We're really lucky to have this story from Dan Murphy, who served as a US Marine from 2003-2009 and takes us back to a time before Fallujah became "a heavy-gauge chain around your neck with a chintzy participation trophy hanging from it."
Buckle up,
The Editors
When your team leader shakes you awake and says “Brief’s in ten mikes,” lay there a minute looking at the springs of the top rack. Imagine the warm quiet of your bedroom back home. Don’t fall back asleep. When he comes back and says “Yo!” eight minutes later, get the fuck up. Put on the dirty set of cammies, with the salt stains chalked around the collar, cuffs and chest. Save the clean set for when you get back.
Flies outside the hooch will spasm when the door opens, so close your mouth as you exit. Move with urgency. In the briefing room, note that you are last but technically—look at your watch—not late.
If your squad leader says the mission objective is “deny the enemy the ability to operate in sector 44,” be relieved that you don’t need to write down or remember anything because the mission is simple: drive or walk around and hope you don’t get attacked.
If it’s a day patrol—and you’ve only been in country a few months and it’s mostly the Iraqi Army that gets hit—plan on watching scratchy bootleg DVDs of 24 in those clean cammies when you Return To Base (RTB is the only good news you know of). If Gunny’s sober and has the generator working, grab a bag of ice and bring it to the staging area for your squad to cool down their Camelbaks. If the generator’s down, fuck that drunk shitbag.
Have with you at all times something to dip and shoot. Insert your shaded Oakley lenses and keep the clear ones and NVGs handy in your drop pouch in case you’re out all night.
If it’s a mounted patrol, bring coffee in a travel mug. Mount something big and lethal on your truck with as much ammo as you can fit. Keep your rifle handy for Well-Aimed Shots. When you see that the last guy left a Glacier Cherry Gatorade bottle half-full with dipspit, curse him. Also his squad and his whore mother before you rinse it out and pack a lip now that you’ve got yourself a pretty solid spitter for patrol.
If it’s a foot patrol: sweat through your boots.
Take a second before you pitch and heave on your flak jacket and become 70 lbs. heavier and climb into the turret of a six-ton bullet-and-bomb magnet and roll out into 130 degrees for hours with optional fuck-my-life stroll through streets lined with refuse and human excrement among residents who range from liberated to neutral to downright miffed with regard to your presence and non-residents who have made up their mind to harry your chances for clean cammies and 24. Take a second to recall that you volunteered for this.
Squirm, marvel under the flak jacket’s weight pressing on your collar bones, and joke with your squad about the over-under on number of discs herniated. “They’re saying the average grunt shrinks an inch every tour,” somebody will say without irony.
If you’re lead Vic gunner, grab some candy to throw at kids. Stow it in your left cargo pocket with the tin of Cope Straight (hard-dick) or Skoal Wild Cherry (pussy). Additionally, grab some Tootsie Rolls for the Chocolate Girl show. Stow these in your right cargo pocket with the plastic MRE packaging you keep there to dress the sucking chest wound that, if you ever see one, you’ll probably forget how to treat.
Geared-up and walking out to motor pool, you will still—even 50, 75, 127 days in—brace yourself for the added gravity of the sun’s direct and routine malice. When the wind blows, wonder what hair dryer is that big.
Standing in the turret, lock your knees and find that sweet spot where the rubber gasket of the opening in the roof cradles your lumbar and supports at least some of your body armor’s weight. This is as good as it gets.
As you roll out the wire, flip-off the Marine on guard because you know him and he’s a good guy, so fuck him. Stand tall and gaze at the open desert to the north. Brief ranks of date palm trees leaning in the wind, dust eddies, twirling flowers of plastic. Gaze as the convoy rounds that big looping loop of an overpass east from the Train Station and south to the city. If the sun is low, snap a few pictures of all the murderous orange haze, the shadows diving and careening off a cityscape that is beautiful from afar but far far far from beautiful.
Where the ramp spits you into the city limits, note the half-moon cavity cratered into the northbound side of Route Ethan. The spot 2nd Platoon got hit a week prior on their way back in.
When your driver yells to you over the engine’s chugging fuzz, “How we doing up there?” tell him, “Hot.”
When you get about 200m east down Route Alice, look for Chocolate Girl’s house. It’s the tan, concrete one about a football field past another tan, concrete house the whole platoon lit up that one time, and two doors before the Mercedes-sized scoop of earth that’s gone unfilled since you arrived in-country. Throw the turret’s ratchet lock so it won’t spin on its own. Retrieve the Tootsie Rolls from your pocket and take a hasty measurement of your ground speed. Compensate for the truck’s latent velocity and height relative to the wall and toss the Tootsie Rolls into Chocolate Girl’s courtyard. Patience here is important. It’s easy to forget that candy doesn’t maintain airspeed like a baseball or a frag. Don’t over-think. Listen for a cheer from the guys loaded up on the 7-ton behind you confirming that a girl on the third-floor balcony, who nobody bothers to pretend is probably older than everybody knows she probably is, flashes her bare torso for the patrol as it leers by. Try not to think about your little sister. Later, when word comes down that Chocolate Girl’s father complained to the city, which complained to the battalion commander, who writes a memo, try not to question whether anything was ever meaningful to you.
When you turn south on Route Charlie, tighten the fuck up. Hunker the fuck down. Get small into the mesh saddle. (In an hour, your ass will itch, but for now it’s good to go.) Disengage the turret lock to let that bitch glide so you can light targets up, inshallah, as they emerge.
Scan your sector. Watch the road in front of your truck.
Turn your weapon system side-to-side so you can maintain a low profile and keep eyes on the road through that deadly gap between the forward blast shield and the turret. With your non-dominant dickskinner, compulsively check ammo and EOF gear. Watch for wires protruding from or running along the patchy quilt of garbage in the road and lining the curbs. Also watch for newly-laid asphalt. Be aware of other vehicles on the road and their proximity to you and instructions from your vic commander. And listen. And look. And brace. And wait.
Men with killer mustaches stare blankly outside homes and shops in their practical dishdasha man-dresses, watch you pass, perhaps smoking, perhaps with fists on his hips. If you’ve been in-country a few quiet months: wave, smile. There is a purpose to all of this. If you’ve been in-country long enough, stare back and sling a rope of dipspit in his direction. When its tail dribbles down your chin, leave it there.
In neighborhoods relying on generator power, you encounter superhighways of wires strung across the street in sagging hammocks that are unaccommodating to the snagful horns and spires of your gun truck. You can:
A) reroute to avoid this obstacle (you fucking Democrat);
B) lock the turret in place, angle the gun high, and take the whole grid down (hard-dick);
C) lock the turret in place, angle the gun down and do your Boy Scout best to lift and guide the wires out of the way to minimize the damage (Democrat-lite);
or D) keep the gun up so the wires catch and brace the turret in place manually until they are pulled tight enough that, if you release at just the right moment, the stored tension will send you for a neat little twirl (a spinning little tea cup).
Deciding which bulky and/or suspicious plastic bag or disturbed gravel or animal carcass could be the lucky number is touchy calculus. Consider the potential hours spent waiting in the sun for EOD to arrive and see what’s what, multiplied by units of the subsequent resentment members of your patrol will reserve exclusively for you should the lucky number turn out to be, in fact, a fucking plastic bag, disturbed fucking gravel or a dead fucking dog. Weigh all of this against the dark possibility that the bag is an IED, the gravel is a pressure plate IED, and the dog is an explosively-formed projectile IED (an EFP—acronyms make things known, let you imagine a cozy handle on the thing) designed to punch a hole in the hull of your vic and your life. All of which dependent on how Chocolate Girl’s father is handling things.
Learn the difference between an explosion that is far away and one that is close and one that is a flash-bang negligently deployed inside the truck behind you by PFC Shmuckatelli. Which ends the patrol early to medevac a concussed, burned and pissed off Corporal to the hospital at the MEK. Be tactful about this random spurt of luck should it flick your pink little clit. Not too jubilant that you get to feast at the four-star chow hall all the fobbits are getting fatter at.
If the explosion is far away, yell “Boomski!” and pack another lip.
When the vehicle commander asks you, “How we looking up there?” say, “Fucking hot.”
Be On the Look Out for cars on the BOLO list: red Opels, blue Bongos, and white Opels. Also blue Opels. Stop, harass and search. It’s unclear if you look for Opels because:
A) there’s intel that drivers of suicide-vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices favor an affordable, no-frills, works-every-time model;
B) the movers and sheikhs conning your S-2 shop import and sell affordable, no-frills, works-every-time models for no money down and of 0% APR financing for 12 months;
or C) poor people complain less.
If you spot a BOLO, run it off the road and menace the driver from the car. If you have one with you, sic a terp on him. If not, say “Tafteesh.” He knows the drill. Pat-down (gloves on, hold your breath), doors open, trunk agape, all clear, have a good one.
If any vehicle not made in Detroit approaches within 100 yards of your patrol, learn quickly that the legally-sanctioned Escalation of Force—Show Shout Shove Shoot—is perfect-world doctrine. Conference room stuff. Where time conveniently slows so a 19 year-old knuckledragger can assess the car moving towards his unit at a particular distance and respond accordingly by Showing them your flaccid flag or waving frantically a hand-held Stop sign. Muster a motivated “Qif!” or “Awguf!” from the short list of Arabic words you’ve mastered. Notionally, they will stop. If they don’t stop and the car encroaches further, register the ineffectiveness of Showing and subsequently escalate said response according to said conference room doctrine by Shouting via pop-up flare. Remove the cap. Place it over the firing pin at the other end, leaving approximately a quarter-to-half inch of give (crucial, this last). Point the business-end at a shallow trajectory towards the subject vehicle, holding the canister with your non-dominant dickbeater over the top, like a spotting scope, or a dick. Slap the cap and fire that fucker hopefully straight into Chocolate Girl’s father’s windshield.
Or throw a flash-bang.
Notionally, they will stop. If they don’t stop, Shove them by putting a Well-Aimed Burst through the engine block. If you miss or they still don’t stop: Stop them. All within the seconds it takes a speeding Opel to, dependably and with minimal servicing, close with and destroy. You. Close with and destroy you.
If the boomski is close, somebody with authority will initiate a response. Sit back. Do as you’re told.
If it is very close. You learn that boomskis are like epiphanies of light that come and go faster and more violently than in movies. That they are not cleanly churning balls of fiery wonder that send henchmen whirling acrobatically through the air and little boys home high, excited for the sequel. Learn that boomskis go somewhere, every bit of them. That Hollywood doesn’t really explore how shrapnel works. At very close range, boomskis, you find, collapse the flat earth between the palms of two clapping hands. In a blindfolded flash of what inexplicably feels like electricity and drops you back down to the earth as if snapped-to from a blackout. In that brief chest-caving interlude, the reel of bodies vaulting and spinning is paused: it is reversed several frames and erased. In its place, during that crack the hands are still pressed together, homes, sanity and, yes, bodies and their subsidiaries are scattered in inconsiderate and incredible arrangements, revealed only when the reel inexplicably restarts. The choreography and stuntmen will go uncredited. A whole day of work unpaid. After, boomskis leave behind a maze of dust and a cracked sense of normal.
Some days, maybe nothing happens. Most days.
You drive, circle, tafteesh.
But say it’s a night patrol. And Chocolate Girl’s father and brothers have started burying double- and triple-stacked 155mm shells. Which every few nights uppercut Humvees and leave them looking like discarded Tootsie Roll wrappers. Wrestle with the urge to make known to your buddies the existence of a none-too-little sentimental letter you have written to your father. “Just in case.” Before mounting up, take a moment to yourself. Somewhere quiet. Secluded. Like a porta-shitter. Come to terms with dying. Badly, maybe. Contemplate being maimed. Pray, earnestly, that you will bring 100% of your dick and at least one dickbeater home. Look at a laminated picture of you with your girl—whether or not she’s still waiting or you even still care—because it seems the thing to do. Maybe run your finger down the dust-clouded plastic over her cheek. Remember.
What you should not and cannot yet do, is understand that pretty soon the letters Fallujah will forever be on the tip of your tongue. That its sewage will line every street you ever walk down, that you will still smell it in your dreams and on vacation in interesting and more hospitable impoverished nations. It is not yet a heavy-gauge chain around your neck with a chintzy participation trophy hanging from it. All of that will come later. And stay. Right now, frankly, you just cannot afford the extra weight.
If your command is not too much of a hard-on: a 15-ton up-armored troop carrier will replace the Humvee as lead Vic. Trade in the machine gun for a 50,000 candle-power God-light mounted in its place. Sweep the road without blinking. Tell the driver three miles per hour is way too fucking fast. Do not blink. There are no more days, months, deployments, only the next moment of uncleared road. You are so terrified that you have stopped sweating. Almost. You hold every breath. Do not for one fossilized second unpucker your asshole or blink.
Sometimes it is very close and you don’t even see it. Because it is behind you. And because vic 2, 3 or 4 did not follow exactly in the same cleared path. Or because Chocolate Girl’s father and brothers and uncles and cousins used a remote detonator or hardwired that bitch and are watching you even now. Maybe one night—say, if an EFP, in conjunction with an accelerant, has been employed, because Chocolate Girl’s whole fucking tribe is committed now and hooked in with some pros who have spent the last couple years honing their skill set in Ramadi and Baghdad—perhaps one night those Hollywood flames do begin to tickle and lick before swallowing the Marines riding in whatever crumpled wad of truck remains. It is a pyre that will burn a long, long time in the bow, aft, port and starboard of your brain. And in which case, screams.
When nothing happens. It just gets late. The sun is westbound, and you’re northbound on Ethan, returning to the Train Station. You spot a big fat trash bag 100 yards out and audaciously plopped right next to the boomski crater that hit 2nd platoon. It’s got a little tail running out of it, an antenna, maybe. You point it out and your vic commander calls a halt and raises the net. “Bravo COC, this is Bravo 3 Papa…Be advised we have a possible—”
Boom.
You feel the air shudder, hear shrapnel plink on the truck, which is quickly filled with the cluck and crackle of Marines laughing their asses off because it was barely a firecracker, kid stuff. Probably some horny teenager showing off for Chocolate Girl.
“COC, this is 3 Papa. Disregard, we’re RTB.” In which case, sweet.
Be sure to leave your spitter full for the next guy.
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Dan Murphy lives in Brooklyn. He holds an MFA from NYU and is working on his first novel. He served as a US Marine from 2003-2009 and now works as a private investigator. https://dan-murphy.com/