Around one P.M., my platoon took over point for the battalion and immediately ran into a village straddling the road. It hugged the riverbank, just a small collection of mud-brick homes and a few abandoned cars. Laundry drying on lines provided the only color. We had learned our lesson about rolling through such obvious ambush points, so half the platoon moved into the village on foot while the other half supported them with the heavy machine guns on the Humvees. The surest way to protect vehicles in a town is to put troops around them. Gunny Wynn controlled the vehicular force. I joined the Marines on foot, passing quick instructions over my headset radio.
“Vehicles, move just forward of the foot squad and be prepared to suppress so we can maneuver or break contact,” I ordered. “Foot mobiles, clear each building, collect all weapons and paperwork. Be alert for booby traps. We’ll link up on the north side and continue. Let’s go.”
Jogging across the field in a cautious crouch, I tucked my rifle into the crook of my shoulder. I felt safe there, on my feet, in the dirt. I never got used to sitting in a Humvee on the highway, waiting to be ambushed. On foot, I was in my element: man, boots, rifle.
Marines clambered over irrigation ditches and moved stealthily into the collection of mud huts. Chickens scattered, squawking, as we stacked against walls and burst into rooms. Most of the village was deserted. The squad collected two AK-47s and an RPG launcher, along with a pile of military uniforms bearing the Republican Guard’s red triangle. I walked one over to Major Whitmer, who was surrounded by maps and radios in the back of the battalion operations Humvee.
“Here you go, sir. A little souvenir of Saddam’s finest.”
He laughed and said, “I bet you thought you were coming to recon to get away from clearing villages on foot.”
At the northern end of the village, a group of women and children huddled together in a one-room school. They had seen us coming and retreated there in fear. We reassured them that we meant no harm and asked why no men were in the village. They answered through Mish.
“We are poor farmers. The men work all day in the fields.”
“Where are the Ba’ath Party, the fedayeen?”
“There are no fedayeen here. We are happy to see the Americans come.”
“Where did these Republican Guard uniforms come from?” The women had no answer and stared silently at the packed-dirt floor.
Satisfied that the village posed no threat to RCT-1’s advance, we kept driving north, snaking through groves of palm trees filled with colorful birds, singing as we passed. The shade provided refuge from the sun, and I enjoyed the cool interludes between stretches of barren fields. Clearing the village had been hard work in the midday heat. The Marines looked pale, with red-rimmed eyes. My sleeves were encrusted with white salt stains, and I gulped warm water from the plastic canteens fastened to my flak jacket. It tasted like water from a swimming pool.
Alpha Company took over on point, and I rotated the platoon to the back of the battalion formation. Somehow, we always ended up at the front or the back, never in the comfortable middle. Patrick’s and Lovell’s teams swung their guns behind us, serving as tail-end Charlie. We continued rumbling north at a walking pace, poking through villages and watching the people at work in the fields for clues about what lay around the next bend or over the next rise. The column halted. I climbed down and took a knee in the dirt next to the Humvee, stretching the radio cord to keep the handset to my ear. Wynn did the same on his side of the vehicle.
“Good day so far,” Wynn said, sounding unusually upbeat. “At least we’re doing something useful. Could you believe those fighting holes along the river? The Iraqis could have hosed the RCT and then melted away before they even knew where the fire came from.”
I didn’t share his enthusiasm. “I’m a little wigged-out by all the Republican Guard uniforms,” I said. “What else don’t we know?”
A radio call interrupted us. All platoon commanders to the front for a meeting. I shook my head at the battalion’s order. It figured that we’d just taken our place at the far rear of the formation. Laughing at Wynn’s gently mocking smile, I slung my rifle across my chest, handed him my portable radio, and started walking past the long line of stopped vehicles. The battalion sat in single file along a narrow dirt road that curved to the right and disappeared into a thicket along the riverbank. Far ahead, I saw a mosque’s turquoise dome sticking up above the palm fronds. To our left, an irrigation ditch paralleled the road, and beyond it a planted field stretched for more than a mile across flat ground. The river flowed a few feet to my right, at the bottom of a steep bank. Across it, dense palm forests bordered a field of waist-high crops. I saw a white sedan parked in the field.
