In the dark hours of the early morning, I walked the lines to check our defenses and visit with Sergeant Espera and his Marines. They had done most of the shooting at the roadblock, and I wanted to see how they were handling it. It was easy, on a night like this, for things to look bleak. We had been eating only one MRE a day because the truck carrying our extra food had been blown up by fedayeen near Qalat Sukkar and our resupply priorities were fuel, water, and ammo. I was too hungry to sleep. Low, scudding clouds spat cold rain, turning the clay of our holes into glue. With no moon or stars visible, the night was dark. I slipped and slid through the mud to Espera’s position next to the highway. He had ordered his team to dig deep in case another truck tried to blow through our lines. Four Marines huddled together in a chest-deep fighting hole as I approached. I saw the outlines of their helmeted heads and the dim green glow of their night vision goggles as they scanned the highway. They had removed the .50-caliber machine gun from their Humvee and placed it on a tripod in front of the hole, pointed south toward Al Hayy.
“Halt. Who goes there?” they said, challenging my approach.
I froze, thinking of the trip my TBS class had taken to the battlefield at Chancellorsville, where Stonewall Jackson had been mistakenly shot and killed in the dark by his own men. “Lieutenant Fick, looking for Sergeant Espera.”
“Howdy, sir. How you doin’ this evening?” Espera said.
“Never better. Tired, cold, wet, hungry. I feel like a Marine.”
I slid into the hole with the team so we could whisper together and share body heat. Espera smiled. “Last time I saw you in a cold hole, LT, was in Afghanistan. Makes me feel like an old campaigner.”
“Regular warhorse, Espera. Just wait. Next year it’ll be Syria, then North Korea, and who knows where after that. We’ll never have to train again. Just war, war, war.”
Before I could bring up the real reason for my visit, Sergeant Espera beat me to it. “Sir, what do you think was in that truck we lit up earlier tonight?”
I had a canned answer ready for him, but it sounded hollow even as it left my lips. “I don’t know. What I do know is that each of us has an obligation to protect our men. You had a team to look out for. I gave the order to shoot that truck. The responsibility is mine. If you hadn’t fired, it would have destroyed most of our gear and maybe killed Marines. You did the right thing.”
“Yeah.” Espera nodded, looking unconvinced. I ached for him. No one knows the costs of war better than the grunts. I guessed the television news that night was full of reports of collateral damage and civilian casualties. I wished people could see how much we agonized over our decisions and prayed they were the right ones. These choices didn’t always translate into hesitation on the trigger or racking self-doubt, but sometimes it was enough to sit awake in the cold rain just thinking about them.
Shortly after sunrise, the captain called me to his Humvee. “Nate, we’re heading back toward Al Hayy in a few hours to support the attack. I want you to take your platoon down there right now and observe this intersection.” He jabbed his finger at a point on the map near where we’d shot up the truck the previous evening. “Send back any useful information. Don’t get decisively engaged. If you get into trouble, call for help or fall back to us here.”
I nodded, happy to be getting out on my own for a while. The platoon eyed me as I walked back to where they filled holes and oiled machine guns. “We’re heading down south to recon an intersection. Stay awake — we’re all alone. Weapons tight — let’s not start something we can’t finish.”
I saw in the platoon a glimmer of something I was starting to feel in myself: excitement. The adrenaline rush of combat and the heady thrill of being the law were addicting us. This was becoming a game. I was starting to look forward to missions and firefights in the way I might savor pickup football or playing baseball. There was excitement, teamwork, common purpose, and the chance to demonstrate skill. I didn’t have the luxury of much time for reflection, but I was aware enough to be concerned that I was starting to enjoy it.
Our five vehicles rolled south on a clear, sunny morning. I sat in the passenger seat while Gunny Wynn drove, munching a granola bar and watching A-10 attack jets loop and wheel over Al Hayy. White phosphorous artillery rounds burst in the air above the city, raining their burning explosives into the streets below. All sound was carried away on the wind as we watched the silent movie of destruction.
“Hitman Two, this is Two-Two,” Sergeant Patrick’s team called on the radio. “We’ve got eyes on armed men in the field to our left. Looks like two guys with AKs, watching us and running behind that berm.”
