Christeson woke me twenty minutes later. “Sir, we’re getting ready to move.” The eastern sky was already turning pink. Dew had soaked my poncho liner. I threw it in the back of the Humvee. My mouth was dry, and my eyes burned with the irritation of too many hours awake. I felt clumsy and disoriented as I joined the captain for an update.
The patrols were still not in position to see the field, but the division wouldn’t authorize the British attack without some idea of Qalat Sukkar’s defenses. I had visions of burning British helicopters falling from the sky and nodded in agreement. It would have been easy, I thought, to delay the attack and use the daylight to do a thorough reconnaissance of the airfield. The morning was clear. We could stack aircraft overhead to obliterate anything that threatened us. But the commanders ordered that we, in our light-skinned Humvees and with no preparation time, would attack the airfield immediately. Reconnaissance in force.
I had first felt fear in Iraq on the initial drive into Nasiriyah. The next three days of gunfights had hardly affected me. Hearing that we were about to seize the airfield, I was afraid for the second time. The fear this time was not of Iraqi defenders and my own violent death. Instead, it came from realizing that my commanders also felt the effects of fatigue and stress. Fear filled the little cracks and growing voids in the trust I had placed in them. Remembering General Mattis’s insistence that we train to survive the first five days in combat, I thought how ironic it would be to die on this morning of the sixth day.
Coupled with the fear were resignation and helplessness. I was a Marine. I would salute and follow orders. Without knowing the big picture, we had to trust that they made sense. My Marines and I were willing to give our lives, but we preferred not to do so cheaply. The fear was a realization that my exchange rate wasn’t the only one being consulted.
Engines were already cranking as I briefed the platoon. My operations order took thirty seconds. We’d rush down the airfield’s main access road and crash through the front gate. Once inside, we’d do a starburst, with Bravo Company continuing straight ahead, Third Platoon on the left, and Second on the right. Alpha and Charlie would break off in different directions. We’d advance across the field and engage any Iraqi forces we found. Consolidation would be on the main runway once we overwhelmed any resistance. Air Force aircraft would be overhead, but their call signs and contact frequencies were unknown. Part of me expected open revolt, but the team leaders nodded, loaded their teams, and formed up to move.
Backlit by the rising sun, we raced down the airfield access road. I looked to my right and saw one of the night’s foot patrols facing us with crossed arms raised, our signal for “friendly — don’t shoot me.” The road was several kilometers long, lined with brush and small trees. It looked as though we were alone.
Gunny Wynn drove, and I juggled my rifle and two radios in the passenger seat. Just seconds before we reached the chainlink fence surrounding the airfield, a warning from company headquarters went out to all vehicles. “All personnel on the airfield are declared hostile. I say again, all personnel on the airfield are declared hostile.”
We normally operated within certain constraints. We could respond proportionally in self-defense — “fire if fired upon” — or we could shoot first at obvious military targets. Both categories depended on the target being a clear and present danger. “Declared hostile” meant there were no rules of engagement. It meant shoot first and ask questions later. At Quantico, we had learned about Vietnam’s free-fire zones. They had been, it was acknowledged, immoral and counterproductive. Qalat Sukkar was being declared a free-fire zone.
I clicked the transmit button on my radio handset to countermand the order. I wanted to tell the platoon to hold fast to our normal rules of engagement. But I stopped. I thought that maybe the battalion or the company had access to other information they had no time to share. I trusted that making the “declared hostile” call would save my Marines’ lives when they ran into that unknown threat by shaving crucial nanoseconds from their response time. I let the order stand and shouldered my rifle, pointing it at the landscape flashing past.
