FRAGO
LT says drop the fucking house. Roger that. We go to drop the fucking house.
I gather my guys, make a sand-table diagram. I’ve got a dip in while I brief, and the dip spit’s evaporating as soon as it hits the ground.
HUMINT says the place is an IED factory filled with some bad motherfucking hajjis, including one pretty high up on the BOLO list. SALUTE report says there’s a fire team–sized element armed with AKs, RPKs, RPGs, maybe a Dragunov.
I make 2nd Fire Team the main effort. That’s Corporal Sweet’s team, and Sweet’s a fucking rock star. Stellar NCO. Sweet’s SAW gunner is PFC Dyer, and Dyer’s excited because here’s a chance to finally pop his cherry and shoot somebody. He’s nineteen, one of our baby-wipe killers, and all he’s killed so far in the Corps has been paper.
I put 1st Fire Team in support. Corporal Moore’s team. Moore’s a bit of a motard, always thinks his fire team should be main effort, like it’s a fucking prize. He could be less oo-rah, but he’s good to go.
I put 3rd Fire Team in reserve, as usual. They’re Malrosio’s, and he’s dumber than Fabio on two bottles of NyQuil. 3rd’s had an easy deployment so far because I don’t give his team anything too complicated. Sometimes it helps to be led by an idiot.
When we get to the house, the other squads set a cordon and we tear down the road and bust in the back door. M870 with lockbuster shells. Boom, and we go.
Back door leads to the kitchen. Right, clear. Left, clear. Overhead, clear. Rear, clear. Kitchen, clear. We roll through, don’t stack, just roll. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Corporal Sweet’s fire team clears houses like water running down a stream.
Next room there’s AK fire as soon as we go through the doorway, but we’re better shots. End state is two hajjis, no survivable wounds, no injuries on our side, just another day in paradise. Except Corporal Sweet leads 2nd Fire Team to the bedroom and hajji jumps out shooting blind from the hip and plugs lucky into Corporal Sweet. Two get stopped by his SAPI plate, but one goes through the nut protector and into his thigh. PFC Dyer’s on Sweet’s ass, second man through the door, and he fires a burst of 5.56 into hajji’s face. We clear the bedroom, call, Corpsman up, and Dyer drops down to pack Sweet’s wound. It’s bleeding bright red, maybe hit the femoral.
We keep moving. 1st Fire Team steps up and Doc P’s in with Dyer on Corporal Sweet now and, oh, hajji’s still breathing, so Doc tells Dyer, Go pack the wound in hajji’s face, do the four life-saving steps, restore the breathing, stop the bleeding, protect the wound, treat for shock. I get on the IISR to the LT to call for CASEVAC.
We keep moving. Bedroom, clear. Head, clear. Pantry, clear. Whatever the fuck this room is, clear. First deck, clear.
LT gets on and says they’ve got a CH-46 in the air coming to save Sweet’s life. He asks for status, so I shoot Doc P a look like, WIA or KIA? Doc says, Urgent, no joke, and I tell the LT as we stack outside the door to the basement.
We drop a flashbang, and when it goes off we flow downstairs. There’s three down there. One’s al-Qaeda, but he’s shook by the flashbang and there’s no weapon in his hands. He looks like he’s seventeen and scared, and when we flex-cuff him and start to go through all the usual EPW shit, he pisses himself. That happens sometimes.
No threat from the other two in the basement, a policeman and a jundi from the 1st Iraqi Army Division. They’re tied to a chair in front of a video camera on a tripod. They’re beat to hell, and there’s a nice pool of blood working the floor.
Corporal Moore sees the camera and the two guys who’ve been tortured. Real quiet he says, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. But we all know what this is.
Lance Corporal McKeown looks at the camera and says, Al-Qaeda makes the worst pornos ever.
Moore looks over at the EPW, who we’ve got facedown on the deck, flexcuffed and blindfolded, and says, You son of a bitch cunt-ass SOB. Moore takes a step forward, but I stop him.
1st Fire Team unties the two guys and starts first aid. AQI used wire to strap them to the chairs and it’s dug into their skin, so getting them loose is tricky without stripping off more flesh. Also, something’s wrong with their feet. I say, Bring ’em to the CCP Doc’s set up on the first deck. The house is clear now, whole thing took under two mikes, so pretty good except for Sweet, and that’s a real motherfucker. Any groin injury’s a nightmare wound.
In the basement there’s a weapons cache, usual shit, AKs and RPKs, homemade explosive, RPGs, some rusty 122 mm arty shells. I leave that to Moore and go check on Sweet.
Upstairs, I see Doc’s already pulled out the QuikClot and put it on the wound. A bad sign, and that QuikClot shit burns, but Sweet forces a grin. He gives me a thumbs-up, looks down at Doc working on his thigh, and says, Hey, Doc, you wanna give me a BJ while you’re down there? Doc doesn’t look up.
PFC Dyer’s working on the hajji he shot in the face. I see he’s pulled apart his own IFAK to get gauze for the hajji. Not supposed to do that. Your IFAK is for you.
Hajji’s bad. It looks like half the jaw is gone. There’s bits of the beard, still attached to skin, sitting on the other side of the room. Dyer’s holding down hard on the gauze to stop the bleeding, and I can see he’s got the look. So I grab Lance Corporal Weber and tell him to take over from Dyer, give him a break.
CH-46 touches down in under ten mikes. That’s enough time for Sweet to stop joking and start saying the usual shit people say when they’ve been hit bad. I tell him we won’t let him die. I don’t know if I’m lying or not.
We take Sweet out with the hajji and the IP and the jundi and load ’em all up and they’re off to TQ. I tell the squad Sweet’s got a good shot. You make it to Surgical with a pulse, you’ll probably leave with one.
Once the CASEVAC leaves, it’s mostly waiting. I give the LT my SITREP. He passes it on to Ops and they tell him that the CO said, Bravo Zulu, whatever the fuck that means.
I make sure security’s posted and that nobody’s in a postcombat slump. I’m definitely not. Normally after a raid the adrenaline taps out and I want to curl up in a ball and take a nap. Not with Sweet up in the air, though.
The guys are posted right. Malrosio’s team, God help us, in overwatch. Sweet’s team is not in a good way.
Dyer’s at one of the main room windows, but he’s not really there. Not tactical. First, he’s too close. Second, not even really scanning. An insurgent could probably walk up and grab his balls before he noticed. And Dyer’s covered in blood, Sweet’s and the hajji’s, probably. Packing a wound isn’t pretty. The sleeves of his flight suit are drenched.
I tell him, Come here. And since the main room’s got two bodies, I tell Moore he’s in charge for a second and walk Dyer to the kitchen and say, Strip.
He looks at me.
You can’t wear those, I say.
He strips and I do too. I see the huge Superman S he got tattooed on his chest before deployment. Everyone makes fun of him for that, but I don’t say anything now. I take off my flight suit and give it to him. I put my PPE back on, roll up Dyer’s suit under my arm, and walk back out into the main room wearing just my boots, my flak, my skivvy shorts, and my Kevlar. My legs and arms haven’t seen the sun in a while and are pale as pigeon shit. Moore sees me and starts smiling. McKeown sees Moore smiling and starts cracking up. I’m like, Fuck you, I look sexy.
LT’s in a corner with Doc. He takes in my legs sticking out of my flak and doesn’t smile, just says, Good thing you wore skivvies today.
I say, Hey, Doc, what the fuck? And I nod toward the door to the basement.
Doc shakes his head. Beat up pretty bad, he says. I think with hoses. A lot of lacerations all over their skin and the bottoms of their feet especially. And they took a power drill through their ankles, right at the joint, so they’re pretty much fucked for life. Not life-threatening, though.
LT says, They were gonna videotape them.
Doc says, They put them up in front of the camera, like, “Get ready to die, kuffar,” and then realized they were out of film.
LT says, There’s two more out there. The ones they sent to get film. Probably never see them again, but keep an eye. One might get stupid and try something.
Sir, I hope so, I say.
I go to tell the Marines, but the LT puts a hand on my shoulder. He says quietly, Sergeant, you ever seen anything like this before?
Sometimes I forget it’s his first deployment. I shrug. Adrenaline’s gone now, and I’ve got that deep tired. Not this, exactly, I say, but there’s not much that’d surprise me. At least it’s not kids.
LT nods.
Sir, I say, don’t let yourself think about it until we’re back in the States.
Right, he says. He looks out to the road and adds, Well, EOD’s coming for the cache. They said don’t fuck with anything.
I say, I don’t play with bombs, sir.
He says, As soon as they’re done, we go check on Sweet. He’s at TQ.
He okay? I say.
He will be, he says.