We jumped over and onto each other in a mad scramble for gas masks and jammed them down tight over faces still lathered with shaving cream, believing that Saddam was about to hit us. Then came a loud “
Even so, we all believed Iraq would probably smack us at some point with chemical and biological weapons. Our leaders had built much of the reason for this preemptive war around those weapons stockpiles, and we had trained hard for surviving them. For us, it was not a question of
The suit consisted of a jacket and matching overall pants, worn over our T-shirts and shorts. The activated charcoal lining provided an extra layer of insulation that was welcome on chilly nights. We carried masks and heavy rubber gloves that we could put on in less than eight seconds. Bulky booties completed the ensemble but were so clumsy and hot that we seldom wore them for more than a few minutes. Oddly, the MOPPs were of a mottled green pattern, so after wearing desert camouflage for months in Kuwait, we would enter Iraq in jungle colors.
If Saddam tried to chem us, it would be no more than an inconvenience, because our suits provided good protection for our lungs against any aerosol weapon. Being slimed during a biological/persistent-chemical attack was worse, because those agents might eat right through boots and skin. If a nuke fell, then nothing would help, but we knew our deaths would result in Baghdad becoming a radioactive hole in the ground.
We weren’t frightened by any of it, but we always wore the suits, because they took too long to put on when a warning came. They also took a long time to take off.
Answering calls of nature meant you had to take off your flak jacket with its ceramic tile plates, then your bulky MOPP jacket, then the suspenders that held up the pants and the various clips that held everything together.
As extra protection against WMD attacks, we had our Poultry Chemical Contamination Detectors, five pigeons named Silent Bob, Jay, Crazy Pete, Little Bastard, and Botulism, that lived in cages strapped to the hoods of our Humvees. They were to ride into combat with us under the theory that if they died suddenly, we should probably put on our masks. The same scheme had worked during gas attacks in World War I, and with canaries in potentially poisonous coal mines, so why not now? Chickens had been tested in Kuwait, but they tended to die for too many different reasons, so the great Kuwaiti Fried Chicken experiment was abandoned. Instead, our battalion saw Saddam’s WMD bet and raised him five pigeons.
The day was spent in final preparations, since the Iraqi dictator had not been seen waving farewell to his loyal subjects. The battalion nudged even closer to the border, our vehicles were refueled, ammo was passed out, breach points were designated in the berms, and we arranged covering fire from other units. Then the intelligence staff dropped the news on us that the 51st Mechanized Division might not be alone in the Basra area. Somehow, the Medina Division, a well-trained armored unit of the elite Republican Guard, had been trucked in with their assload of tanks during the last several nights.
McCoy took the development in stride. “Well, good on ‘em,” he said. “We’ll slaughter them, too.” His staff scrambled to dramatically change the attack plan only hours before the scheduled departure, because it seemed that a huge armored battle was looming.
McCoy gathered his officers for a final pep talk and pointed toward the setting sun, which dimmed as it lowered into a mist of dust. “Look at that sunset,” he told them. “Remember it. That might be the last sunset some people see.” He had been a rifle company commander in Desert Storm and knew what was about to happen when the talking stopped and the fighting began. He wanted to be sure his officers understood that they were expected to lead, not follow, and that they must not yield to panic. The motto was “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” Casey came out of the meeting less nervous over going to war than he had been when he had braces put on his teeth as a kid.
As the minutes before the invasion ticked away, the desert around me seemed alive with men and machines. My sniper rifle rested in a drag bag in my truck, for giant armored vehicles were about to go to work in this big sandbox, and a sniper has no business in a crossfire of tanks. I would get my shots in later.
I retreated into myself to be alone with my thoughts. This war was unfinished business, and we considered Saddam Hussein to be our Hitler. We would not be beating up on Mother Teresa tomorrow but taking down a sadistic brute and a whole army of evil people. After Desert Storm, we felt the job was incomplete; we were pulled up short after achieving the rigidly defined objective of kicking the Iraqis out of Kuwait. If we had finished the job then, we wouldn’t be here now. That was Hussein’s tough luck, for this time we were turning the pit bulls loose and the only order was to go get the fucking rabbit.
There was only one possibility that really brought a lump to my throat: that the attack might be called off and we would be left stuck in the Kuwaiti sand for another six months while diplomats dithered and the press and the liberals tried to turn this whole thing into another Vietnam.
Surely they wouldn’t call if off now, with thousands of American soldiers and Marines, a British armored division, and other allied troops all poised and ready along a border that was nothing but a couple of sand berms and barbed-wire fences. Aircraft carriers and ships from the U.S. Navy and other nations were on station, and warplanes were rolling out on runways around the globe. From the Pentagon to the campaign theater headquarters at Camp Doha in Kuwait, staff officers of different services and nationalities were working closely together without animosity or rivalry.
Much had been made about America going into combat virtually alone and without many of its traditional allies. In my opinion, that was for the best. I was glad the Brits were with us and didn’t care that the French and some of the others were not around, because all they would do was take up space, suck fuel, and slow us down. The Russians were disappointing, because I had long felt that we would someday be toe to toe on a battlefield, but as allies, not as enemies-and what a combined force we would be. I wanted them to stand tall with us in Iraq, but they didn’t, and so what? I didn’t want anyone tagging along who did not want to be here.
The kind I wanted around was exactly like the ragtag collection of six Marines that made up the crews of our two armored Humvees. These boys, professionals all, had become our immediate family, and Casey and I, as the designated parents, personally trained them and shared with them our meals, tents, and trucks. The bonds of brotherhood were strong, because we all understood that someday it might be just the eight of us against a large enemy force. We had not picked these guys by accident; we chose them because we believed they would be reliable in a firefight.
My driver, and the truck leader, was twenty-two-year-old Corporal Orlando Fuentes, who had gown up in a Puerto Rican barrio until he was thirteen, then moved to Pennsylvania. The first time I saw his big eyes and round face, he reminded me of one my girls’ stuffed animals, and I exclaimed, “Hey, you look just like a panda bear!” The nickname stuck, and the Panda was cool with it. Trained as one of those suicidal idiots who drive the CAATs, he knew only two speeds-fast and faster-and philosophically did not believe in the brake pedal. I sat up front in the passenger seat, usually scared out of my wits that he was going to kill me before Saddam had a chance.
Private First Class Daniel Tracy, a Missouri boy who was one of my reclamation projects, rode in the back to handle the radios and provide security. Only twenty years old, Daniel was an old-school Marine with a gift for brawling and getting into trouble. He stacked up an impressive record of being belligerent and hard to control while in 29 Palms, and when he blew off a corrective program, we court-martialed him, busted him in rank, and sent him to the brig to cool off. When he came out, I pulled him into the company office so that I could personally step on him now and then, and I learned that he was a loyal and tough kid who did not suffer fools gladly. My kind of guy. He was also valuable because he honestly thought he was bulletproof anywhere beyond the Baghdad city limits. “I know I’m going to get whacked in Baghdad,” he had complained for weeks. “I’m not going in there. Put me back in the brig, I don’t care. I’ll fight everywhere else, but I won’t go into Baghdad.” I figured he probably would.
Standing on a platform between the front and back seats was our gunner, Mexico-born Sergeant Luis Castillo, whose upper body protruded above the Humvee in a turret that mounted either a Mark-19 automatic grenade launcher or a 240-Golf medium machine gun, weapons we would mix and match to the mission. Castillo was very reserved and had been a sergeant for several months although he was only twenty years old. The tall, slim Marine was content to let other people give the orders and leave him alone to shoot his gun.
Another member of our crew was Corporal Clint Newbern, the communications guy in Casey’s truck. He had a
