The Killer Elite, Part Two: From Hell to Baghdad

Espera was among the first Marines on the ground in Afghanistan and spent forty-five days living in a hole there, but in that war he was hardly shot at. Now, he says, he regrets having re-enlisted after Afghanistan. "What was I thinking, dawg?" he asks. "Every morning I think I'm going to die. For what? So some colonel can make general by throwing us into another firefight?"

The next night, a spy plane reports a potential Iraqi armored column moving toward First Recon's perimeter, and Marines near Colbert's position claim to have counted as many as 140 Iraqi vehicles, headlights inexplicably on. Colbert, who also observes the lights, scoffs at the report. "Those are the lights of a village," he tells his men.

His opinion is not shared by others. At high levels within the division, the alarm is sounded that First Recon is about to be hammered by a sizable Iraqi armored force. U.S. military doctrine is pretty straightforward in situations like this: If there even appears to be an imminent threat, bomb the shit out of it. One of First Recon's officers, Capt. Stephen Kintzley, puts it this way: "We get a few random shots, and we fire back with such overwhelming force that we stomp them. I call it disciplining the Hajjis," he says, using a nickname for Iraqis common among U.S. military personnel.

In the next few hours, wave after wave of attack jets and bombers drop an estimated 8,000 pounds of ordnance around the camp. The next day, Recon sends out a foot patrol to do bomb-damage assessment. They see lots of craters outside a village, but no sign of any armor. Sgt. Damon Fawcett of First Recon's Alpha Company, which led one of the patrols, says, "We could have gone farther. Bombs fell in areas we didn't get to see, but I believe they didn't want us to investigate too much and find out possibly that we'd hit homes or civilians. Or just nothing at all."

On March 30th, First Recon pulls back from the airfield and joins up with the main Marine battle force in central Iraq, Regimental Combat Team One, camped out by Highway 7, the main road between An Nasiriyah and Al Kut. Comprising approximately 7,000 Marines, RCT 1 is about twenty times larger than First Recon and, with nearly 200 tanks and armored vehicles, much better armed. Evidently feeling secure with so much armor in the vicinity, battalion command allows the men to go to sleep without digging the usual holes that protect them from shrapnel in case of an attack.

At about midnight, I awaken as a series of explosions turns the field across the battalion's row of Humvees into what looks like a sea of molten orange and blue liquid. In my effort to roll underneath the Humvee for protection, I slam into Person, sleeping next to me. "Don't worry about that," he says over the roar. "That's our artillery. It's just danger-close." Then he goes back to sleep.

The next morning, the men are informed that they are lucky to be alive — they were nearly bombarded by Iraqi artillery, not "danger-close" American rounds. Lt. Nathan Fick, commander of Bravo Second Platoon, delivers the news with a grimly amused smile: "That Iraqi rocket system kills everything in an entire grid square" — a square kilometer. "They knew our coordinates and came within a few hundred meters of us. We got lucky, again."

Fick also tells the men that the battalion is resuming its drive north. "We're following the Al Gharraf canal, doing a movement to contact." He offers another grimly amused smile. This means the battalion will be rolling in the open toward expected ambush points, trying to flush out the enemy. First Recon will take the west side of the canal and move ahead of RCT 1, which will be on the opposite bank. First Recon's objective is Al Hayy, a town of about 40,000. It's a Ba'ath Party headquarters and home to a large Republican Guard unit.

At about eight o'clock, I set out with Colbert's team, back in the Humvee with Trombley on the SAW machine gun to my left, Cpl. Walt Hasser on the Mark-19 grenade launcher in the turret, Person at the wheel and Colbert in command in the front passenger seat. The battalion is moving in a single-file convoy on a winding route that passes through small, walled villages, grassy fields, palm groves and dried mud flats sliced with trenches — excellent cover for enemy shooters. Within twenty minutes of crossing the canal and turning onto a narrow dirt trail, the Marines begin to take sporadic fire from small arms, machine guns and mortars, but no one is able to spot the enemy positions. Despite the intermittent gunfire, shepherds, women and children flock out of their houses, waving and smiling.