If you were to look at it from the air, youad see a segmented column of American invasion vehiclesa"Marines in various unitsa"stretching for several kilometers along the highway. Despite all its disparate elements, the column functions like a single machine, pulverizing anything in its path that appears to be a threat. The cogs that make up this machine are the individual teams in hundreds of vehicles, several thousand Marines scrutinizing every hut, civilian car and berm for weapons or muzzle flashes. The invasion all comes down to a bunch of extremely tense young men in their late teens and twenties, with their fingers on the triggers of rifles and machine guns.

We b.u.mp up against Amtracs 150 meters ahead pouring machine-gun fire into some huts. aTheyare schwacking some guys with RPGs,a Colbert says.

Wild dogs run past.

aWe ought to shoot some of these dogs,a Trombley says, eyeing the surrounding fields over the top of his SAW.

aWe donat shoot dogs,a Colbert says.

aIam afraid of dogs,a Trombley mumbles.

I ask him if he was ever attacked by a dog when he was little.

aNo,a he answers. aMy dad was once. The dog bit him, and my dad jammed his hand down the dogas throat and ripped up his stomach. I did have a dog lunge at me once on the sidewalk. I just threw it on its side, knocked the wind out of him. My aunt had a little dog. I was playing with it with one of those laser lights. The dog chased it into the street and got hit by a car. I didnat mean to kill it.a aWhere did we find this guy?a Person asks.

We drive on.

aI like cats,a Trombley offers. aI had a cat that lived to be sixteen. One time he ripped a dogas eye out with his claw.a We pa.s.s dead bodies in the road again, men with RPG tubes by their sides, then more than a dozen trucks and cars burned and smoking. You find most torched vehicles have charred corpses nearby, occupants who crawled out and made it a few meters before expiring, with their grasping hands still smoldering. We pa.s.s another car with a small, mangled body outside it. Itas another child, facedown, and the clothes are too ripped to determine the gender. Seeing this is almost no longer a big deal. Since the shooting started in Nasiriyah forty-eight hours ago, firing weapons and seeing dead people has become almost routine.

aWhoa!a Trombley says. aThat guy in that car was shot through the stomach. He just looked at me, then raised his arm, like he was asking for help. He looked at me right there,a Trombley says, pointing to his inflamed eye.

I see the car Trombleyas talking about, a bullet-riddled sedan by the road, doors hanging open, with at least one body in it.

aHe was unarmed,a Trombley says. aSo I didnat shoot him.a I imagine that man in the car, an entire life lived, and the last thing in the world he sees is the face of an eager nineteen-year-old with a red, infected eye looking at him down the barrel of a SAW.

LATE IN THE MORNING Colbertas team reaches the outskirts of the first big town we are pa.s.sing through: Ash Shatrah. We pull even with Marine artillery guns pounding away, their snouts blazing flames and smoke. One of the guns has the words BOB MARLEY stenciled along the barrel, a somewhat incongruous tribute to the bard of Jah Love and reefer.

aThump aem, boys,a Colbert says darkly as he watches them fire. Theyare striking targets in and around Ash Shatrah, prepping it for our drive through. We wait for several minutes, then go.

The battalionas plan is to sprint past the town as fast as possible. With Colbertas vehicle in the lead, we speed up to about forty-five miles an hour. While driving, Person reaches around and hands me his M-4.

aPut it out the window,a he says.

I look at him.

aWhat do you think? Youare just gonna eat all our food, drink all our water for free?a I place the rifle on my lap but find it distracting. All I can think about are images of Geraldo Rivera waving his pistol around in reports he filed from Afghanistan, bragging about how he hoped to cap Osama. While rolling into Ash Shatrah, my biggest fear isnat enemy fire, itas that some reporteras going to see me holding an M-4 and Iall look like a jacka.s.s.

The town is set far back from the road. No fire comes from it. The most overwhelming impression Ash Shatrah makes is that it is one of the smelliest places I have ever encountered. From 200 meters away the town stinks like the inside of a garbage can. We drive four kilometers through it, and I pa.s.s the M-4 back to Person. I hand it to him barrel first, with a round in the chamber and the safety off, causing him to rethink his policy of arming the reporter.

OUTSIDE OF ASH SHATRAH we link up with a unit of Amtracs and other armored Marine vehicles parked near a rural hamlet. Itas a cl.u.s.ter of three or four buildings 400 meters off the road, nestled in green pastures, with some palm trees behind them. Marines in the Amtracs stopped because they thought they took shots from one of the houses.

Now Marines are out on berms watching the house through binoculars and scopes. Several sniper teams in Bravo join them. Kocher in Third Platoon observes a amom with two kids hiding in the back of the house, nervously peeping out.a The Marines study the house for forty minutes. Surrounded by verdant fields, with the rare quiet of all the Humvee engines having been shut off, the morning feels peaceful.

Then a 25mm Bushmaster on one of the armored vehicles up the road begins pouring rounds into the house. The women and children Recon Marines had been observing through their optics disappear in a cloud of dust, as the Bushmaster rounds blast the adobe walls.

Colbert jumps out of the Humvee. aWhat are they shooting at?a aThereas civilians in there!a several Recon observers yell at once.

Colbert picks up his radio handset and shouts, aTell those guys to cease fire! Theyare shooting civilians.a But itas a fruitless effort. Even though the vehicle doing most of the firing is only 100 meters or so ahead, First Recon Battalion has no ability to reach it on the radio.

Now a dozen or more rifles and machine guns in the nearby armored units come alive, crackling and sending red streaks of tracer rounds into the entire hamlet.

Marines with mortars jump off a tracked vehicle in front of us, yelling and cursing. Theyare in such a rush to attack the village, one Marine falls off the vehicle, landing on his a.s.s. They launch a volley of 60mm mortars, which fall short, exploding in the field immediately in front of us.

Colbert throws down his radio headset and stands outside his Humvee, screaming, aCease fire!a The Marines shooting into the village 100 meters up from us continue unabated.

Then, behind us, Encino Man races up in his Humvee. He jumps out, so eager to get in the fight, it seems, he forgets to unplug his radio headset, which jerks his head back as the cord, still attached to the dash unit, tightens.

aJesus Christ! Thereas f.u.c.king civilians in that house! Cease fire!a Colbert says.

Encino Man pops off a 203 grenade that falls wildly short of the house. Colbert, like other Marines in Bravo, is furious. Not only do they believe Encino Man is firing on civilians, but the guy doesnat even know how to range his 203.

Colbert gets back in the Humvee, trying to rationalize the events outside that have spiraled beyond his control: aEveryoneas just tense. Some Marine took a shot, and everyone has just followed suit.a Outside, Marinesa heavy 81mm mortars begin to land on the homes. They make a sort of crunching sound as they detonate, sending black plumes over the huts.

aThey finally got good effects on target,a Kocher says, watching them obliterate the hamlet.

THEREaS NO TIME to sit around contemplating the destruction of the little village. First Recon is ordered north again toward a town called Ar Rifa. We pa.s.s forty or fifty refugees streaming south, some on bicycles. A ma.s.sive fire about a kilometer up the road sends flames and black smoke 100 meters or more into the sky. The day is chilly and gray. Thereas no wind, but the air is heavy with dust particles. They coat the winds.h.i.+eld like frost. If you wipe your finger on it, a few minutes later the mark is covered over again with powder. Through this fog we hear AK rifles cracking off rounds ahead. The convoy b.u.mps to a halt. We are several hundred meters south of Ar Rifa.

The two Marines who ride in the back of Fickas Humvee, which is configured sort of like a pickup truck with a canvas top over the back, stand by the tailgate singing Nellyas aHot in Herrea over and over.

One of the combat-stress reactions not discussed in their training is singing. A lot of Marines, when waiting for minutes or hours in a position where they expect an ambush or other trouble, will get a song stuck in their heads. Often theyall sing it or chant the words almost as if they are saying Hail Marys.

The Marinesa choice of a Nelly song in the back of Fickas vehicle shows the hip-hop influence of Q-tip Stafford. He rides there with nineteen-year-old Private First Cla.s.s John Christeson, the newest guy in the platoon. The two of them spend twelve to twenty hours a day bouncing around in the back of the truck. Neither is sure when they both hit upon aHot in Herrea as their combat song, but they were singing it yesterday while rolling into the ambush at Al Gharraf.

Now waiting on the ground by Fickas truck outside of Ar Rifa, Christeson observes a house 500 meters in the distance, barely discernible across the haze and scrub brush. Heas chanting the lyrics, aCuz I feel like bustina loose and I feel like touchin you/And canat n.o.body stop the juice so baby . . . ,a when he spots three to four men moving low. Theyare at least 300 meters away, moving closer to the Humvee, using the vegetation for cover. One seems to be carrying an RPG tube.

Other than a family cruise through the Caribbean, this is Christesonas first trip out of the United States. He grew up in Lebanon, Illinois, with parents still marrieda"a dad who works for the state college and a mom who works at a t.i.tle loan company. Even though he was shot at yesterday in Al Gharraf, the whole place seems unreal to him. Itas the mud huts. He canat believe people in the twenty-first century actually live in huts with goats and sheep all around. Christeson grew up with computers, playing Doom, a game that to him is almost ancient history. After high school he received an appointment to go to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, but in the wake of 9/11 he decided to become a grunt Marine to do something for his countrya"and to get in on the action. Up until the invasion, his closest brush with history was the day Jared Fogle, the guy who lost 300 pounds on the Subway Diet, came to his town, and Christeson got to meet him in person. aI thought if I punched him in the face I would be on TV,a he says, recalling the historic encounter. aBut he wasnat as big as I thought head be, for someone you see all the time on TV.a Now, heas watching Fedayeen stalk his vehicle. aI think theyave got an RPG,a he says, trying to get a line on them through the sights of his SAW.

aScrewby,a Stafford replies.

aGunny!a Christeson shouts to Gunny Wynn. aThose men might have an RPG.a Gunny Wynn runs up, raises his binoculars and sees what looks to be a man setting up an RPG in some scrub. aLight aem up!a Christeson is so excited heas not sure he heard Gunny Wynn right. Even though he fired several dozen rounds into Al Gharraf, all he saw was buildings, dark spots and muzzle flashes. Heas never before pulled the trigger on humans like this, cold.

Gunny Wynn repeats: aLight aem the f.u.c.k up. They have RPGs.a Christeson hugs his SAW and squeezes off a fifteen- to twenty-round burst at the closest of the three men. They run south, one of them limping, heading toward a line of palm trees. Christeson rips out another burst.

Fick runs up to his side. aKeep shooting,a he says.

Christeson blazes away.

aYouare shooting too high,a Fick says, calmly now, like heas teaching a kid how to cast a fis.h.i.+ng rod. Christeson is still firing bursts toward the tree line where the men in the field took cover when the platoon is ordered forward. He jumps in the truck, while Stafford provides covering fire with his 203 and M-4. As they bounce onto the road, Christeson fires the last of nearly 200 rounds toward the RPG team.

The war is suddenly real to him. aYou know what?a he says to Stafford. aWe were just fighting actual guerrillas.a aScrewby.a THE CONVOY HALTS just 200 meters up from where Fickas crew engaged the RPG team. That huge fire we saw earlier was an electrical substation. Itas now a hundred meters in front of Colbertas vehicle. The flames have subsided; now it spews an acrid smoke that hangs over the area.

We are just fifty meters from the edge of a large, grim town. The outer buildings form a wall on the other side of the highway. Thereas a broad street into the city, but defenders have cut down palm trees, dragged the trunks across it and piled it with rubble, making barricades. Rifles and machine guns crackle intermittently from within.

But directly across from Colbertas vehicle, no one sees any muzzle flashes. All we see are hundreds of doors and windows, dark gaps in the stucco buildings, places for bad guys to hide.

aGet out of the vehicle,a Colbert says.

Everyone takes cover on the ground, setting up their weapons. The whole platoon is out in the open here, high on the elevated road, with a hostile town on one side and fields on the other where there is believed to have been at least one RPG team operating. aI donat know what the f.u.c.k weare doing here,a Colbert says.

Fick trots over, keeping his head low, staying behind Humvees as much as he can to avoid the intermittent sniper fire. Colbert asks him what the orders are.

aI donat f.u.c.king know either. He just told us to pull over,a Fick says, referring to his commander, Encino Man.

In a combat zone, military convoys arenat supposed to just aimlessly pull over. When they stop, someone is supposed to issue ordersa"tell the men where to orient their vehicles, their weapons, whether to turn their engines off or keep them running. All of these details are supposed to flow down from command.

But right now command in Bravo Company is in a state of confusion. A few moments ago, Fick radioed Encino Man about contact with a possible RPG team. Encino Man immediately ordered everyone to pull over, without issuing any further directions.

Encino Man and Casey Kasem are now huddled by Doc Bryanas Humvee, trying to figure out what do about the RPG team. Even though Christeson is sure he wounded at least one of the guys, and his fire did push them back into a tree line, Encino Man and Casey Kasem have become obsessed with the possibility of the RPG team reappearing and attacking the company.

Fick runs up to Encino Man and asks him, aWhat are we doing here?a Fickas concern is that the company is spread out w.i.l.l.y-nilly along the highway directly across from a town of about 75,000, some of whose occupants are now shooting at his Marines.

Encino Man ignores him. He and Casey Kasem are poring over a map, studying coordinates to call in an artillery strike on the suspected position of the suspected RPG team.

Doc Bryan is growing alarmed. aSir, I donat like this,a he says to Fick. Nodding toward Encino Man and Casey Kasem, he adds, aWhen those two put their heads together itas f.u.c.king dangerous.a Ever since Casey Kasem almost shot Doc Bryan a few nights earlier, he and the other Recon Marines have grown extremely wary of the man. And today the memory of seeing Encino Man trying to fire a grenade into a house with civilians in it is still fresh in the Marinesa minds.

aSir,a Doc Bryan says to Fick, aweare fifty meters from a hostile city, and those two jacka.s.ses are worrying about a possible guy with an RPG three hundred meters from here.a Fick confronts Encino Man. aIf you donat tell us what weare doing here, we should get the f.u.c.k out now.a aIam calling in a fire mission,a Encino Man says, still not explaining what he wants Fickas platoon to do on the highway.

Part of the reason Encino Man is so preoccupied with calling in the artillery fire mission is heas never done this before in combat. Now he tells the men the exact coordinates heas planning to bring the artillery down on.

Doc Bryan and Lovell use a laser designator to measure the distance from their Humvee to the spot where Encino Man intends to direct the artillery strike, and itas just over 200 meters distant.

Yesterday, when Capt. Patterson called in a danger-close artillery strike near his Marines, the distance was 300 meters, his men were behind berms and walls, and they were at the time under heavy enemy machine-gun fire.

Right now, Doc Bryanas team and the rest of the platoon are on an open road, with nothing between them and the place where the artillery, if called, will splash down. They see no enemy where Encino Man is trying to call in the fire mission, and on top of this, they are taking fire, but itas coming from the other side of the road. Doc Bryan canat stand it any longer. He runs up to Encino Man and shouts, aYou canat do this. Thatas a danger-close strike.a aWhatas adanger closea?a Encino Man asks.

Lovell, a few meters away, cites from a military manual he keeps in his Humvee. aDanger close is an artillery strike within six hundred meters of friendly forces.a aYou dumb motherf.u.c.ker,a one of the enlisted men shouts. aThe most boot-f.u.c.king Marine knows danger close!a Fick grabs the radio handset from Encino Man in an attempt to stop him from calling in the strike. Gunny Wynn now tries to intercede. aSir, this is f.u.c.ked up. Letas forget about the fire mission and get the platoons in a defensive perimeter. Then we can worry about the RPG team.a One thing about Encino Man is that heas stubborn. Having lost face in front of the men, he digs in deeper. He takes the handset back from Fick and attempts to call in the strike. But it never happens. There are protocols for calling in a Marine artillery strike, and Encino Man, it turns out, doesnat know them. When the officer on the end of the line receives Encino Manas confused request, he turns it down.

aFor once,a Doc Bryan observes, awe were saved by the manas incompetence.a AFTER THE ARTILLERY STRIKE is scratched, Encino Man finally issues orders. The Marines are to remain by the roada"on the south end of Ar Rifaa"and form defensive lines as best they can in this vulnerable place. Their job is to prevent enemy forces from advancing from the town and attacking RCT-1as convoys now rolling past on Route 7.

Enemy fighters in the town continue to take potshots. Person is manning the SAW set up outside the Humvee when he spots muzzle flashes coming from a window, fortified with barbed wire and sandbags, seventy-five meters away. He shoots into it, and Marines up the road join in. They saturate it with Mark-19 rounds, bringing down a wall of the building.

ad.a.m.n sucka!a Person says, watching dust rise from the partially destroyed structure.

Wild dogs run out from a gap in the townas walls. Women and children stand in an alley beside the building the Marines just hit. A rooster starts to c.o.c.kledoodledo even though itas afternoon. There are several loud bangs behind us. Marine snipers set up facing the fields to the rear have no idea what caused the explosions.

Fick approaches, sprinting to the Humvee, low to the ground to avoid enemy snipers, and smiles when he reaches me behind Colbertas vehicle. Both he and Gunny Wynn are being threatened with disciplinary action because of the incident with Encino Man an hour ago. Fick has been told he might be relieved of his command for adisobeying orders.a (The Marine who actually called the commander a adumb motherf.u.c.kera never receives reprimand.) Nevertheless, Fick has grown suddenly gabby. He crouches behind a Humvee tire beside me and says, aThis truly ill.u.s.trates how safety is entirely relative.a Then, while machine guns rip and sniper rifles bang up and down the line, he launches into a discussion more appropriate for an all-night cram session at the Dartmouth library than for a low-intensity firefight.

aMost people in America right now probably think Iraq is a dangerous country.a He gestures to a patch of dirt in the open, two meters from the Humvee. aNow, if I were to stand up there, I would probably get killed. But to us, behind this Humvee itas pretty safe. So relatively speaking, to us Iraq is a safe country right here behind this tire. I feel pretty safe here. Do you feel safe?a aPretty safe, I guess.a aSee!a He laughs. aIf you were to call somebody at home right now and say, aHey, Iam in Iraq right now. Iam with a handful of Marines. Weare isolated on the south end of a hostile city, and there are people shooting at us on both sides, but I feel pretty safe right now because Iam on this patch of dirt behind a Humvee,a theyad think you were nuts.a He laughs. aPeople donat understand how relative everything is on the battlefield.a He laughs again. aOr it could be we invent this relativism in our minds to comfort ourselves.a He taps the wheel well. aBecause we both know this Humvee isnat going to stop an RPG or any number of other very bad things that could happen here at any moment.a Espera crawls up. aSir, my men are all worried about the people in that ville organizing ma.s.s RPG volleys against us, like they did to those Amtracs we saw blown on the way up here.a aJust keep your men dispersed from the vehicles,a Fick says.

aRoger that, sir,a Espera says. aBut weare still worried, sir.a aWeare going to be here for a long time,a Fick says. aI donat like it. But thereas nothing you or I or anyone can do about it.a There are several loud cracks behind usa"rounds from enemy snipers.

aOh, sweet Jesus!a Colbert says, highly annoyed. Heas lying on the ground, gla.s.sing the city through binoculars, listening to the company radio network on a portable unit. He turns to Fick. aSir, our great commander,a he says, referring to Encino Man, ajust had the wherewithal to inform me there seem to be enemy snipers about. He suggests we ought to be on the lookout for them.a Person laughs. aBrad,a he says, calling Colbert by his first name. aCheck it out, over there.a He points to a spot near the barricades into the city.

Colbert turns his binoculars in the direction Person is pointing.

aPerson,a he asks, aare those ducks . . . ?a aYeah, theyare f.u.c.king.a Person laughs.

TWO KILOMETERS up the road a group of townspeople waving white flags climb around the barricades carrying a five- or six-year-old girl with a sucking chest wound. Capt. Pattersonas Marines in Alpha Company have been taking sporadic mortar hits all afternoon at their position on the northern end of Ar Rifa. But seeing the townspeople come out carrying the small body with limp, dangling legs, the Marines hold their fire.

Despite all the stories circulating among Marines of Iraqis posing as civilians and using false surrenders to lure them into ambushes, a corpsman and several enlisted Marines race up to the street to treat the wounded girl.

Patterson summons a translator, and the townspeople tell him that the girl was shot by Saddam loyalists. They say there are 1,500 to 2,000 of them in the city, with many of them concentrated around one building. Patterson checks the location of the building on his map. It corresponds with preexisting intelligence that had identified it as a Baath Party headquarters. He calls an artillery strike, with high-explosive (HE) rounds capable of destroying large structures. The first rounds scream in and fall 300 meters short of the target. Landing as they do in a dense urban area, Patterson is pretty certain they caused civilian casualtiesa"and later this suspicion is corroborated when he hears ambulance sirens wailing in the city.

But Pattersonas men adjust several more rounds onto the correct target, wiping it out. News that the Americans have destroyed the main Baath headquarters in Ar Rifa appears to spread quickly through the town.

Within several minutes of the final artillery blasts, people fill the streets and rooftops across the city. What appears to be happening is almost a textbook case of liberation. A show of American force, coupled with a somewhat pinpoint hit on a military headquarters, has caused a rout of hostile forces. Shooting on Marine positions ceases almost immediately.

Across from Colbertas position we see the outpouring of people. Initially, Marines whoave been hunkered down receiving sniper fire and occasionally shooting up buildings across the street are wary. Old women in black robes rise up on rooftops where previously Marines had been trying to pick off enemy snipers.

aDonat shoot the old ladies,a Colbert warns his team.

Then young men waving white flags walk onto the road. Bravo Company sends out its translator to greet them. The translator is a seriously overweight nineteen-year-old Kuwaiti who goes by the nickname aMeesh.a Iave gotten to know Meesh in the past few days. Beneath his MOPP suit he wears a tie-dyed Grateful Dead T-s.h.i.+rt and has a long ponytail he folds under his helmet. He speaks in colloquial American English and is a heavy dope smoker. The whole invasion heas been b.u.mming because the night before we left Kuwait he got so stoned that, as he says, aDude, I lost all my chronic in my tent. Iam hurtina.a Despite his MTV American English, Meesh is Kuwaiti to the core. The first time I try speaking with him he refuses to talk until I bribe him with several packs of Marlboro Reds. The Marine utility vest he wears, designed to carry up to sixty pounds of ammunition, is instead loaded with baksheesh. Meesh hates Iraqis, who he claims killed one of his relatives during their invasion of Kuwait, and every time he interrogates civilians or soldiers on behalf of the Marines, he forces them to hand over any cigarettes, cash, valuable trinkets, liquor or beer they might be carrying. (Under Saddamas secular rule, Iraq operated numerous breweries and distilleries.) Given the fact that Meesh is invariably backed up by heavily armed Marines, Iraqis eagerly shower him with tribute. Meesh carries so many bottles of beer, liquor, cigarettes and other sundries in his vest, he looks like a walking kiosk.

The thing about Meesh that earns him the undying respect of Marines is his total obliviousness to danger. Outside Ar Rifa, he walks alone on the highway to greet the townspeople whoave come out with surrender flags. Behind him, Marines tensely watch through their scopes and gun sights, half expecting Meesh to go down in a hail of ambush fire.

But after several minutes in which he stands there, chatting with townspeople, and no one shoots him, several officers join him, among them Fick.

aWhat did they say?a Fick asks.

Meesh belches. It takes him a long time to answer. Meesh does everything at a sclerotic pace. Even rolling his eyeb.a.l.l.s to look at you seems to tax him. He builds up his strength, taking several drags from the Marlboro hanging from his lip, and says, aThe people of Ar Rifa are grateful to be liberated and welcome the Americans as friends.a Itas the stock answer Meesh always gives after speaking to Iraqis. Meesh claims he works for the CIAa"aI got into some trouble in Kuwait, working for a aparty,a which is what we call drug gangs in my country, but I have some friends in the royal family, and they hooked me up with the CIAaa"and his translations always seem to conform to a script provided by his handlers.

aThatas all they said?a Fick asks. aYou spoke to those guys for ten minutes!a aThey say they donat want us to leave the town,a Meesh adds. aTheyare afraid as soon as we go the Baath, dudes are going to come back and kill them.a Ar Rifa is another s.h.i.+a city that rose up against Saddam after President George H. W. Bushas call to rebellion in 1991. As in Nasiriyah, the uprising was put down, and the citizens were treated to months of b.l.o.o.d.y reprisals.

Maj. Gen. Mattisas strategy of racing north as fast as possible precludes putting forces inside towns after theyave been aliberated.a The Marines or the CIA or whoever is actually in charge of this operation at Ar Rifa have come up with a stopgap measure to protect the citizens. Right now, Meesh is the sole agent responsible for executing this plan.

He hands out infrared chemlites to the men whoave come out of the town waving white flags. Their job tonight, after the Marines depart, is to put these chemlites on top of buildings and other locations inside the city occupied by Baath Party members or Fedayeen. American aircraft will then fly over the town and bomb any position they see illuminated by the infrared chemlites.

Fick is as intrigued by this plan as I am. After Meesh distributes the chemlites, we both accost him. I bribe him with several more packs of Marlboros, and Fick asks him, aHow do you know those guys arenat just going to put those chemlites on the homes of people they owe money to, or have some other grudge against?a aBelieve me,a Meesh says. aTheyare good dudes. We can trust aem.a He proffers a bottle to Fick. aBeer?a aNo thanks, Meesh,a Fick says.

aYeah,a Meesh says. aItas not the good s.h.i.+t. Itas local brewed.a AS THE SUN DROPS, muezzins call the faithful to prayer from minarets and loudspeakers across Ar Rifa. Then the city erupts with celebratory AK fire. We sit inside Colbertas vehicle eating cold MREs in the darkness. In recent days, rations were cut from three to two meals per day. There is a silver lining to having your rations cut. When you eat MREs in abundance, they taste foul. Now, with everyone having a constant edge of hunger, meals that once tasted like dried kitchen sponges in chemical sauce are pretty tasty. Everyone plows through the ratf.u.c.k bag, eagerly retrieving meals like Chicken Jambalaya and Vegetarian Alfredo that a week ago no one would have touched.

We are happily eating when, from behind us on the highway, we hear the sound of rolling gunfire. All of us look out into the darkness and see dozens of orange tracer rounds spewing out from both sides of an approaching U.S. military convoy.

aEverybody get down!a Colbert shouts. We dive to the floor of the Humvee. The American trucks pa.s.s, mistakenly discharging a torrent of automatic weapons fire toward our Humvee and those in the rest of the company. Tracers skim over the hood. A high-caliber American round slices through the armor plates, penetrating the vehicle behind Trombley and me. The shooting lasts about twenty seconds. aItas f.u.c.king friendlies,a Colbert says, uncurling himself from the floor.

After dark, the Marine Humvees put out infrared strobe lights invisible to the naked eye. Their rhythmic flas.h.i.+ng is designed to be seen through NVGs, to help other drivers locate the position of your vehicle. The problem is, to nervous, inexperienced personnel the infrared strobes look like enemy muzzle flashes. Fick later finds out that we were shot at by Navy reservist surgeons on their way to set up a mobile shock-trauma unit on the road ahead. aThose were f.u.c.king doctors who a few weeks ago were doing nose and t.i.t jobs in Santa Fe Springs,a Fick tells his men, laughing. aThe f.u.c.king POGest of the POGs. Luckily, theyare not the best sharpshooters.a Several Humvees up the line are hit, but no Marines are injured. Within minutes of the latest near-death episode, Trombley is snoring, sound asleep.

FIFTEEN.

AFTER THE FRIENDLY-FIRE incident outside Ar Rifa on the evening of March 26, Fick pokes his head into Colbertas vehicle to inform him that the Marinesa night is just getting started. During the next six hours the battalion is going to race across open roads and desert trails, advancing twenty-five to thirty kilometers behind enemy lines, in order to set up observation on an Iraqi military airfield near a town called Qalat Sukhar. All of this has to be done as quickly as possible. A British parachute brigade is planning to seize the airfield at dawn. But reports have come in from U.S. spy planes that the airfield may be defended with AAA batteries and T-72 tanks. First Recon will go there to make sure the way is clear for the British.

The mission is plagued with snafus from the start. A battalion supply truck becomes stuck in the mud outside Ar Rifa. First Recon halts for forty-five minutes, while higher-ups debate whether or not to extract the truck. They decide to leave it and come back for it later. Shortly after we pull out, the truck is looted, hit by at least one RPG and burned to the ground. It had been carrying the battalionas main supply of food rations. As a result of this incident, everyone will be reduced to about one and a half meals per day until we reach Baghdad.