Spent Shell Casings Read online

  The reactions were incendiary at points, comical at others. Sad, drunk faces at the bar, cowboy hats atop such, slurring their disdain. It was at these moments that Derrick would snap to the POA31 and give the slowest, most “fuck you” salute in the world. Ike and I could do nothing but cheer him on, laugh, and occasionally see if a crowd was gathering anywhere to try and take us out.

  Derrick took off to find girls and conveniently had the ammo pouch secured to his waist, allowing him to peruse the dance floor with a full Bud Light in tow. I scanned the bar. One guy was still sunk in his sad rage; slowly mortaring his stare from Derrick to myself and Ike. Only suicidal civilians or manically disrespectful boots would waltz in—one giving him a salute, then running off to find pussy. Ike and I could only help by yelling across the bar, “What?!” “What, pussy?!”

  At about an hour in, still not a single punch had been thrown. This was right around the time a long-standing theory of mine originated, one that I’ve been nurturing for many years since. It has only been solidified traveling to the world’s blacklists: Look sick enough and even the predators leave you alone. We behaved so flamboyantly, so campy, those who most certainly had been contemplating killing us had to consider the legitimate possibility they’d very well get the shit kicked out of them by a bunch of clowns.

  At some point our late-party made it. Checking the Nextel clipped to his web belt, Ike informed us of their arrival. The place had packed itself like a draft-sponsored slaughter house, so we slipped past chuckles and mean-mugs to get out the front door. Outside somehow wasn’t much better. It almost looked like the waning stages of some crime scene: Yellow “caution” tape rolled up and blood stains hosed to obscurity, all that is left is the gaggle of milling onlookers. Our late-party were yet to be identified, so we decided to hang out and continue our thespianic assault on all in eye-shot.

  Filing out of a van, similar to the one that had brought us, a genuine group of boots emerged. The Real Motivators. Standing in a makeshift formation no less, they had donned as much regalia as we had. There was an odd, prolonged exchange of glances between our groups.

  “Who is the father of Marine Corps aviation?” I lobbed at them.

  “AA Cunningham” answered their leader. They were allowed to pass, and as I watched them march into bar, I wondered if they’d feel the mounting blowback from our righteous false motivation.

  Our people appeared. It was time to get back inside. But it was then that the most glorious thing happened.

  A note on military wives: the officer wife and the enlisted wife are often substantially different subspecies. The officer wife is one to brag about how she had met her husband (now an O-3 and a motor transport officer somewhere in 2D FSSG32) when she was a college cheerleader and him a quarterback for Auburn. She somehow maintains an existence determined to be unaffected by the dragnet of the military town life. With a fresh pedicure and some Ashtanga yoga under her belt, she may be seen gliding throughout the PX33 with a smile still reflecting the romantic wedding photos of her and her warrior-poet hubby in his dress uniform. Christmas cards with a cute little “Semper Fi” in golden cursive, a Lexus parked outside the commissary, and occasionally assuming her husband’s rank among the other wives in her husband’s unit, the officer wife is some strange sorority girl, grown up, and can make a person forget they are in one of the finest institutions in the world for breeding anger, OCD, and risk intolerance.

  The enlisted wife, however, is a whole other gallon of piss in the water bull. Having met her husband when he was an E-2, back from his first deployment, and buying a sports car at 50 percent APR, she has seen the side of the Corps left out of the recruiting posters. Gaining one child and fifteen pounds per husband’s deployments, she can be seen in the Taurus with a hood not matching the paint job of the rest of the car, squeaking past you and yelling, “Slow down! Do you know who the fuck my husband is?!” as your eyes catch a sticker: a bouquet of flowers and the words “Marine Wife: toughest job in the Corps.” Dumpy, pissed off, and with crimped hair, the enlisted wife is often both a source of never-ending hilarity as well as a penis depot when her federal paycheck provider is OCONUS34.

  The arrival of the enlisted wives, dressed to the nines in the hopes of getting plowed by some J-Ville farmer, all on their deployed husband’s dollar, immediately caught our attention. Derrick, being the natural point man that he was, started the movement toward them.

  “Excuse me, ladies” he said. “Would any of you like to dance with a United States Marine?”

  A group of penguins standing on their small block of ice, dressed like hookers and laughing like hyenas: “What the fuck!? Are you in MCT35 or something?!” Derrick snapped to the position of attention, allowing them to shower him with insults fueled by loathing and boxed wine. “You are fucking pathetic—look at you.” one burst.

  I couldn’t just leave him there, taking it from those glacial Dependapotami36. “Hey!” I yelled, then set them straight. “We are going to be grunts soon; we are in ITB37.”

  “Oh, my fucking god, you guys are fucking losers.” it continued. “Big men. Biiggg Men.”

  The blatant irony, flying under the radar of the departing gaggle, was that we were making fun of the entire culture, by complete belligerent satire. Those who joined one of the most beloved fighting forces in all of human history just to run screaming to the first non-combat position available. Those who hid behind rank, or capitalized on the mythos of the Marines, while doing next to nothing to preserve it. Those who looked at the US military as a welfare check with a stupid haircut; the disgusting, bloated out-in-towners; the hilarious and harmless boots; and the whole damn shit show.

  We reentered.

  With our full party gathered and the beer really setting in, all I recall next was Derrick and me boogying with a bunch of girls on the dance floor. Many got such a kick out of our ensemble that we were approached like a blue light special.

  And of course, I fell in love. Wedged between two women, being held together like a slowly swaying sandwich, about to come unglued at the first abrupt turn, I. . . nay, we slow danced as some twangy, cliché, country love ballad was playing. Our late group, nowhere as drunk or brazen, stood sober, and likely in disgusted amazement, as I serenaded the two of them by singing along with the song: “And I’llllll beeee your maaaannnnnn.”

  The drunken Recon Boots split up. I left with my two dance partners, and a bald guy one had picked up. Ending up in some trailer, of course, I face-planted into the hairiest muff of my career. The next day, the bald guy (who had ended up with the other gal) gave me a ride back to Courthouse Bay. It was not really an awkward ride in the traditional sense, but I learned he was a grunt, teaching at SOI, and that he failed the underwater swim during the recon screening.

  A few weeks later I received a call. An extreme hickish “Is this Day-vud?” was on the other end. I recognized the voice immediately: the unruly-bush owner. I hung up and wiped my phone with rubbing alcohol. Afterward, I continued prepping my gear for a few days out in the field.

  7

  HEARTS AND MINDS

  “The United States and its Coalition partners are attempting to win the hearts and minds of the people in Iraq . . .”

  —Congressional Hearing, June 2004

  “Two in the heart, one in the mind.”

  —Smirking twenty-year-old tool of foreign policy, holding a 5.56×45-millimeter NATO cartridge, July 2004

  FALL 2004

  Scattered outside the front entrance of the Iraqi home, as the rest of my platoon waited on the road for the wrecker, we had several military-aged males in custody. Nighttime. The air had a faint, familiar chill to it. It was a night like the ones in Georgia, when my mother would have us stay with her relatives in the old manor. I could have been under the giant magnolias, had it not been for the pistol being forced into the detainee’s mouth.

  The IED had exploded, taking flesh, life, and limb. Right before it had gotten dark, from the other side of the Euphrat
es, a minaret had emitted the evening prayer. Our brand new platoon sergeant, attached to the convoy that would be our original platoon sergeant’s final, was anything but “new.” As a lone open-back Humvee had sped off with our injured (and our platoon commander), he stepped down from some obscure senior enlisted administrative position, and in a moment returned to what he did best.

  He had also observed what I induced: the detonation point of the bomb perfectly aligned with a telephone pole—when viewed from the minaret, which had eerily turned to a ruckus soon after the blast. We had driven like a row of paper dolls, and the detonator targeted our rear vehicle. Unable to reach the tower, we could, however, reach the house owning the front yard that had contained the IED. Not really a yard, in the common understanding of the term; more the land that happened to merely occupy the physical space between the front of the house and the berm we had menacingly descended. On the sandy lawn, spread about like the sporadic shrubberies, an assortment of my platoons more frustrated or sadistic were down to assist in Gunny’s38 interrogation.

  There was no method, only rage. We had spent months slogging through the province, raiding houses, and all we had to show for it were a couple of gunfights, mortar impacts all around us, and a few KIA39 from bullshit indirect fire. I wanted my hands on someone, and I think most of my platoon was in thousand-yard agreement.

  Five men pulled out of the house; it didn’t take long. The one sitting closest to me: kicked in his lower back until my left foot ached in pain. The one with the pistol in his reluctant, bearded mouth: on his back and mumbling Arabic words around the metal. A young one, late-teen perhaps, said aloud “No, I won’t talk” in proficient enough English to warrant Gunny’s undivided attention. With our interpreter in tow, he had the recalcitrant bilinguist off his feet, pinned against the wall. All around, one-sided skirmishes erupted. A muzzle thump here, choke-hold there—even the interpreter got in a bitch slap. The air cooled as a breeze came in off the river, working its way through the body armor and tickling my spine.

  Each Marine wore his NVGs40. In these moments the world is shades of green and black. There is a paradoxical sense of both detachment and encapsulation that easily overwhelms anyone looking at the world this way—a claustrophobia that, once embraced, results in a comfortable loneliness. Special operations units overwhelmingly work at night. When night vision becomes standard vision, for some, solipsism embeds into the technical craft that fills the hours of our clandestine work. When a particular strike to a detainee resulted in a platoon mate exclaiming, “Damn, Rose,” he could have been talking to a bush of the same nomenclature on the other side of the world.

  I was wearing PVS-15s—aviator NVGS. They were excellent for driving, but while mobilizing on foot it took just a moment to refocus the depth. On this night, occupied by a frustration that stuck to the back of one’s teeth, then consumed after by the thrill of physical retribution, I had forgotten to adjust them fully.

  The detainees knew something: If they didn’t detonate it, they buried it for the detonator; if they didn’t bury it, they knew who did. After the rumble, Gunny wanted them segregated. All detainees were marched past me, single file, one at a time. It was because of some small ditch, or outer wall—I can’t remember which, and it didn’t matter. I just took advantage of the position. The first one was being escorted right by me. As I held my rifle with my right hand, I rocketed a left hook, coming from the hips and toward the first detainee’s face. Unfortunately for the Marine escorting him, the same guy who a moment prior had him sucking on his M9 Beretta, the unadjusted depth of my NVGs became painfully known. I whiffed right past the detainee’s head and landed my index knuckle squarely in an eye socket of his captor.

  “O shit! I. . . I’m sorry, dude.” I said.

  “Fuck!”

  “For real, bro, I am so fuckin’ sorry.” After a moment, “you can punch me in the face if it makes you feel better.”

  “No. Just—ugh!”

  After an extremely awkward pause, he collected himself, resuming their walk past me, holding the bewildered, zip-tied Iraqi’s arms with one hand, holding his face with the other. I adjusted my NVGS, already putting together my timid full apology for later.

  As his curses and low murmurs faded into the distance, I saw the next one coming my way. Adjusting my footing, I bounced up and down to sort of get my confidence back. This next bearded face was going to receive it for the both of them.

  There is little sensation that resembles the breaking of nose cartilage. Bludgeoned by the weapon of choice, if the weapon happens to be a part of your body, you can feel the give of hard tissue, followed by a crisp, nauseating crack.

  Truth be told, I haven’t the foggiest idea what information, if any, our platoon extracted from those men. If those men weren’t fighting against us already, they probably joined the opposing team soon after. Creating the insurgency, through a series of collateral damage and bad PR, was just the reality there.

  At some point, they were released, sent limping back to their house as we ascended the berm and rejoined the rest of our platoon. I surveyed the damage of the IED blast. The targeted Humvee looked like a green, sand and dust covered dog that had been put to sleep. A few of its doors were open, one missing; the passenger side of the Humvee was bent in, making a deformed boomerang shape on the hardball. For some reason the wrecker and our horrendously late QRF41 were arriving at the same time, the former from the west and the latter from the east. Back on the hardball, a couple of dim streetlights hung over our vehicles. NVGS off, some opened cans of chewing tobacco, some explained to the others who stayed with the vehicles what had transpired in the violent darkness. The QRF vehicles couldn’t be seen, but in the stillness their diesel-engine rumbles could be heard. Only a few more twists and turns and they would emerge at the rear of our convoy.

  Shots rang out.

  The fuckhead enemy had been armed, and lying in wait, while we were distracted playing Gestapo.

  Covering behind an open Humvee door, I looked for a muzzle flash. Nothing. Was it just more pop shots, some Iraqi with an AK-47 hoping to score a lucky hit? Buttstock in the pocket of my shoulder, barrel to the road, I hoped and prayed the same people responsible for maiming our platoon were about to make their presence known. A voice suddenly came over the radio. Uh-huh, Uh-huh. . .Roger. Our QRF had shot a vehicle that had been quickly approaching them. Operating within the ROE42, they protected their lives from the very legitimate threat of VBIEDs43. It was a family in the shot-up vehicle. A five-year-old had been shot and killed.

  The wrecker arrived, and along with it the cold. Sapped of aggression, and replaced with the dull weariness that often overtakes a combat zone, time dragged achingly. Other than a few dark shapes walking up and down the road, and the wrecker crew hooking up our destroyed Humvee, people ossified in the seats and turrets. The cold was so intense that night. It had a way of undressing you. Finally, the wrecker was ready to go, and the convoy of Misfit 2, QRF, the laden wrecker, and the wrecker’s security began to make the long trek back to Camp Fallujah. Canals I had seen many times in daylight looked different that night. The shades of green seemed to capture the cold, making everything look ancient and alien. Crawling past landmarks and tiny villages, the occasional voice cracked through the radio. Around dawn we saw the front gate.

  Word had long since reached our battalion about the hit we took. The injured had arrived there many hours prior, some of whom had already landed in Baghdad for surgery. Humvees parked in our motor pool, gear brought into our team room; our first sergeant met us at the door with tin-foil wrapped dinners. The night before had been thanksgiving, a thing that meant something to some people. I had forgotten all about it, and it wasn’t until the following Thanksgiving, this time at my aunt’s house, that it meant anything at all. Not the stupidity of celebrating pagans teaching zealots how to grow corn, nor the food or the football, but that the day itself was connected forever to an extraordinary memory.

  Taking my plate
from my first sergeant’s hand, I heard from behind me Derrick say, “Fuck that—I don’t want his pity.” I didn’t either, I thought, as I bit into the white meat.

  Our original platoon sergeant got it the worst; making it all the way to Germany before finally succumbing to his wounds. Not long after was the funeral, held in camp and put together with cheap recording equipment, particle board, and one large, haunting printout of our dead. The night before, three other guys and I snorted a bunch of Adderall. A platoon mate had his sister mail it occasionally. He said it helped him stay awake on the turret for the lengthy night-movements. We had chopped, snorted, and talked amid my extremely focused and one-time-only poetry readings until it was dawn. Suddenly in a formation, the ceremony was a suspended, electrifled freak-out. Staring at the mural of the fallen, synthetic meth still pumped through me—a wide-eyed statue of jaw-clenched insomnia.

  Twelve hours later, without so much as a cat nap, we were tasked to go on a twenty-four-hour mission. Driving outside the wire, PVS-15s donned, I wasn’t certain if I was ever going to sleep again. As best I could, I calibrated my general duties: breaks, accelerator, gear shifter, safety, fire, full automatic, pull pin and throw the heavy part. . . Just about the moment I was ready to pray to God for some halting intervention, Allah beat him to the punch. Our attachments, some Army cavalry guys, flipped their Humvee and several had broken ribs. We returned home. The mission was aborted. I fell asleep two days later.

  8

  FUCK YOU, POGS?

  SUMMER 2003

  Being in artillery was existing in middle ground. In one sense I was in a regiment, meaning change of command ceremonies, Chinese field days, and tired speeches from first sergeants six months from retirement. It also meant I was just a number, and a god damn low one at that. An E-2 in a full regiment is that of the worker bee: nameless, expendable, and good for one thing. The artillery regiment shared the lifestyle of the infantry regiment, as far as garrison duties and annoyances go. But, while no doubt brutal and tried and true in combat, artillery is not infantry.