Colbert’s nickname was the Iceman because he never lost his cool. That’s why I had him on point for the platoon on a night when the platoon was on point for the battalion and the battalion was on point for almost the whole Marine Corps. The next thing I heard through my headset radio was his warning: “There’s an obstacle on the bridge.” Colbert’s voice was measured but taut, the way an airline pilot would tell his passengers about an engine fire. Then I saw it, too — what looked like a Dumpster full of scrap metal pulled out into the road. Large-diameter pipes lay scattered on both sides of it. There was only one explanation.
“Back up, back up, back the fuck up.” The fear was palpable. You could hear it and feel it and even taste it, like a penny under your tongue. But the Marines stayed calm. We were jammed together with trees to our left, buildings to our right, an obstacle in front of us, and the rest of the battalion pressing in from behind.
We had driven into an ambush. I knew it and wondered, for a fleeting second, when the shooting would start. I ducked my head and tried to pull my arms into my bulletproof vest while still holding the radios and my rifle. Marines call it “turtling.”
I gave the order to turn around and got a terse, “Roger, wilco,” from Colbert. As his Humvee began its turn to the left, toward the trees, Colbert radioed, “There are men in the trees,” and opened fire.
The staccato chatter of his M4 sounded distant and tinny, but then the Mark-19 began to roar, spitting grenades into the trees in quick bursts. The other teams opened up with rifles, the second Mark-19, and the two .50-caliber machine guns. Our volume of outgoing fire was immense. Tracers burned across the sky, and muzzle flashes washed out my goggles, replacing green definition with indistinguishable white blobs. I flipped them up on my helmet and tried to figure out what was going on.
Fear passes quickly. Once the shooting started, I was busy directing the platoon, talking on the radio, and shooting back. It wasn’t courage so much as task saturation. Streams of incoming tracers skipped and ricocheted down the road from across the bridge. Passing bullets buzzed and whined, just as they do in cartoons. The enemy machine gunner was shooting low, and his rounds sparked as they caromed off the pavement into our vehicles. Impacts jolted my Humvee.
More enemy fire chattered from the trees. Small arms. Single shots and short bursts. I watched an RPG flash from the right, from somewhere back in the maze of mud buildings. When it blew up in front of me, a shower of sparks burned into my vision and lingered there after the blast faded.
Enemy to our left, right, and straight ahead. This assessment process took only seconds, and I was on the radio requesting air support. I made a conscious effort to be calm and speak slowly, but my request was a shouted, garbled mess all the same. The Cobras roared back, cleared hot to attack anything on the far side of the river or more than twenty-five meters off the road. They poured machine gun fire over our heads, and the whoosh of their rockets blotted out the distant voices in my ear asking for updates.
We had to get the platoon out of the kill zone. Gunfire and shouting rendered our radios almost useless, so dropping my rifle and drawing my pistol, I told Gunny Wynn to turn the truck around while I went out to guide the teams.
“What?”
“Turn the Humvee around, break contact to the rear, and I’ll be right back.” Rarely did I do anything against his advice, but this would be one of those times.
Ducking meaninglessly, since the enemy machine gun fire was at knee level, I ran forward to where Colbert was still frozen in the middle of his turn. My immediate concern was being shot by my own men. They were intent on their firing and couldn’t see me running up from their periphery. Each M4 was equipped with a laser, visible only through night vision goggles. Put the red dot on your target and you’ll hit it every time. Laser dots converged together on shadowy figures in the trees, wavered as the Marines shook and rattled in the moving Humvees, and then disappeared as the figure dropped and they moved to settle on the next target. It was an oddly beautiful and well-choreographed dance.
Time was expanding and compressing like a Slinky. I crouched behind the rear bumper of Colbert’s Humvee, aware of each rivet in the tan armor. But I had no recollection of getting there. Above me, Corporal Hasser fired the Mark-19. Tongues of flame shot from the muzzle, but the deafening weapon seemed silent to me. I was shouting instructions to the two lead drivers and trying to avoid being shot or run over when a calm voice on the radio cut through the gunfire.
“Team Two has a man down.”
Then Gunny Wynn’s voice. “Headquarters has a man down.”
