HADITHA
The simple fact is there is nothing glamorous about war, and little heroic. It is plummeting terror – sudden, arbitrary death, and frantic deal-making with what ever god you pray to. It is disemboweled children, corpses with white hair, draining abscesses, shattered bone, and sucking chest wounds. And you don't have to see it more than once to never want to see it again, even though you know it will replay in your mind's eye, every day for the rest of your life.
Innocents are murdered in every war. This doesn't make it right, just predictable. We tried to warn you, those of us who've seen it, that you were unleashing forces over which you would no longer have control. That this is what war is; chaotic, unyielding, and supremely arbitrary. That, just as the vanquished have lost, so do the victors lose; just as blood pours into the sand, so does humanity. How does it happen? Such a question can only be posed from the comfort of a living room, fully draped, carpeted and air conditioned. The true question is: how does it not?
Do you know the sound two men make when they are locked together fighting to the death? They whimper. That's right. They cry. I've seen it, I've heard it. They're scared shitless that the other guy is going to win and they roll around trying to find traction and trying desperately to strangle the other guy. And, finally, two more Marines jump in and now it's three against one (they didn't teach this part in grade school) and they subdue this guy and someone gets his knee on his windpipe and then they shoot him in the face for good measure. This is the reality. You find yourself taking deep pleasure on seeing an enemy corpse. Maybe you pump another round into it just to see the bullet go in. Just a simple white kid from southern California and a little corner of your brain is asking the question, 'Did you know you were capable of this? Did you ever think you could take pleasure in seeing a dead man?' But just a little corner of your brain is occupied with such questions, most of your brain is consumed with how do we get through the next day, the next week?
And the officers and NCOs hold on tight.
The first time you see 'collateral damage' innocent bystanders killed or wounded in a firefight, you recognize the moral depravity that is war. You think how terrible it all is and how could we have avoided hurting these people. You anguish over what has happened and at what part you may have played in it. That's the first time. But now your unit moves on and the objective, the village, the trail crossing, reverts to the enemy and one day you have to come back and take it again. And this time there are more dead innocents and you wonder why are they here; surely they knew what was about to happen. If it was my family I'd have moved them to a safe place, we would have abandoned whatever little we had in exchange for safety. That's what you think – the second time. And again you withdraw.
And the officers and NCOs watch for signs of anger, fatigue, and frustration. Maybe somebody gives a lecture about hearts and minds.
This is how it will happen. You will work hard. The heat and the lack of sleep will take their toll. You will hump. You will carry 50 pounds of gear; three or four full canteens of water, food, ammunition, first aid supplies, batteries, extra clothing, maybe a paperback or two, maybe a picture or two, a couple of old letters. You will hump all day. At night you will sit an ambush or radio watch or perimeter watch. Every third night you will sleep, if you can find a place. Your body weight will drop. You will suffer. After the first week, you will be able to lay down in the dirt and go to sleep anywhere; under a truck, against a wall, in direct sunlight, it won't matter, 10 minutes or two hours, you will grab those Z's wherever you can. You will be shot at, more than once. You will learn to get down on the ground quickly and get back up quickly. You will run, you will walk, you will squat down and stand back up, and then you will do it all over again. For hours. You will learn to be afraid most of the time. You will learn not to show it, most of the time. Stress will live in a knot, high on your back, at the base of your neck. There will be accidental discharges. There will be friendly-fire deaths. There will be self-destruction, suicide, murder. Men will die under heavy equipment. They will drown in rivers. They will be blown to pieces by an accidentally dropped grenade. Bursts of adrenaline will send your heart rate skyrocketing and you'll come down hard. Unconsciously, you will become an adrenaline junkie. You will see people hurt and killed. The wounds will be unimaginable. Some of the victims you will know. Some of them you will know well. You will involuntarily contemplate the desolate future these shattered men now face. The mind, being an essentially cruel instrument, will now present a vision of you lying there. This vision will be with you every hour of every day. You will see that indecision under fire costs lives. You will begin to see certain officers and certain NCOs as the enemy. You will face the anxiety of having your hands shake uncontrollably when you try to open a field dressing. It is likely you will see men cry. It is possible you will breakdown also. Your nerves shot, you will become impatient, your anger burning on a short fuse, your decision-making will suffer, you will begin to see your choices as simply being between two alternatives; shoot, don't shoot; go, don't go; get up, stay down. You will learn that the very first reaction to being startled is anger and that the companion of anxiety and stress is also anger. You will learn to channel your anger; it will become a tool, a friend. This is an illusion.
And the officers and NCOs are suffering too, and they're beginning to be afraid of their own men.
You will learn the rules of engagement. Oh, not those rules of engagement, those are for the people back home. No, you'll learn the real rules of engagement, you will come to believe that your chances of going home depend on your willingness to reject rational, civilized behavior because in rational, civilized behavior there are patterns and patterns means predictability and predictability means you will be ambushed, so you will embrace arbitrariness, you will become a wild card, that in combat the point is to make life a hell on earth for the other guy before he can do it to you. That means you will desecrate the bodies of their dead, burn their houses and shoot any son-of-a-bitch stupid enough to stand around and watch while you are binding the wounds of a fellow Marine. You will learn that eye contact, any eye contact, is a danger signal, that a child or a woman is just as capable of signaling your position as a man in a uniform. You will teach the enemy to fear the sound of your vehicles and to answer your questions quickly and with precision. You will teach him that, even then, he is not safe. You will teach him to avoid engaging your units. You will teach him to withdraw at the sound of your approach. You will teach him that once he starts it, you will finish it. And therein is your safety, your willingness to embrace the absolute brutality of ground combat more quickly and more completely than your enemy.
And the officers and NCOs are holding on for all they're worth. It won't be enough.
Now you revisit the village for a third time and your memory of this place is clear, and the unit's memory is clear also, for units have memories just as surely as individuals have memories, the stories told and retold, the deaths of friends, where the fire came from, what the villagers did, how they helped or how they didn't help and you begin to see them as the enemy as well. Not in any abstract way but as real, tangible enemy. Up and down the food chain. Women who cook for the fighters and sleep with them and give them a comfortable place out of the sun and hide them, children who give them joy, old people who look on the enemy as a mother looks on a son, a father who hides weapons for his son, and here they are looking at you and you can see they don't wish you well; a place of hidden weapons, of food and first aid, all for the enemy – the enemy's place.
How does it happen, you ask? How does it not?