The Killer Elite, Part Three: The Battle For Baghdad

Horsehead is dead. The beloved former First Sergeant in the Marine First Reconnaissance Battalion, a powerfully built 230-pound African-American named Edward Smith, was felled by an enemy mortar or artillery blast while riding atop an armored vehicle outside Baghdad on April 4th. He died in a military hospital the next day. Horsehead, 38, had transferred out of First Recon to an infantry unit before the war started. News of his death hits the Recon battalion hard. Sgt. Rudy Reyes is one of the first to hear of it. He moves along the camp's perimeter just outside Baghdad, spreading the word. "Hey, brother," he says softly, "I just came by to tell you Horsehead died last night."

Now, a couple of days later, following a brief sundown memorial around an M-4 rifle planted upright in the dirt in honor of their fallen comrade — Marines in Bravo Company's Second Platoon gather under their camouflage nets trading Horsehead stories. Reyes repeats a phrase Horsehead always used back home at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. Before loaning anyone his truck, which had an extensive sound-equalizer system, he'd say, "You can drive my truck. But don't fuck with my volumes." For some reason, repeating the phrase makes Reyes laugh almost to the verge of tears.

It's April 8th. Army and Marine units began their final assault on Baghdad several hours ago. First Recon, however, will not be heading into the Iraqi capital just yet. It's feared that Iraqi Republican Guard units may be massing for a counterattack in a town called Ba'qubah, fifty kilometers north of Baghdad. First Recon receives orders to head north and attack these forces. Sgt. Brad Colbert, whose team I am riding with, and the rest of the Marines stop reminiscing about Horsehead and load their Humvees.

About two hundred Recon Marines are slated for this mission. If the worst-case fears of their commanders are true, they will be confronting several thousand Iraqis in tanks. In the best-case scenario, they will merely be assaulting through about thirty kilometers of known ambush points along the route to Ba'qubah. "Once again, we will be at the absolute tippity-tip of the spear, going into the unknown," says Lt. Nathaniel Fick, briefing his men just before the mission. Most of the Marines are in high spirits. "It beats sitting around doing nothing while everybody else gets to have fun attacking Baghdad," says Cpl. Joshua Person before taking his position in the driver's seat of Colbert's Humvee. Colbert, however, just stares out his window at the fading light and mumbles something I can't quite make out. I ask him to repeat it, and he waves it off. "It was nothing," he says. "I was just thinking about Horsehead."