When he was a kid growing up in New Mexico, PFC Sammy Rhodes used to lie on the summer banks of a pond and watch the dragonflies quick-dart here and there, hovering sometimes above a lily pad or sprig of water weed sticking up above the surface. They were long-bodied, slender little insects with wings that beat so fast they blurred silver. Black Hawk helicopters reminded him of giant dragonflies, only darker with guns and rockets.
The two choppers on the pad at Jusufiyah turned over their engines. Blades curving toward the ground from their own weight began to build up centrifugal force and straighten out. Red-and-green running lights winked on and off in the darkness; they would black out once the aircraft lifted off and reached altitude, remain blacked out until the two birds had airlifted Delta Company’s First Platoon onto the outskirts of Kharghouli Village. For most of the men, tonight’s would be their first combat mission.
They were nervous about it, as well as curious. They smoked cigarettes, the butts winking like fireflies as they sucked on them, brightening and illuminating the tension in young faces. Mostly they were quiet now, waiting. Platoon Leader Lieutenant Allen Vargo and Platoon Sergeant Charles Burke were all over the field, working with squad and section leaders to get everything lined out, make sure the loading order was a go.
“Stand by!” Specialist Alexander Jimenez shouted above the roar of turning rotors. One of the platoon’s two section leaders, Jimenez, twenty-five, was a muscle-building Latino from Michigan and, now on his third combat tour in Iraq, the platoon’s saltiest vet. The guy never seemed to lose his sense of humor, no matter what. He could even tell jokes in Arabic, a language he had taught himself during previous deployments.
“Stand by. Don’t worry, children. Papacito will take care of his babies. I even change diapers.”
According to the operations order, bad guys were infiltrating through Khargouli and Rushdi Mulla to Baghdad, back and forth from across the river and out of Anbar. All over the AO, 4th Battalion companies were engaged in similar air assaults in first efforts to cut off the movement avenues, or at least put a kink in them preparatory to establishing company FOBs and patrol bases.
Second Platoon’s helicopters had already lifted off into the night sky and disappeared with a movement of shadows and a rush of rotor wind. That meant First Platoon was next. As soon as both elements were on the ground again, First Platoon would set up its anvil on one side of the village against which Second Platoon would smash any enemy combatants it happened to run out when it swept through the settlement searching for weapons caches and rolling up or shooting suspected terrorists. S-2 (Intelligence) had provided the commanders of each element with a list naming high-value targets believed to be working in the area.
What the night was really about, everyone supposed, was to let the locals know there was a new sheriff in town. The Polar Bear could be nice, or the Polar Bear could be hard-assed. Peace and freedom began with superior firepower.
Word came down. The troops of First Platoon began to load, shuffing toward the waiting birds. Jimenez had once proposed, not altogether facetiously, that every GI be issued a personal squire to help him get in and out of vehicles, much like those who accompanied armored knights of old to hoist them into their saddles.
“And yours will probably be named what? Sancho Panza?” Jimenez’ buddy, Specialist Shaun Gopaul, joked back.
It took the modern American soldier in Iraq longer to get ready for combat than any previous GI in history. A doughboy in World War I or a dogface in World War II or Korea drew on a pair of fatigues or woolens, buckled on his webgear, put on his “steel pot,” picked up his Springfield or M-1 Garand, and he was ready to go out and fight. A grunt in Vietnam sometimes donned a flak jacket. But it wasn’t until the end of the twentieth century that the military became more concerned with the protection of individual soldiers on the battlefield. A Joe in Iraq sometimes wore or lugged around as much as 150 pounds of “battle rattle.” With that kind of weight, the infantry had to become mechanized. Units weren’t about to go foot slogging over the Italian Alps or marching all the way across Germany.
Today, the well-dressed combat soldier started with a set of flameretardant, heavy-duty digital-patterned ACUs (Advanced Combat Uniform) and rough-out tan boots. To that he added an armored vest padded with Kevlar SAPI plates that protected his front and back, both sides, shoulders, throat, armpits and, with the addition of a special flap, his family jewels. Theoretically, the armor would stop most shrapnel and bullets up to 7.62mm, the standard round for the Russian or Chicom-made AK-47 rifle used throughout much of the world. That meant the enemy now tried to aim his shots at the face, arms, or legs.
Optional knee pads protected against crawling and scrambling around in the rubble of a battlefield, not against bullets.
The FLK (Full Load Kit), or “flick,” took the place of the old LBE (Load-Bearing Equipment) webgear used since World War I. It was a vest worn outside personal body armor for toting ammo, grenades, and other battle essentials. It was designed in such a way that a flip of the skirt while in the prone position placed everything within easy hand’s reach.
The modern soldier’s assault pack wasn’t that much different from those carried into battle as far back as the Civil War. Nor was the nature of its contents, only their character: plastic bottles of water; an extra MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat) or two; fresh socks and underwear; a weapons-cleaning kit; extra ammo; shaving kit; a paperback novel; a couple of to-be-reread letters from back home; and a few other items that might be needed or might make life a little more comfortable.
A Kevlar ACH (Advanced Combat Helmet), or “nitch” as it was called, topped off the ensemble. No previous American grunt had ever gone to war so heavily laden.
On top of everything else, Sammy Rhodes, twenty, lean with long muscles on a modest frame, carried his squad’s “two-forty,” a 7.62mm M240B machine gun that was the updated version of the old M60 used in Vietnam. It was a solid, dependable weapon with range enough to reach way out there and touch about anything. It weighed over twenty pounds with a belt of ammo in its feed tray.
Rhodes’ mouth was dry, his tongue like a cactus in a bed of sand, as his squad loaded onto the waiting aircraft. Who would have ever thought he’d be flying in a dragonfly? Around him, his platoon mates kept up a running patter to conceal the apprehension they were all experiencing. Apprehension, hell! They were scared to death, and they were scared their buddies would know they were scared. They were also excited.
Dan “Corny” Courneya, a nineteen-year-old PFC from Michigan, crowded onto the canvas seating next to Rhodes. “This ain’t no place for a Polar Bear!” he shouted to be heard above the noise. “Do you see any snow?”
“So this is war, huh?” marveled Christopher Murphy, a short, squat little PFC carrying a SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon). He squeezed in on the other side of Rhodes.
“Not much different so far from an FTX (Field Training Exercise) back at Drum, huh?” Rhodes said, surprised that the cactus in his mouth let him sound so calm.
Platoon Sergeant Burke stood up in the cargo compartment and waved his arms to be noticed. All the lights were off, except for the aircraft instruments, which provided scant illumination.
“All right, people. Keep your eyes open and the noise down when we hit the LZ. We’re in bad guy country. This is what we came for. Hoo-ra!”
War was hell, or so the old vets like to say. Up to this point, Rhodes’ first time out, it wasn’t so much hell as, well, strange. And scary. Glory and a place in history were okay; everybody wanted a piece of it. But mostly what Rhodes wanted was to avoid spilling his guts in Iraq. It was a bit disconcerting to consider that his sleeping bag might also serve as a body bag if he were killed.