First Reconas convoy becomes twisted up on the back trails winding through the hamlets and palm groves. One set of vehicles takes a wrong turn. A bridge indicated on the map turns out not to exist. A couple of the battalionas seven-ton trucks nearly tumble into a dry ca.n.a.l when the roadway gives out. It takes about an hour for the convoy to aunf.u.c.ka itself. When it does, Bravo Company, which had been in the lead, ends up at the rear. The battalion convoy is cut in two, with Alpha, Charlie and Headquarters in front, and Bravo a few kilometers back.

Colbertas vehicle creeps forward, hugging the edge of a dry ca.n.a.l. Here the ca.n.a.l is about seven meters deep and an equal distance across. The Humvee is squeezed between a two-meter-high berm on the left and the ca.n.a.l on the right. Weare on a donkey path, on the verge of slipping into the ca.n.a.l. We find out from the battalion radio that RCT-1, moving several kilometers west of here on the highway, is in contact with suspected Republican Guard units.

We round a bend. A village directly across from us on the other side of the dry ca.n.a.l looks like something out of a Sergio Leone Western. Tumbleweed blows past crude adobe huts. One of them has a peaked roof and arches in the entrance, making it resemble a small Spanish church. Villagers stream south (against the direction in which we are moving) on the opposite side of the ca.n.a.l. There are dozens of thema"women carrying bundles on their heads, children and old ladies pulling handcarts loaded with household goods. Whereas an hour earlier villagers had been waving and smiling, the demeanor of these people is radically different. Most avoid eye contact with us. Some on the other side of the ca.n.a.l break into a run when they see us approach. Watching them go, Colbert concludes, aThese people are fleeing.a On our side of the ca.n.a.l, an Iraqi man walks briskly past Bravo Companyas first sergeant and gives him the thumbs-down, indicating trouble ahead. Then a villager tells a Marine translator that they are fleeing because enemy forces are preparing for an attack in the town north of here.

Inside Colbertas vehicle we hear the news of a possible attack over the radio while watching the continued exodus of villagers. Black clouds roll overhead. Lightning flashes. The winds are so strong now, the palm fronds on the surrounding trees have flipped backward. Weare riding directly into the wind. Colbert shakes his head, laughing. aCould it look any worse than this? Every sign is telling us something bad is going to happen.a Moments later, gunfire erupts ahead. The five Humvees from Bravoas Third Platoon are directly in front of us, squeezed onto the donkey trail in a single-file column. The weird Spanish-looking village remains beside us across the ca.n.a.l on our right. To the left over a berm, thereas a small cl.u.s.ter of two-story adobe huts, with palm trees growing between them. Unseen people inside this mini-hamlet seem to be shooting at Third Platoon.

We stop. More rifle shots crackle.

aThereas incoming rounds to our rear,a Person says, sounding almost bored as he pa.s.ses on a report from the radio.

ad.a.m.n it,a says Colbert. aI have to take a s.h.i.+t.a Instead, Colbert picks up a 40mm grenade, kisses the nose of it and slides it into the 203 launcher on his rifle. He opens the door and climbs up the embankment on the left to observe the homes on the other side. He signals for all the Marines to come out of the vehicle and join him. Marines from other vehicles fire into the hamlet with rifles, machine guns and Mark-19s. There are about forty-five seconds of popping and booming, then it stops.

aThey say weare taking fire from those huts,a Colbert says, eyeing the hamlet through binoculars. aI see no targets.a aThereas people poking their heads out behind a palm tree!a another Marine on the berm shouts.

Trombley lies next to Colbert with his SAW poised to fire. aShould I light aem up?a he asks Colbert.

aNo, not yet, Trombley. Those are civilians.a ALPHA AND CHARLIE COMPANIES are currently about two kilometers ahead of us on the same trail on the outskirts of the town where locals have warned of an enemy attack. The Marines are surrounded by open fields on the right and a row of huts and two-story houses about 300 meters back from them on the left. As the lead Humvees in Alpha (who are at the front of the battalion) draw alongside these structures, they come under heavy machine-gun and AK fire. Then enemy mortars burst in the fields to the right.

The lead troops in Alpha immediately dismount and take cover behind a meter-high, mud-brick wall on the left side of the road. The fire is coming from the village structures a few hundred meters beyond this wall.

The main road into Al Gharraf is about 300 meters farther ahead of them. Though the sky has darkened from the gathering sandstorm, the cobalt-blue dome of a mosque is visible ahead, rising over the town. Itas about the only color that can be seen anywhere.

Behind Alpha on the same trail, the Marines in Charlie Company come under fire. Saucier, the .50-cal gunner with Jesus tattooed on his chest, is among those taking cover. Everyone is crouched low, frantically looking around, trying to figure out where the shooting is coming from. Saucier, however, becomes distracted. A couple hundred meters away thereas a woman in black walking through the field. The winds are so powerful she leans into them, her robe billowing behind her. Sheas using both hands to drag a large childa"maybe a six- or seven-year-old boya"across the berms. The kid has obviously been shot or woundeda"Saucier thinks from an enemy mortar burst, since several of these hit near where the woman had been walking. He observes her for several seconds, then struggles to turn away and refocus on his own survival. aYou canat dwell on this stuff here,a he later says. aBut Iall definitely take it home with me.a Capt. Patterson believes there are at least two dozen enemy fighters holed up in the huts to the left, firing on his men. The Marines saturate the area with heavy-weapons fire, but they canat silence the enemy machine guns, which have everyone pinned down.

He makes the difficult decision of calling in an artillery strike on the huts. Any artillery strike within 600 meters of your position is called adanger close,a given the wide kill radius of artillery sh.e.l.ls. With the huts 300 meters away, Patterson is almost calling in a strike on top of his own men. But on their own, they canat get past them.

Since Alpha is spread across a couple hundred meters, not all the men get the word that there is a danger-close artillery strike on its way. Corporal John Burris, a twenty-one-year-old in Alpha Second Platoon, is among those kept in the dark.

Burris is one of those guys who could have done any number of things besides join the Marine Corps. His family owns a construction equipment and supply company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. aMy family goes to college and then joins the family business,a Burris says. A talented swimmer, he was offered scholars.h.i.+ps at several universities, but opted for the Marines. His choice of the military didnat stem from any special patriotic urge. He wanted to buck family tradition, and besides, he was worried head party too hard in college. Even in full battle fatigue, toting his rifle, Burris barely looks old enough to drive, an impression that is added to by his perpetually cheerful disposition. For him, the whole campaign so far has been an oddly slapstick affair. Yesterday, by the Euphrates, he was ordered to advance on a suspected enemy gun position and drop a 203 round into it, but when he jumped up and ran toward it, he tripped and cut his face open on his rifle stock. In the midst of all the shooting, his fellow Marines fell over laughing.

Now, as the first danger-close artillery rounds scream in and burst over the nearby field, Burris pops his head over the berm. He thinks itas enemy fire, and his first instinct is to get up and see where itas coming from. A piece of shrapnel thuds into the ground behind him. Someone yells at him to get the f.u.c.k down. He rolls over, laughing, while the artillery strike of twelve DPICM cl.u.s.ter munitions saturates enemy positions with nearly 600 mini-bombs. The Iraqi guns are silenced.

AS THE ARTILLERY called in by Alpha booms ahead of us, Colbert and his team remain halted in the ca.n.a.l area. Itas about three in the afternoon. Weave been stopped for an hour. No more fire has come from the hamlet on the left. Colbert has become obsessed with the little building that looks like a Spanish church 150 meters or so across the dry ca.n.a.l. Colbert spotted someoneas head popping up behind the parapet on the roof. Now heas watching through the scope of his M-4 rifle, getting ready to shoot. Person and Trombley crouch by his side with their weapons out, pa.s.sing binoculars back and forth. Everyone thinks the guy up there is a sniper, and the team is going to take him out next time he shows his face.

aThere,a Person says.

aDonat shoot!a Colbert shouts. He throws the tip of his barrel up and lets out a sharp breath. aJesus f.u.c.king Christ! Itas a kid.a We get back into the Humvee. Trombley roots around in the ratf.u.c.k bag for a spaghetti. He sucks it out straight from the foil pouch. aI almost shot him,a he says.

aNot yet,a Colbert says. aPut your weapon on safety.a aG.o.dd.a.m.n kid playing peekaboo.a Colbert shakes his head. Itas the first time Iave seen him rattled.

aWhat are we doing?a Trombley asks, as more Marine artillery booms by the road ahead.

aThe battalion is trying to find a way around that town up ahead, so we can link up with RCT-1 on the other side.a aWhy donat we go through it?a Trombley asks.

aItas full of bad guys,a Colbert says. aWead get smoked.a He gets out and p.i.s.ses.

THIRTEEN.

AL GHARRAF, the town lying just ahead of First Recon, is about two kilometers from end to end, a dense ma.s.s of two- and three-story houses and apartment blocks, like Nasiriyah, though with a much smaller population: around 20,000 inhabitants. By three-thirty in the afternoon, with First Reconas leading elements in Alpha perched on the eastern side of Al Gharraf, RCT-1 has reached the western side of the town. Col. Dowdy, the commander of RCT-1, halts his forces outside of Al Gharraf when one of his companies is ambushed on the outskirts. His Marines sustain several casualties and kill between twenty and thirty attackers. Originally, Dowdy had contemplated entering Al Gharraf with tanks and other armored vehicles. But as he did at Nasiriyah, Dowdy pulls his forces backa"this time into an open desert at the northern fringes of the towna"and hesitates. Because of the shamal now peaking with its impenetrable dust cloud, helicopters are unable to fly over the town to see whatas inside. Just three days earlier, Task Force Tarawa had suffered approximately 100 casualties, with eighteen dead, when its commanders had sent a small force of Marines into Nasiriyah. Dowdy apparently doesnat want to make the same mistake.

First Reconas commander, Lt. Col. Ferrando, has no such compunctions. Initially, when his units came under intense fire on the eastern outskirts of the town, Ferrando contemplated circ.u.mventing it and finding another route to link up with RCT-1 on the other side. But by four in the afternoon, he decides to send the whole battalion straight through the town. While Ferrando might seem to his men like a martinet, obsessed with mustaches and the Grooming Standard, as a commander, he possesses a bold streak verging on recklessness. When I later ask him why he sent his lightly armed battalion through a hostile towna"one that a better-equipped force dared not entera"he says, aI thought wead cause some problems for those motherf.u.c.kers in that town.a When the Marines in Alpha are told to jump in their vehicles and get ready to drive through the town, they are incredulous. Capt. Patterson, whoas found what looks to be a viable route around the town on his maps, attempts to debate the issue with Ferrando over the radio. Ferrando cuts him off: aPatterson, you have your orders. Do you understand?a Burris, who several minutes ago had nearly been hit by friendly shrapnel, learns of the mission when Patterson approaches his vehicle commander with a map of the town. Burrisas team will be in the lead Humvee. Patterson spreads out the map, puts his finger on the entrance to the town, slides it to the other side and tells Burris and the other men, aGet me from here to there as fast as you can.a Burris says, aThatas insane, but okay.a He and his fellow Marines climb into their Humvee. They are ordered to start driving immediately. Ferrando and others in charge figure the effects of their artillery strike might wear off, and enemy shooters might regroup if given too much time.

Burrisas team, in the lead of Alpha and the entire battalion, race their Humvee up to about forty miles per hour as they make the final approach toward the town. Its dominant feature is the mosque, with its stunning, blue dome rising on the edge. To enter the town, Marines speed past high stucco walls on the left. Straight ahead thereas a three-story building with a row of tall, thin windows on the upper floor. It almost looks like the road goes straight into this structure, but instead it turns abruptly left, forcing the driver in Burrisas Humvee to hit the brakes as they cut into the town.

The street that had been a narrow lane on the outskirts becomes a broad, straight avenue, only now itas filled with rubble, burned vehicles and downed telephone poles from Marine artillery strikes. The main thoroughfare, like a lot of others in Iraqi towns, has a claustrophobic feel, since itas hemmed in on both sides with either high stucco walls or building fronts. The sky and the whole town before them are almost yellow from the dust storm. Wind blasts through the streetsa"and Burrisas open Humveea"at fifty miles per hour.

Burris hears shots, but itas tough to see anything. The shamal winds sandpaper the lenses of the goggles the Marines wear. Some men remove the fogged goggles, but their eyes fill with tears from the dust. Burris glimpses three armed men in an alley and fires a 203 round in their direction. He has no idea if he hits them. Then Burrisas team hits a river of ac.r.a.p watera running through the middle of the towna"the result of a blown sewer main or, just as likely, the natural state of things in this impoverished place. Sewage sprays all over his face. Then he hears his Humveeas driver and another Marine shouting, aLeft or right?aa"repeating it urgently.

Thereas a T intersection ahead, and no one can figure out which way to go. They have the map out, ripping and flapping in the wind, and are trying to study it. aLeft! Left!a one of them shouts, finally solving the puzzle.

They sideswipe a partially downed telephone pole, then, two to three minutes after entering Al Gharraf, they arrive on the western edge of the town, where Burris has his most terrifying moment of the invasion. Hundreds of Marines from RCT-1 are dug in, facing them with rifles, machine guns and Javelin, AT-4 and TOW missiles. Burris watches in horror as dozens of Marines drop their heads onto their sights, getting ready to open fire on his Humvee. He ducks, expecting a hail of bullets and missiles, but all he hears is the wind. Given the shaky communications between different Marine units, n.o.body in First Recon was completely confident the guys in RCT-1 waiting on the other side of the town would know they were coming. But the Marines in RCT-1a"some of whom later say they were stunned when they saw First Reconas Humvees careening out of the town they considered impa.s.sablea"hold their fire.

FIRST RECONaS HEADQUARTERS and support unitsa"many in lumbering, five- and seven-ton trucksa"roll through Al Gharraf after Alpha Company. Enemy fire on the trucks remains intermittent, more on the level of pot shots, but one Marine officer riding in the convoy is amazed by the sheer chaos of it. Until several weeks earlier Major Michael Shoup, thirty-five, was working at the Pentagon as a budget a.n.a.lyst. Prior to that, Shoup was an F-18 abackseateraa"weapons officera"and flew several combat missions over Kosovo. He volunteered to join First Recon as a forward air controller, responsible for calling in air strikes to a.s.sist the battalion. Today, with the Marine Air Wing grounded from the shamal, he has nothing to do but ride in a truck. What sticks out in his mind is not the intermittent enemy fire but something which is, in the scheme of things, almost trivial. Shoup sees an Arab standing in a doorway near where his vehicle is pa.s.sing. The man is tall, well dressed in a brown suit, and has a close-cropped beard. Heas smiling. Then Shoup sees a Marine officer he knows stick the barrel of his Benelli twelve-gauge automatic shotgun out the window of his vehicle and blast away at the man in the brown suit. Shoup canat be sure it wasnat a legitimate killa"perhaps he failed to notice a weapon on the Araba"but all he recalls seeing is the manas smile before he was gunned down.

ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES elapse from the time Alpha Company hits Al Gharraf until Bravo Company is ordered into the town. Bravoas Third Platoon is the first to enter. By now, the attackers have set up several ambush positions in the town. Kocheras team sees six different muzzle flashes as they make the first turn by the mosque. Most come from gaps in the walls or windows in the buildings on the right side. This is a good spot to start the ambush, since the Humvees have to slow down while rounding the initial corner.

At the wheel of Kocheras Humvee is a twenty-two-year-old corporal named Trevor Darnold. He grew up in Plummer, Idaho, and says the biggest influence on his joining the Marines was watching G.I. Joe on the Cartoon Network when he was a kid. Heas a relatively small guy, quiet, and usually has a placid smile that gives him the face of a dreamer. He seems to spend most of his free time thinking about his wife, who gave birth to their first child, a daughter, shortly before he flew to Kuwait for the invasion. Now, while straightening the wheel after that first turn, Darnoldas left arm suddenly feels like it has grown about ten sizes. Itas numb and throbbing. aIam hit!a he yells.

aShut the f.u.c.k up!a Kocher shouts. aYou havenat been hit.a Kocher can see just by the way heas holding his arm that he is. .h.i.t. But he wants him to believe he isnat so heall focus on driving. For a moment, Kocheras power of suggestion works so well, Darnold not only keeps driving, he continues simultaneously firing his M-4 rifle out the side of the Humvee.

Then Darnold wavers. aI am hit!a he insists.

aOkay, youare hit, Darnold,a Kocher concedes. aWeare gonna fix it. Keep driving.a Enemy fire is now coming at the Humvee from both sides of the street, but the vehicleas primary gunner, Corporal Dan Redman, a twenty-year-old who stands on the .50-cal mount, decides heall try to bandage Darnold. Redman rips out a dressing pack, and the white bandages immediately flutter away in the wind.

Kocher, whoas pumping 203 grenades at muzzle flashes he sees in alleys and windows on both sides of the street, feels the Humvee weaving, then sees Redmanas bandages flying from his hands.

aGet your weapon up!a Kocher shouts at Redman. Then Kocher climbs over the roll bar to get at Darnoldas left arm. While hanging onto the roll bar, with the vehicle now careening half out of control and Redmanas .50-cal blasting inches over his head, Kocher ties off Darnoldas arm with a tourniquet (Recon Marines all carry tourniquets on their chest rigs).

Darnold still has his foot on the gas, but his head is turned down, watching the blood soak through the sleeve of his MOPP suit.

aYou watch the f.u.c.king road!a Kocher shouts. aIall watch your arm.a They b.u.mp out of the town, and twelve hours later Darnold is medevaced to a Kuwait hospital, with a small-caliber bullet lodged between the bones of his forearm. They let the bullet stay where it is, and a couple weeks later they give Darnold the option of going home or rejoining Kocheras team in Baghdad. He goes to Baghdad.

BY THE TIME Colbertas men start off toward Al Gharraf, reports fly over the radio telling us that we are about to drive into an ambush. aMake sure your weapons are red con one,a Colbert says, instructing his team members to have their weapons loaded and safeties off. Everyoneas guns rattle as they check and recheck them. Itas a two-kilometer drive to the entrance of the town. The five Humvees in Bravo Second Platoon are the last to enter. Ours is in the lead. aGentlemen,a Colbert says, turning around and smiling. aYouare now going to have to earn your stories.a Itas the corniest line Iave ever heard. But maybe the humor of it was intended to relax everyone. It works. The weirdest thing about a situation like this is that you actually want to turn the first cornera"and not just to get it over with as fast as possible. You want to see whatas going to happen next.

We come alongside the walls of the town. Just as Person makes the first turn, a machine gun clatters. Itas coming from the high building with long, narrow windows ahead of us. Then, as we complete the turn into town, I see muzzle flashes spitting out from buildings, or gaps in the walls just two meters to our right. While the guns firing at us are set back from the road and we canat see the shooters, the barrels must be extremely close. Their muzzle flashes appear to be floating in front of us, like sparklers. We drive right into them.

Bullets striking the Humvee sound like whips cracking on the roof. Nearly two dozen rounds slam into it almost right away. As the lead vehicle of the platoon, Colbertas is the only one with doors, a roof and light armor. Even so, the windows are open and there are gaps in the s.h.i.+elding. A bullet flies past Colbertas head and smacks into the pillar behind Person. Several more slice through the edges of the door frames.

The shooting continues on both sides. Less than half an hour before, Colbert had been talking about stress reactions in combat. In addition to the embarra.s.sing loss of bodily control that 25 percent of all soldiers experience, other symptoms include time dilation, a sense of time slowing down or speeding up; vividness, a starkly heightened awareness of detail; random thoughts, the mind fixating on unimportant sequences; memory loss; and, of course, your basic feelings of sheer terror.

In my case, hearing and sight become almost disconnected. I see more muzzle flashes next to the vehicle but donat hear them. In the seat beside me, Trombley fires 300 rounds from his machine gun. Ordinarily, if someone were firing a machine gun that close to you, it would be deafening. His gun seems to whisper.

The look on Colbertas face is almost serene. Heas hunched over his weapon, leaning out the window, intently studying the walls of the buildings, firing bursts from his M-4 and grenades from the 203 tube underneath the main barrel. I watch him pump in a fresh grenade, and I think, I bet Colbertas really happy to be finally shooting a 203 round in combat. I remember him kissing the grenade earlier. Random thoughts.

I study Personas face for signs of panic, fear or death. My worry is heall get shot or freak out and weall be stuck on this street. But Person seems fine. Heas slouched over the wheel, looking through the winds.h.i.+eld, an almost blank expression on his face. The only thing different about him is heas not babbling his opinions on Justin Timberlake or some other p.u.s.s.y f.a.ggot r.e.t.a.r.d who bothers him.

Trombley turns, smiling gleefully, his red-infected eye s.h.i.+ning brightly, and he shouts, aI got one, Sergeant!a I canat believe that he is so eager to get approval from the team that he is choosing this moment to take credit for his kills.

Colbert ignores him. Trombley eagerly goes back to shooting at people out his window. A gray object zooms toward the winds.h.i.+eld and smacks into the roof. My hearing comes back as the Humvee fills with a metal-on-metal sc.r.a.ping sound. Yesterday Colbert had traded out Garza for a Mark-19 gunner from a different team. The guyas name is Corporal Walt Ha.s.ser, twenty-three, from Taylorstown, Virginia. He bangs into the roof of the Humvee. Now his legs hang down from the turret, twisted sideways. Heas been hit by a steel cable that attackers have stretched across the street to knock down turret gunners. Another cable swipes across the roof.

Colbert calls out, aWalt, are you okay?a Silence. Person turns around, taking his foot off the accelerator.

The vehicle slows and wanders to the left. aWalt?a Person calls.

I grab Ha.s.seras leg by the calf and shake it hard.

aIam okay!a he says, sounding almost cheerful. He was temporarily knocked unconscious, but isnat hurt. Person has lost his focus on moving the vehicle forward. We slow to a crawl. Person later says that he was worried one of the cables dropped on the vehicle might still have been caught on Ha.s.ser. He didnat want to accelerate and somehow leave him hanging from a light pole by his neck in downtown Al Gharraf.

aDrive, Person!a Colbert shouts.

aWaltas okay?a he asks, apparently not having heard him.

aYes!a Colbert shouts.

aGo, go, go!a Colbert and I both shout in tandem.

Person finally picks up the pace, and there is silence outside. We are still in the town, but no one seems to be shooting at us.

Colbert is beside himself, laughing and shaking his head. His whole face s.h.i.+nes, almost like thereas a halo around him. Iave seldom seen a happier man.

aBefore we start congratulating ourselves,a Person says, in his unusual role as the voice of sanity, aweare not out of this yet.a ESPERA, IN HIS HUMVEE about thirty meters behind ours, sees the first wall on the way into the town light lit up with enemy muzzle flashes. He sees the smoke puffs of their rounds impacting along the roof and doors of Colbertas Humvee, and realizes he will be next. For him, itas all too much stimulus to process. Riding shotgun in a vehicle with no roof or door or armor of any kind, seeing the wall of fire he is about to drive into, his mind goes blank. Muscle memory takes over. He hunches over his M-4 in what he calls the agangsta curla and begins shooting. Like most others, he sees very few enemy fighters, just blank walls and muzzle flashes popping like strobe lights.

There are four other Marines in his Humvee. Garza, who had been on our Mark-19, now stands fully upright on the back of Esperaas Humvee, manning a .50-cal, which immediately jams. Garza remains at the weapon, frantically trying to recharge ita"repeatedly pulling on a lever, pounding it with his fist, squeezing the trigger. Enemy rounds shred through the rucksacks and gear piled on the Humvee and ping off the metal flooring.

Reyes, in the vehicle directly behind them, watches Esperaas Humvee getting shot up. Reyes drives for Pappyas team, and beside him Pappy appears calm. As they turn into the fire, Pappy says, sounding almost cavalier, aHere we go, boys.a Because of the tightness of the turn into the town, everyone is going at lazy, parking-lot speeds, maybe ten, fifteen miles an hour. Reyes watches Esperaas Humvee veer sharply as gunfire on the right pours into it. Fixating on Garza standing at the broken .50-cal, he marvels at what he later describes as athe expression of fear mixed with determinationa on Garzaas face as he remains standing, battling the jammed gun.

As soon as they see Ha.s.ser knocked down by a cable while on top of Colbertas vehicle, Pappy and Reyes realize they have the only Mark-19 operating to suppress enemy fire. The Mark-19 in their open Humvee is manned by Manimal. Due to the limited training everyone in First Recon has received on this equipment, Manimal has only fired a Mark-19 a few times. Heas never done it from a moving Humvee, and itas not easy. Aiming a Mark-19 isnat like a rifle, where you just point it and shoot. The Mark-19 shoots 40mm grenades fed through it on a belt like a machine gun. Each round, about the size of a roll-on deodorant stick, can travel about 2,000 meters (though theyare only considered accurate at less than half this range). They can penetrate up to two inches of armor, and when they burst, they spray shrapnel in all directions. Their shrapnel bursts have a akill radiusa of five meters and a amaiming radiusa of fifteen. Mark-19 grenade rounds have an elliptical flight path, so after you point it in the proper direction, you then have to tilt the barrel up or down, depending on how far away the target is. This is done with a tiny wheel you have to spin, and doing it from the back of a bouncing Humvee, in a fifty-mile-per-hour dust storm, while people are shooting at you, is about as easy as changing a flat tire on a car parked on a hill during a blizzard. On top of all this, youare not supposed to shoot a Mark-19 (or a single-shot 203, which fires similar rounds) at anything less than seventy-five meters away. The problem is, rounds sometimes bounce back and blow up in your face. But while going into that first turn, Manimal ranges in on targets that are within five to twenty meters distant. He launches more than thirty grenades into the first set of buildings, where enemy forces are concentrated, and collapses the whole side of one of them.

Fick, driving behind Manimal, says later, aI saw all those muzzle flashes along that wall. Then Manimal brought a whole building down. Whatever had been shooting at everyone there wasnat shooting at us. It was just a pile of smoking rubble.a IN COLBERTaS VEHICLE, as soon as we make the T-turn near the end of the town, we hear gunfire ahead. Set back from the road are several squat cinder-block buildings, forming a small industrial district. White puffs of smoke streak out from the buildings: more enemy fire. Person floors the Humvee. Colbert and Trombley start shooting again.

As we swing under a blown-up telephone pole hanging sideways in the street, Trombley glimpses an Arab in black robes crouching by the road near some sandbags. He sprays him with a long burst. aI got another one!a he shouts. aI cut him in half!a A white haze in the distance marks the end of the city. We fly out onto a sandy plain that looks almost like a beach. The Humvee lurches to a stop, sunk up to its doors in sabka. Sabka is a geological phenomenon peculiar to the Middle East. It looks like desert on top, with a hard crust of sand an inch or so thick that a man can walk on, but break through the crust and beneath itas the La Brea Tar Pits, quicksand made of tar.

We jump out, hunching low. The gunfire all around us sounds like trains banging down railroad tracks. Thereas a row of Humvees and trucks just south of us, pouring everything they have into the city.

Esperaas vehicle halts about twenty meters behind ours. His driver canat figure out why we stopped. Gunshots ring out from the town. Then thereas a ma.s.sive explosion off the back tire of Esperaas Humveea"an errant Marine Mark-19 round. Thinking itas enemy fire, a Marine in Esperaas vehicle jumps out to take cover in a nearby berm. Espera, ascared as a motherf.u.c.ker,a ponders jumping out and abandoning the Humvee too, but he looks up and sees Garza relentlessly, almost insanely at this point, pulling the slide back and forth on his broken .50-cal, still trying to shoot it. Just before rolling through the town, Garza told Espera, aWhatever happens, just promise me you wonat leave me alone.a Espera orders the Marine who jumped out to get back in. They figure out Colbertas vehicle is stuck, and roll around to the right, avoiding the sabka.

Hunched down by Colbertas vehicle, I am so disoriented at this point that I actually think for a moment that the sandy field we are in is a beach. I turn around, looking for the ocean, then hear Colbert repeating, aWeare in a G.o.dd.a.m.n sabka field.a I think heas saying asoccer field.a I canat believe Iraqis would play on sand like this. Iam looking around for the goalposts when Trombley grabs my shoulder. aGet behind me and take cover,a he says.

The battalion operations chief runs across the sand, shouting at Colbert, aAbandon your Humvee!a He orders him to set it on fire with an incendiary grenade, yelling, aThermite the radios!a Colbert pounds the roof of his Humvee, screaming, aIam not abandoning this vehicle!a One of Esperaas Marines watching the spectacle from a distance glumly observes, aWeare going to die because Colbertas in love with his Humvee.a Still taking sporadic fire from the town, Marines in Bravo run up with shovels and pickaxes to dig it out. Meanwhile, Colbert and Trombley dive under the wheel wells with bolt cutters, slicing away the steel cablesa"a gift of the defenders of Al Gharrafa"wrapped around the axle. They try pulling it with a towing cable attached to another Humvee, but it snaps. Finally, a truck full of Marines from the battalionas maintenance unit rolls up. Support Marinesa"the POGs so often belittled by Colbert and othersa"jump out under fire, attach chains to the trapped Humvee and yank it out.

WE LIMP to a desert encampment a few kilometers away, the shot-up Humvee making grinding and flapping sounds. When the platoon stops at its resting point in the broad, open desert, Marines jump out and embrace one another. Even Colbert becomes emotional, running across the sand, lunging into Reyes and giving him a bear hug.

All the Humvees in Bravo Company are riddled with bullet holes, but Darnold is the only Marine who was. .h.i.t. Counting the dozens of rounds that sliced through sheet metal, tires and rucksacks, the men canat believe they made it. In retrospect the whole engagement was like one of those cheesy action movies in which the bad guys fire thousands of rounds that all narrowly miss the hero. While everyone else stands around, slapping backs and laughing about all the buildings they shot up or knocked down, Colbert grows pensive. He confesses to me that he had absolutely no feelings going through the city. He almost seems disturbed by this. aIt was just like training,a he says. aI just loaded and fired my weapon from muscle memory. I wasnat even aware what my hands were doing.a The shamal grows into one of the worst storms anyone has experienced so far in the Middle East. The sky looks like someone picked up a desert and is now turning it upside down on us. Then it rains, which comes down in globs of mud. To top it off, it starts to hail. A junior officer walks a few meters out into this weather to take a dump and becomes hopelessly lost. A team of Recon Marines is organized to go look for him (and he is eventually found, dazed and sheepish, several hours later).

The nice thing about artillery is that, unlike aircraft, it still works in foul weather. Marine batteries begin bombing the town. Colbert and I sit in the vehicle, watching. Through the blackness of the night, orange puffs of artillery bursts are vaguely discernible over the town. Fick slips into the vehicle with a map, to tell us that the name of the town is Al Gharraf. aGood,a Colbert says. aI hope they call it El Pancake when weare through with it.a Marine artillery crews fire approximately 1,000 rounds into Al Gharraf and the vicinity during the next twelve hours.

Just before turning in to the hole Iave dug outside the Humvee, I smell a sickly-sweet odor. During chemical-weapons training before the war, we were taught that some nerve agents emit unusual, fragrant odors. I put on my gas mask and sit in the dark Humvee for twenty minutes before Person tells me what Iam smelling is a cheap Swisher Sweets cigar that Espera is smoking underneath his Humvee.

FOURTEEN.

MARINES AWAKEN in their holes in the desert outside of Al Gharraf at dawn, March 26, to find the shamal has worn itself out, leaving behind a cold, overcast morning. Fick gathers his team leaders for briefing by the hood of his Humvee. aThe good news,a he tells them, ais we will be rolling with a lot of a.s.s today. RCT-1 will be in front of us for most of the day. The bad news is, weare going through four more towns like the one we hit yesterday.a Among the Marines this morning, the euphoria of having survived their run through the town has evaporated. Trombley gets into a dispute with another Marine after borrowing his grenade-box as.h.i.+ttera and returning it with skid marks down the side.

The s.h.i.+tter belongs to Corporal Evan Stafford. A twenty-year-old from Tampa, Florida, Stafford is a white guy whose hair grows so blond fellow Marines call him aQ-tip.a When not in uniform, he dresses like Eminem. He identifies so strongly with black culture, notably the music and philosophies of the late Tupac Shakur, that when other Marines use terms like an.i.g.g.e.r Juicea to describe black coffee, or refer to Arabs as aDune c.o.o.nsaa"as a couple doa"Stafford shakes his head and mutters, aRacist ofay motherf.u.c.kers.a While the one black guy in the platoon laughs off these slurs as Marine humor, Stafford is always ready to throw down and take on the aoppressors.a The few heated arguments that ever take place in the platoon about racism are always between Stafford and another white guy who accuses him of being a af.u.c.king wigger.a (The arguments seldom last long, since Stafford and the wigger-hater are also best friends.) When Stafford isnat standing up for his chosen race, he seldom speaks, other than to say, aScrewby.a No oneas quite certain what ascrewbya means, not even Stafford. aI guess it means, athis sucks,a or akind of cool,a a he tells me.

This morning, as Trombley hands him back his fouled s.h.i.+tter, the usually unflappable Stafford seems on the verge of tears. aYou s.h.i.+t on my s.h.i.+tter!a Stafford says, inspecting it at armas length, being careful not to touch the offending marks.

aWipe aem off or something,a Trombley says, trying to laugh it off.

aNo.a Stafford stares at the s.h.i.+t stains, struggling to come to grips with the enormity of this offense.

Trombley starts to look worried. Stafford is one of the Marines in the platoon guys like Trombley look up to. Not only is he a full-fledged Recon Marine, but Stafford is one of those people who simply project absolute cool, no matter whata"except for now.

aThis s.h.i.+tter is the only luxury I have out here.a He looks at Trombley, deeply saddened.

aI could try to clean it,a Trombley offers.

aWhatever, dog.a Stafford cold-shoulders past him. aScrewby.a In the final hour before stepping off, other Marines fix up their Humvees, test-fire their weaponsa"nearly half of which jammed yesterdaya"and question their leaders.h.i.+p. aWhy the f.u.c.k would Ferrando send us through that town?a one Marine in the platoon says, cleaning his M-4. aRCT-1 wouldnat go through there with armor. No doubt Ferrando is basking in the glory of us having made it through. But we only made it because we got lucky.a The lack of information provided to the Marines about their role in the grand scheme of things is beginning to erode morale. They simply donat know that brazenly driving into ambushes is part of the plan.

aIall tell you why weare being used like this,a a Marine in Second Platoon complains. aOur commander is a politician. Heall do anything to kiss the generalas a.s.s. The reason Dowdy didnat go through that town yesterday is he probably cares about his men. Ferrando is trying to get promoted on our backs.a On top of this mounting uncertainty, they have to deal with the men in the battalion they view as worthless incompetents. This morning they are paid a visit by Casey Kasem. In addition to not bringing enough batteries for their thermal night optics, another serious omission they blame on him became clear yesterday when the Mark-19s jammed in the ambush. To operate effectively in a dusty environment, the guns require a specialized lubricant called LSA. The men claim Casey Kasem forgot to bring it on the invasion. Without LSA, the guns jam constantly.

Casey Kasem traipses over and greets the Marines with hearty backslaps. aOutstanding job, gentlemen. The battalion commander thinks we did a stand-up job yesterday. I got some awesome footage outside the town, too,a he says, referring to his effort to make a war doc.u.mentary. Casey Kasem kneels down by Colbert and asks in low, confidential tones, aAre your men having any combat-stress reactions we need to talk about?a aNothing that a little LSA wouldnat help,a Colbert says.

Casey Kasem frowns. aAs you all know, that was out of my hands.a Casey Kasem has made reasonable-sounding arguments to me about why the shortages in the company are a result of matters beyond his control, but the men arenat buying them.

As he walks off, Colbert observes, aPeople that were just annoying in the rear, out here their stupidity can kill you. Itas going to be awkward when we get home. I donat know how Iall be pleasant to these guys when weare all together again back at the office at Pendleton. Iam not going to forget any of this.a We climb into the Humvee. After Person starts the engine, Fick pokes his head in the window, grinning. aPresent for you.a He pa.s.ses in a small water bottle, filled with about two inches of amber fluid. aLSA,a he says. aI scammed it off some guys in RCT-1.a aSir, not to get h.o.m.oerotic about this,a Colbert says. aBut I could kiss you.a WE LEAVE THE OUTSKIRTS of Al Gharraf at about nine in the morning. Two men standing by the road outside the shattered town grin and give us the thumbs-up. aThis place gives me the creeps,a Colbert says.

The pattern thatas emergeda"being greeted with enthusiastic cheers and waves by the people you see beside the roads, then shot at by people you donat see behind walls and bermsa"is beginning to wear on the Marines. aThese guys waving at us are probably the same ones who were trying to kill us yesterday,a Person says.

We pick up Route 7 and head north on the two-lane blacktop. Other than Fickas vague instructions about pa.s.sing through more towns like Al Gharraf, no one knows what the final goal is for this day, or even why they are in the Fertile Crescent. All they know is they must push north until Fick or somebody else tells them to stop.

The teamas only concern is to observe the roughly 1,000 meters on either side of the Humvee to make sure there is n.o.body with a weapon trying to shoot them. The surrounding landscape is a mix of gra.s.slands and dusty plains rippling with berms. The fields are dotted with shepherds and mud-brick dwellings. Every fifty meters or so on both sides of the road there are trenches and sandbagged machine-gun bunkersa"abandoned fortifications.

aRPG fire ahead,a Colbert says at about nine-thirty in the morning, pa.s.sing on the first of many similar reports from the radio.

Colbertas vehicle is the lead for the entire battalion, driving at an average speed of about fifteen miles per hour. Amtracs and other light armored vehicles from RCT-1 are rolling a few hundred meters ahead.