“Holy shit, these guys are Syrians!” Each man carried a Syrian passport, complete with official Iraqi entry visas. The visas were stamped in red ink with blank lines for the date, place, and reason of entry to be written in by hand. Each of the dead men had entered Iraq during the first week of the war at a crossing point on the Syrian border. Their written reasons were all the same: jihad.
I found no joy in looking at the men we’d killed, no satisfaction, no sense of victory or accomplishment. But I wasn’t disturbed either. I fell back on an almost clinical detachment. The men were adults who chose to be here. I was an adult who chose to be here. They shot at us and missed. We shot at them and didn’t miss. The fight was fair. All the same, I was happy my platoon wasn’t here to see what they’d wrought. Sometimes it’s better not knowing.
As I walked away, I heard a shout behind me. “We got a live one over here!”
Far behind the trees, a groaning man lay in the grass, one of his legs nearly severed by machine gun fire. The grass around him was slick with blood. For a second, the Marines looked at me, eyes flashing between my face and my pistol. I think they thought I’d walk up and shoot him in the head, like a lame horse or a shark on a fishing charter. Colonel Ferrando elected to treat and evacuate the wounded man. I felt relieved. Two Marines slid him onto a stretcher and into the back of a Humvee, and he was whisked down the road to our staging area from the night before.
I collected the platoon, and we withdrew back down the highway, the last ones out just as we’d been the first ones in. The teams took their places in the defensive perimeter while Gunny Wynn and I searched for Sergeant Patrick. On our way across the field, neither of us said anything. We were preoccupied with the loss of one of our team leaders for the rest of the war, wondering at the stupidity of the mission that had nearly cost us our lives, and just plain exhausted from massive adrenaline overload. The sun had cleared the horizon, and it was a gorgeous morning. Dew on the grass sparkled in the light and reminded me of early-morning practice on the playing fields in high school.
We found the battalion’s sergeant major aggressively watching our approach, hands on his hips.
“Morning, Sergeant Major. Where’s Sergeant Patrick?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Well, he was evacuated back here a few hours ago after he got hit. What happened to him?” It was clear from the sergeant major’s confusion that he didn’t know of Patrick’s wound. He hadn’t been on the mission the previous evening and was so far out of the loop that he still didn’t know what was going on. We bypassed him and kept looking.
On a gentle hillside, we saw a supine form under a poncho liner. Patrick’s foot was bandaged, and an IV hung from his arm. “How you doing, Shawn?” I asked.
“Good, sir. What’s up, Gunny? How’s the platoon?”
“Fine. Stafford took some frag in the leg, but he’s OK. Glad to see you talking.”
“They couldn’t get a bird in last night, so I’m just waiting here. A truck’s supposed to take me to the field hospital.”
I told Sergeant Patrick about the wounded Syrian. “He’ll probably be riding out with you. You good with that?”
“Long as he don’t try nuthin’.”
“I don’t think he’s in any shape to try anything.”
Sergeant Patrick’s assistant team leader walked up. Rudy had evacuated Patrick the night before and then returned to lead his team during our second attempt to cross the bridge. “Damn, brother, you’re looking rough,” Rudy said with a grin. “The battalion commander always said you looked like a bum, and this morning I’d say he’s right.”
The four of us were laughing and joking, relieved to be alive and grateful to see Patrick, when the sergeant major ambled over.
“Hey, jokers, get the hell outta here and give Sergeant Patrick his space.”
I thought he was kidding and looked over at him. He was serious. “Get lost, Sergeant Major. You didn’t even know he was here,” I said.
“Now, Lieutenant, that ain’t right…” His voice trailed off. Walking away, he looked crestfallen — left out of the mission and then not even able to assert some authority in its wake.
We gathered Patrick’s gear and put together a small bag of things he might need in the hospital. The platoon rotated over in shifts to wish him well and joke about free rides home, million-dollar wounds, and the rest. Despite their humor, I knew that they were rattled. It was hard to see a man so respected get hit, and even harder to say goodbye. The bluster and jokes were a front for Sergeant Patrick’s benefit, but inside we hurt. Gingerly, we lifted his stretcher aboard an open truck and settled him comfortably, one last act of faith for a friend. We loaded the Syrian next and climbed down. Wynn and I waved as the truck pulled away, then we walked back down to the platoon.
