The Things They Cannot Say

KS: I asked… I let the guys use them all the time, so …

WW: Maybe if I see you around.

KS: Yep.

WW: I—

KS: But I let a lot of the guys use them, so it’s not a big deal.

WW: I miss everything out here. Our anniversary. My birthday, her birthday. It’s the last ones, though, man. Six months, I’ll be done. Two months left here.

KS: What do you have to do when you go back to the States? You have to spend three months…?

WW: I’ll be, like, three months left in the Marine Corps? Four months?

KS: Just process you out?

WW: I’ll get detached out. I’ll just work at the gym. I’m, like, a real gym buff. I lost thirty-five pounds since I’ve been here, so when I get back I really gotta hit the gym real hard.

KS: You gonna go back and play football?

WW: Yeah. I gotta get… I weighed two twenty-eight when I got out here, I’m down to about one ninety now. ’Cause I haven’t gotten to touch a gym once.

KS: That’s hard…

WW: It’s really hard.

KS: Do you think that some of that anger you have out here, though, is that gonna go back with you, too?

WW: You just learn how to channel your anger. I think I’ll be all right. I’m so excited to be a civilian that I’m sure it’ll all go away. Like, me and the guy that just got hit, all day today, all we could think today was about goin’ home and gettin’ a Big Mac and spending the night with our fuckin’… our fiancees, you know? It’s all we wanna do, just be normal people. This is his third deployment, you know? I can’t stand it.

KS: It’s hard to do this?

WW: It’s not hard to kill people. It’s hard not to get killed. My company’s got so many casualties it’s not even funny.

KS: Yeah, especially in this event. A lot of casualties …

WW: [Yelling] Hey, we’re pushing!

[…]

WW: [Yelling and directing his fireteam] Hey, Dar, when you come up here, we’ve got friendlies down here. Hey, we’ve got friendlies down here! Hold up. Hold up! Hey, listen up! We’ve got friendlies down to the south! You hear me? Keep your eye on the rooftops and get low!

KS: Which city in Washington?

WW: Vancouver.

KS: It’s a nice place.

WW: It’s, ah, it’s so beautiful. I can’t wait to go home. I wanna get… um, my motorcycle only got three hundred and fifty miles on it. I can’t wait to get back and …

KS: What kind of bike you got?

WW: Just bought that new, uh, 636 Ninja. It’s Kawasaki.

KS: What’s wrong with you, man? You guys always buy those when you go home.

WW: Nah, I bought this, uh… I bought it before I came out here. I always wanted a bike.

KS: Is “Willy” short for “William,” or is that what you go by?

WW: Uh, William. I go by Willy, though.

KS: You got brothers and sisters?

WW: Uh, three brothers, two sisters.

KS: Older or younger?

WW: I’m the second youngest.

KS: So what do they think about you being out here?

WW: They can’t stand it. My little sister… if you ever see this, I love you, ’cause she writes me all the time. Her and my mom are writing me all the time, the only ones. And my fiancee, and that’s the only… that’s the sole purpose of why I can make it out here. Is family.

KS: Well if I put you on TV, you ought to call them, so they can at least watch it.

WW: What’s that?

KS: I said if I put you on TV, you ought to at least call them so they can watch it.

WW: I tried. It’s… I know I’m gonna be here for the rest of my tour, so… it’ll be at least a couple more weeks before I get to talk to ’em. Maybe I can get somebody to send ’em an e-mail or something.

KS: Yeah, give me your e-mail address. I mean, ’cause I might use some of this tonight. Feed it out. We feed our stories every night.

WW: I was on TV a few times. I was on CNN twice when the president had, um, chiefs of staff and he had, um, peacekeeping missions up at Camp David.

KS: You did, uh, protection?

WW: When he gets off the helo… when the head of state gets off the helo. Then we provide security for him.

KS: So how’d you get to be a sergeant so fast?

WW: I’m only corporal right now, but I’ll be a sergeant soon. I’m a good… I’ve always been a good PTer. I got… before I came out here, I’d go the gym every day. You know? I’m a good shot, as you can see today.

KS: How many did you get? Six today?

WW: I shot six out of nine. I could have shot more, but I’m so worried about putting one of my Marines’ lives in danger.

KS: How long did that whole sequence take place?

WW: The killing of those nine people?

KS: Yeah.

WW: Maybe thirty seconds. Just because I’ve got a slow Marine. He froze up on me. He almost got us killed. I can’t be mad at him. I get mad at the kid every day because he’s a really slow Marine, but I can’t get mad at him for that because morally… He told me morally he didn’t think he should kill him because he didn’t realize what was going on at first. Once I told him what to do, he did it. And he’s glad that… He’ll never question my authority ever again. I guarantee it.

KS: They had the weapons pointed at you?

WW: Yeah, I saved his life today. I’m really glad I did, too. I love the kid to death as a man, but as a Marine, he’s just not a very good Marine. [Yelling] Yeah? No, I don’t! What do you need?

[…]

WW: [Sound of tank round hitting a house] That’s how we clear it. That’s probably our main objective. That’s how we clear a house. That’s how the Marines do it. Okay. We don’t mess around.

[…]

WW: You gotta be careful, man. You ain’t got a gun?

KS: Nah. Yeah, we’re noncombatants, so we’re not supposed to carry ’em.

WW: I couldn’t do that. If I’m gonna be somewhere like this, I gotta have me a gun. That’s the bad thing about this country. Everybody got a gun.

KS: That’s right. Same with Afghanistan. Crazy.

WW: In Afghanistan it’s a totally different war. Of course, we’re doing sassel ops around here. You know, except for this. This is a …

KS: When you say “sassel ops” what does that mean?

WW: In a nutshell, it’s when you go around and you’re pretty much there for the people,