they happen and perhaps even sympathize with the victims, but you can’t fully internalize it, or accept it as entirely real with painful, ongoing consequences, until you’re sitting in a wrecked vehicle and staring at your broken leg.