TIM “MO” MORIARTY waded into an emerald lake of kudzu that spilled down through a gulley on Fort Campbell’s “back forty,” a verdant slice of northern Tennessee used by the Army for training. Behind him, SPC Carlos Colonruiz, twenty-seven, trudged along, head down, followed by Private Ryan Haffner, nineteen, and a couple of other junior soldiers from 4th Platoon, the Shockers.
The patrol had been walking for hours through undergrowth that was rain-forest wet and alive with spiders. Sunlight poured down through an oak-pine canopy, dappling the ground with silver coins of light. Some of 4th Platoon’s Ramadi vets—Mo, SSG Ray Davis, and SPC Mike Judd—had set up this training exercise. Davis and Judd were playing the role of the OPFOR, or opposing force, occupying some “caves” that were actually a string of empty concrete ammo bunkers located several clicks into the Fort Campbell wilderness. The objective for Mo’s men was to clear the bunkers and capture the OPFOR.
Mo himself had a different objective: SPC Carlos Colonruiz.
Colonruiz (the Shockers always called him Colon—pronounced “KOE-LONE”—for short) had been in Ramadi, but only briefly. He reminded the guys of a Puerto Rican Schwarzenegger—ripped to shreds from bodybuilding, speaking barely passable English instead of German.
Since Mo came over from Bravo Company, he had observed Colon, watched him racing up and down the barracks stairwell wearing full body armor and a fifty-pound ruck. No one had told him to do it; he did it for himself. Colon was a little older than the other junior guys, and married with two kids. It was as if, because he was further down the road in life, he didn’t have time to screw around. As a result, he wasn’t willing to be led simply because another man had more stripes on his sleeve. With Colon, trust had to be earned. It was a trust Mo coveted, because he saw in Colon a strong-minded, valuable ally.
For that reason, Mo had receded into the role of observer at the beginning of this training patrol. He let Colon lead the other soldiers against Judd and Davis, who proceeded to kick the young Shockers’ asses. The OPFOR crept through the kudzu and ambushed the patrol again and again. Each time, Mo conducted a brief after-action review on terrain and tactics. Finally, he stepped into the role of instructor and pulled out a map.
“They’re going to expect us to approach from this area,” he said, tapping the map with his index finger. “But we’re not going to do that. We’re going to take the worst terrain out here”—he pointed to a grid that looked so remote as to be traveled only by bears—“and approach from over here.”
That had been three hours earlier. Now, the patrol descended the gulley slope until it ended at the edge of the Cumberland River, which flows generally west from Appalachia through Tennessee and into Kentucky. The Shockers sloshed into the river, fording its breadth in a waist-high current. On the far bank, Colon climbed out, his ACU pants streaming river water into his boots, and walked straight into a chest-high spiderweb.
“Shit!” he said. He scraped the sticky silk off his ACUs and flicked his hands to shake it loose. But the web clung like double-sided tape. “Shit!”
Tramping upslope under a stand of towering pines, Mo smiled to himself. “Hey, Colon,” he called over his shoulder. “Seems like we’re just walking all damn day, don’t it?”
Colon’s tone was surly. “Yeah, Sergeant Mo.”
“And you’re wondering why we’re walking through all this nasty shit when all we had to do on this exercise was clear out four bunkers and take out the enemy?”
“Yeah, so…?”
“So, just wait ’til we get there. Then you’ll see why we went the hard way.”
Mo, thirty-six, was accustomed to doing things the hard way. His mother had preferred soldiers as husbands, though she tended not to stay married for long. In his childhood memory bank, he had a video clip from around age six: his mother and him hitching a ride away from a marriage she had discarded in Fort Knox, Kentucky. Seeing the big Army tanks flanking the roads as they hitched a ride out of town.
Ironic, he thought, and pressed through an oak copse. The patrol continued for another hour until it reached the crest of a low hill. Mo raised his arm and made a fist: Stop. Behind him, Colon, Haffner, and the others froze.
Mo motioned Colon forward and pointed down into the shallow valley. Mike Judd and Ray Davis were sitting in front of a concrete bunker built into the opposite hillside, their M4’s at rest. At intervals, three more bunkers punched into the hillside, each fronted with a huge steel door. Between Mo’s position and the bunker, Judd and Davis were keeping an eye on Mo’s likely avenue of approach—roughly opposite the direction from where Mo’s patrol stood now. Their casual posture telegraphed their thoughts: Mo’s patrol had probably given up and gone back to base.
Quickly, Mo divided his men into two assault teams and briefed a plan. One team maneuvered down the hill and cleared two bunkers in utter silence, while the second team held the high ground and kept watch on Judd and Davis. With the first two bunkers cleared, the maneuver team sprinted full speed at the OPFOR guards, “shooting” both dead before they had time to resist. After an all-day march, Mo’s team seized its objective in less than five minutes.
Later, Colon pulled Mo aside and admitted he thought Mo had been throwing his seniority around, dragging the patrol through the woods all day.
“I was pissed,” Colon said. “But from now on, I’ll do whatever you tell me.”
Mo clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. Mission accomplished.