We were looking for three things: trafficability, the condition of the Euphrates River bridge, and signs of the enemy. Based on tire tracks and vehicles in the photographs, the whole area looked trafficable. This was the Hawr al Hammar, the Iraqi marshes where people had lived a life apart until Saddam Hussein pumped the water away in retribution for the Shia uprisings of the 1990s. Their tragedy was to our benefit: what would have been incredibly difficult ground to traverse now appeared hard and dry. The bridge itself also looked promising. It was a simple concrete span of two lanes, about a hundred meters long and studded with streetlights. There were no signs of anything amiss. People and cars were seen crossing the river, and fishing skiffs slid under the bridge. No tanks, no guns, no minefields. Nothing at all to suggest that the people of Chibayish knew anything of our interest in their remote town.
We bent over the film late into the night. It was our opportunity to answer questions in the safety of the camp so that we could make better decisions faster in Iraq. By the time we left the tent, we had a solid grasp of what Sergeant Colbert called “the recon mission of a lifetime.”
I woke up the next morning to the bellowing of Major Benelli. The division, he said, would be conducting a “mobility rehearsal” that afternoon, and we had to be staged on the gravel road at noon, ready to leave. A tired voice in the corner asked how long the rehearsal would take.
“Six months, maybe a year.”
So this was it. The morning we had been waiting for. We spent the next six hours loading all our gear into the Humvees. Fuel, water, food, and ammunition were already portioned out, so it was a simple matter of arranging. But knowing this was for real, we packed and repacked. I agonized over the placement of every item. Everything had to be safe, accessible, and distributed among enough Humvees to keep the destruction of one vehicle from robbing us of a capability or a needed supply. By noon, the battalion’s eight platoons and their Humvees were loaded and ready.
Our platoon’s vehicles groaned over every bump leaving Matilda. They sagged beneath ten tons of provisions. Even so, I worried that we were forgetting something. When we stopped at the camp’s edge for a radio check, Gunny Wynn and I raided an abandoned tent, piling cases of water and MREs into the back of our gorged Humvee. I thought of the patrol at Bridgeport and the lesson that recon teams never have enough food or water.
We passed a series of U.S. Army camps named for the battlefields of 9/11 — New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Bradley fighting vehicles and Army tanker trucks joined the convoys of Marine vehicles snaking north toward the border. Military planners had tried valiantly to build roads that could support a mass mobilization. It surprised me to see slabs of concrete peeking from beneath the drifting sand. But the desert always won. The roads were sand with patches of pavement, not the other way around. Rooster tails of dust rose from each pair of tires. Drivers wore goggles and bandannas. Everyone hacked and cursed and blew wads of sandy snot through open windows.
On that drive north from Matilda to the Iraqi border, I felt no fear, no apprehension. I felt relief. I’d realized that war was inevitable for some time. I had nursed illusions about a diplomatic solution, but I knew we wouldn’t be home until a war had been fought and won. We were ready. The platoon was physically and psychologically primed. Being ready and staying ready are, however, two different challenges. Another month of waiting in the desert would dull us. The poor diet, lack of sleep, spotty exercise, stress of separation, and uncertainty would take a measurable toll. We weren’t a gun to be cocked and put on the table. More like a slingshot. Load a stone, pull it back, and wait. Wait too long and the elastic goes slack, leaving you standing there with only a rock.
The sun set and the moon rose as we crept along. A full moon, washing the desert with a silvery glow. I winced as I watched Humvees moving many kilometers off our flanks. One of the U.S. military’s greatest advantages is its night-fighting ability, and we had hoped to launch our first attack on the Iraqis under only 20 or 30 percent illumination. This was closer to 100 percent. We swallowed our regrets. So be it. If ordered, we would attack under a full moon.
