MOP-UP CREW
THE SUN RISES on a skeletalized city, ravaged and picked over like a desert corpse. The early morning shadows are fractured and Picassolike. They paint a black picture of destruction across the ruined streets. Smoke plumes tower overhead to mark burning arms caches and ammo dumps. They are Fallujah’s funeral pyre.
The stench of death lingers in the air. It is oily, and pungent, and it permeates our clothing so we carry the reek of rotting flesh with us wherever we go. We are used to this and our stomachs are long since immune to its effects.
This morning starts our third week inside the city. Through November, our heavy weapon’s company remained north of town, using a railroad embankment as cover while we supported the Marine units fighting their way south to Highway Ten, the main east-west road through Fallujah. Day after day, we pounded insurgent positions with our 81mm mortars. My crew loaded and fired as fast as we could to rain destruction down on the Jihadists resisting our brothers in the line companies. My men refused to slow down, even when our enemy plotted our position and launched a counterbattery attack against us with 122mm rockets. Instead of dashing to our dugouts, we stayed at our tubes and dished it back at the Muj.
Now we’ve traded our mortar tubes for M16’s.
In the Corps, we are riflemen first. We train to carry an M16 and kill the enemy. It doesn’t matter if you’re a supply clerk or a Jump-Jet pilot; we all possess basic rifleman skills. It is a tradition that predates World War II, and there is a good reason for it. During the Pacific War, there were desperate moments on long-forgotten islands where commanders threw their last reserves into the battle. Cooks dropped their ladles and picked up M1 carbines. Buglers abandoned their instruments to man antitank guns. There are some key moments in the Corps where such scratch-built forces performed with heroic devotion. On Wake Island, for instance, a fighter pilot named Hank Elrod died throwing grenades at Japanese landing craft as they ground ashore around him. On Peleliu, a Japanese counterattack was stopped cold by typists and orderlies and other rear area troops.
We are all infantry in the Corps. It is tradition. At times it is also a necessity. And here in Fallujah in 2004, in the waning days of the battle for this city, my mortar platoon reverted to our foot-slogging roots. The Coalition needed manpower to search through every room in every building for weapons, ammunition, booby traps, and bombs. This has to be done before the town’s civilians can be allowed to return.
Simultaneously, the need for indirect fire ended when the main resistance collapsed in mid-November. So they gave us rifles, Humvees, and trucks, and told us to go empty Fallujah of its remaining weapons of war.
Imagine going into Kansas City to search for every gun and every bullet hidden there with less than a division of men to do the job. That’s what we face. We are Fallujah’s mop-up crew. Since early December, we’ve wandered among the destruction in search of secret caches. There’s no glory in it; the national media declared the battle over in November. The press has gone home. The nation’s lost interest, and the military historians are already busy writing the story of the battle. If we’re lucky, our sweating, thankless efforts will merit perhaps a footnote in the campaign history.
The work is hard and dangerous. Every room we enter is a potential trap. Insurgents have left trip-wire detonated mines and IED’s all over the place. One shove on the wrong door, and letters will be sent to our loved ones back home.
Clearing hundreds of buildings and thousands of rooms every day requires a methodical and detailed approach. But we are only human. As the days wear on and we grow exhausted from our repetitious task, our security posture slips lower and lower. At times, we’re reminded of the danger that die-hard insurgent holdouts present to us. Last week, I entered one house that was pitch-black inside. We flicked on our SureFire flashlights to begin our search and discovered two decomposing corpses in the kitchen. I stepped over them and moved down a hall toward a closed door. When I reached it and pushed it open, I found myself inside an Iraqi’s bedroom. The place was in disarray—sheets torn and strewn on the floor, clothing heaped here and there with pieces of broken furniture topping the mess.
Something moved in the darkness. I brought my M16 to my shoulder. Just as I did, a shape charged out of a closet straight at me. Startled, I fired wildly—and killed a goat. Lesson learned: Next time, it might just be a Muj. Don’t ever let your guard down.
This morning, we are extra alert. Yesterday, one of our patrols reached Sector 19 in the northeast corner of the city and encountered stiff resistance. A long, ragged firefight broke out between die-hards and our Marines. When the patrol returned to our apartment complex base at the edge of town, the men looked drained and hollowed-out. Thank God nobody had been killed.
We spent the night cleaning our rifles and ammunition to ensure we would not suffer any jams should we get in a firefight as well. I think we all sensed that come dawn, we would face the enemy.
We rolled out of our base at 0600. For three hours, we picked through a neighborhood on the cusp of Zone 19. All we found were corpses and an occasional AK-47. It was a dry hole, so battalion moved us into the heart of Zone 19.
The place is as quiet as a morgue. We find ourselves in the middle of a residential district. Here, rich Baathists who had curried Saddam’s favor came to retire. The beige cement houses are drab but stoutly constructed. They’re flanked by ten-foot high walls, which make each house a mini-medieval fortress. As I gaze up the street, I can’t help but wonder if a military engineer didn’t design this neighborhood. No wonder the locals call it the Soldier’s District.
On me,” I tell my men as I dismount from my Humvee. We’ve split the platoon section into two squads. Sergeant Jarrett Kraft takes one squad; I take the other one. Between us, we have nineteen mortar men doing their best to channel their infantry roots.
My men gather next to me. We are walking firepower. Each one of us carries an M16A4 rifle and at least sixteen magazines. That’s almost 500 rounds of ammunition. Most of us also have slung an AK-47 over our backs and five or six magazines for them stuffed into our pouches. We don’t fully trust our M16’s. We’ve heard too many stories of insurgents getting shot with that 5.56mm round who refuse to die. The AK at least has stopping power with its bigger 7.62mm bullet. Also, in a pinch we can fire them fully automatic, something we can’t do with our own M16’s.
A few of us carry 9mm pistols, holstered at our waists. Grenades and bayonets dangle from our flak vests. Every man carries at least two M67 frag grenades and a flash bang. To this mix I’ve added a concussion bomb. I saw one go off once, and its devastating pressure wave blew the eyeballs clean out of a stray Iraqi dog. In a fight, I want that kind of power.
Kraft calls over to me, “Hey, Workman! I’ll take the left side, you take the right.”
“Roger.” Our first street we must clear runs north to south. We’ll leave the Humvees at the start of this block as we work through each house.
“You guys ready?” I look at my men. They give me the thumbs-up.
“At least we’re not hiding behind our tubes anymore,” Levine says in his Bronx accent. For weeks now, I’ve listened to him complain about not getting into the fight. Getting rocketed wasn’t enough for him. He wants to kill his enemy face-to-face. For him, it is vengeance. He lost family in 9-11.
“Let’s go,” I order, and we start walking up the block to the first house. We don’t get far before we see our first corpse. I barely notice it, but Levine does a double take. “What the hell?” he asks while staring at it.
The corpse is moving. We stop and study it. Headless, missing parts of both legs and arms, its chest has been blown open by a 25mm cannon shell, the kind of weapon mounted on an army Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
The corpse twitches. I recoil at the sight. It twitches again. A tail emerges from the chest cavity like an orange-striped periscope.
“Oh my God,” says Smokes, one of our two African-American platoonmates. We’ve nicknamed him Token, after the black kid in South Park.
“Here kitty, kitty, kitty!” somebody calls.
“Hey, now there’s a Christmas present for your wife’s little sister, Workman!” Levine says to me. “Bring her home a man-eating Fallujah kitten.”
“Shut up. That’s just wrong.”
The orange cat tugs away at something inside the corpse, causing it to twitch yet again. It is eating the insurgent from the inside out.
“This is the filthiest place on earth,” somebody else spits in disgust.
We move on. Over these past few weeks, we’ve seen a lot of animals feeding on the dead. The worst are the dogs. They’re feral and bloated and we’ve watched them eagerly attack even the most blackened corpse. On one of our first patrols, we encountered one dog chewing at a legless insurgent’s stump. We killed it with a 9mm pistol. No matter what we think of our enemy, even they do not deserve that fate. The feeding dogs absorb much of the ammunition we expend each day.
As we reach the first house, I hear a pistol crack behind us. I barely notice. We have a difficult tactical situation here, and I’m focused on solving it. The only entry point is through a gated driveway. It is a funnel, and if an insurgent die-hard happens to be over watching it, we could be in real trouble.
“Okay, we go through the gate fast. Got it?” I tell my men. I assign them fields of fire to cover, then remind them to get to the front door as quickly as possible. Everyone’s ready. I nod to Levine. He pulls it open and we flow inside the front yard. Everything’s quiet. We reach the door without incident and stack up again, one behind the other. My M16 has a broomstick handle attached to the bottom rail under the barrel. I’ve taped my SureFire’s pressure switch to it. All I need to do is squeeze and the brightest flashlight in the world will illuminate whatever’s in front of me.
My left hand squeezes, triggering the SureFire. The front door is open, and I shine the light inside. Nothing of interest comes into view.
On a silent command, we all surge into the house. We break up into teams and check each room. Levine and I go upstairs. I’ve heard stories of insurgents hiding in closets and under beds, and given what happened yesterday, I’m not in the mood to take any chances. When we swing into the first bedroom, I double tap the armoire and put several rounds into the bed. Nothing moves. White smoke spins out of my M16’s barrel.
The house yields no weapons. We move on to the second one. It’s big and has a long second story with balconies overlooking the walled-in yard. It takes us several minutes to clear. We come up empty again.
Back out on the street, I see Kraft has kept pace with us. He’s about to start on his third house, too. Though we’ve been at it for less than a half hour, we’re already covered in sweat. The night’s chill has been driven off by the morning sun. It will be a scorcher today—well over a hundred, as usual. None of us carry canteens or camelbacks. Marines use canteens as urinals and spittoons, so no matter how many times they’ve been turned in and cleaned, the water inevitably tastes disgusting. Instead, we loaded crates of bottled water in our Humvees and try to take periodic breaks to rehydrate ourselves.
“Okay, stack up,” I order. Smokes gets behind me first, Snell follows, and Levine ends up third this time.
We push open the gate and storm the house. Once inside, I head to the right and into a living room. Smokes and Levine turn left into the kitchen while Snell stays with me. The rest of the squad spreads out down a hallway. My SureFire sweeps the darkness, uncovering only a few sleeping mats and an odd blanket or two.
“Clear!” comes the word from the rest of the squad. The first floor is secure.
I’m about to move on when I hear a commotion coming from the kitchen. “What’s going on?” I yell.
No answer. Snell and I pivot and run for the kitchen.
We find Smokes battling a pissed-off chicken.
“What the hell?”
“Damn bird!” He shouts and swings a frying pan he’s found at it. The chicken squawks and dodges the blow. As he winds up for another swing, the bird pecks his leg, then ducks under the sink.
Snell and I can’t help but laugh. Before this deployment, Smokes had guarded Camp David, the Presidential retreat. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
“Smokes!” I try to stop him, but he gets down on his knees and whacks away at the chicken.
Levine’s laughing as hard as I am.
Vigilance. Maintain security.
We’ve done this so much now with nothing but animals and corpses to be found inside these houses, it is impossible to keep our alert level pegged for long. But today, we’ve already slid. I need to get everyone back to a hundred percent.
“Okay, come on, we’ve got a job to do.” Smokes takes one more whack at the chicken and gives up. The fowl squawks angrily from under the sink. Obviously, we’re in its territory.
“Will a chicken eat a corpse?” Levine wonders out loud.
“Dude, you have been in Fallujah far too long if you’re thinking shit like that,” Snell replies.
“I’m just sayin’. I mean, the thing looks pretty fat. What’s he been eating?”
“I swear it tried to eat me!” Smokes exclaims.
I shake my head and stifle another laugh. “Upstairs, let’s go. Smokes, White, Mullins, Doc, and Snell, follow me. The rest of you pull security.”
“On what?”
“The chicken.”
I take my team upstairs. At the end of a short hallway, we find a closed door. Despite the humor of the moment, I’m in no mood to take chances. What if somebody’s been feeding the chicken? He could be up here.
I shoulder my rifle and trigger off a half-dozen rounds through the door. As soon as I finish, I kick it open and we swing inside to discover an empty bedroom. Snell shoots into the bed while I pepper the closet.
Nothing moves.
“Hey, what’s that?” Smokes calls out. His head is cocked, as if he’s listening. Then I hear it, too: gunshots from across the street.
“AK’s,” I say. Kraft is probably shooting his way through his house, just like we are.
Suddenly, a ragged full-auto volley echoes through the house. A few M16’s bark and crack. Somebody tears off a long burst from what sounds like another AK.
“They’re under fire!” I shout. “Come on!”
We flee the bedroom and fly downstairs. My radio chatters, but I can’t understand what’s being said over the growing battle coming from across the street.
Eliminate the threat. Charge to the sound of gunfire. My squad’s assembled by the front door now. Levine looks eager. So does Snell. Smokes watches the street from the doorway. He’s gone absolutely silent. He was out yesterday with the other patrol that got hit. The reality of the moment strikes him harder than the rest of us.
“Kraft may need us,” I tell the men. “We’re going over there.”
I step out into the front yard and lead the squad to the gate. It is made of sheet metal, just like every other one on this block, so it won’t stop an AK round, but it does offer a little concealment.
I peer around the corner, trying to reveal as little of myself as possible. Across the street, gray and white smoke pours from the windows on the second floor of Kraft’s house. The volume of fire has spiked even higher. Now long automatic bursts from multiple AK’s overlap each other into one sustained cacophony. I can’t tell how many there are, but it has to be at least a half dozen, maybe more.
A bullet skips off the roadbed a few feet in front of me. Another one smacks into the wall and gouges out a little pit from the concrete.
I duck back behind the gate.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Levine shouts.
Snell’s all about it, too. “Come on! What’s the hold up?”
Don’t let them push you into doing something rash. We have to get across the street, and we’ve got to do it right, or somebody will die.
“Shut the hell up! Look, we’re going to get across the street and stop at the wall on the far side, okay?” I pause. Everyone nods. “Good. Look, we’re going to be under fire, so I want everyone shooting at the windows on the second floor, okay?”
“How many are there?” someone asks.
“Two. One on the left, one on the right. In between, there’s a doorway leading to a balcony, but I didn’t see anyone on it. Focus on the windows.”
“Roger that.”
“Follow me.”
I ease out to the end of the gate. The squad stacks up behind me. I feel Smokes’s chest against my back. I decide to take one more look before we risk this kill zone. Usually, the best way to deal with open space is to skirt it. Avoid it. Find another way. But the street cannot be avoided. In this case, we’ll have to just suck it up and get across as fast as our feet will carry us.
I hold my M16 away from the end of the gate so I don’t reveal what I’m about to do by accidentally popping its barrel into the open. That’s a classic tell in situations like these. Instead, just part of my Kevlar helmet, nose, and one eye appear around the corner.
Somebody’s sweeping the street with fire. Bullets ricochet in every direction. One spins off the asphalt and whines overhead.
“Jesus Christ! Let’s go.”
My stomach turns to liquid fire. It melts my legs and pins me in place. I feel like a giant’s just clutched me with one calloused hand and is slowly squeezing the life out of me.
Move! Come on Jeremiah! Kraft needs you.
I can’t breathe. More and more AK’s open up. The insurgents aren’t conserving ammo. The tide of sounds becomes a tsunami until I’m convinced at least a dozen or more AK’s are firing.
Jessica. My wife is back home. What will she say if the contact team arrives on her doorstep?
We regret to inform you that your husband was killed in Fallujah …
What will she think about the moment it sinks in? Will she remember our first date back in Richwood? She and her friends were cruising our little town after school. I rolled up in a fifteen-year-old Honda Accord and convinced her to come with me. She jumped in, and we just drove around for hours. We finally ended up at her parents’ house, where her folks greeted me like I was already their son-in-law.
Would she think about that day? Or would she think about the bad times first?
A fleeting thought skitters into my mind. I’ve always wanted children. So does she. I cross that street, I risk that. If I die here, I will leave no legacy.
You must cross. Go to your brothers.
I still can’t move. Behind me, my guys are getting edgy. Levine pipes up, “Come on, what’s the hold up? Let’s do it!”
“Workman, let’s go!”
Well, here’s your Vietnam. Do you have the stones for this?
I swing around the gate and bring my rifle up. A step forward, then another. I don’t bother with the ACOG four-power scope sitting on my weapon’s top rail. Instead, I simply point my weapon at the window on the left and pull the trigger.
Two more steps and I’m almost halfway across the street. I sense the rest of the squad is right behind me, blazing away at the windows. Whoever’s inside the house flays the street with bullets. They kick up little puffs of dirt and asphalt. Others skip off the wall to our front.
Keep moving! Keep moving!
Every instinct in me wants to flee. Instead, I find myself sprinting toward the AK barrels pointed our way.
Another wave of bullets sweeps over us.
I reach the safety of the far wall and press myself tight against it. I’m in the lee of the storm now, out of reach from the weapons in the windows. A second later, the rest of the squad joins me.
“Everyone okay?”
“Yeah! We’re all here,” Levine replies.
“Good.”
What next?
Chances are any second Kraft’s guys will snuff out the last bad guy and drag all of their corpses out of the house. At least, that’s what I hope will happen.
The firing never slows. In fact, as we hug the wall, it increases again. Behind all the gunshots, I can hear men screaming. Whatever’s happened is bad. We’re going to need to get inside.
What if this is a trap?
I glance down the street. It is possible. Maybe they want us to get sucked into a fight here, then they’ll hit us with a counterattack. Or maybe there’s a sniper on a nearby rooftop waiting to engage us when our guard is down. Either way, we need to be prepared.
Toward the back of my stack, I see Lance Corporal Jason Flannery. He’s a skinny but muscular guy from small-town Missouri who always rides a fine line between confidence and cocky. He’s also a veteran of the 2003 invasion.
“Hey Flannery! Take three or four guys and go down the street and post security.”
Flannery doesn’t even blink. “Fuck that, Workman. I’m going with you.”
“What?”
“I’m going to get some!”
No time to argue. “Okay, fine. Stay close to me though.”
I creep along the wall until I come to the open gate. Like the one across the street, it is made of sheet metal. Already it has bullet holes in it. My feet feel like they’re encased in concrete blocks. I force myself forward until I can see around the corner.
The house sits in the middle of an oasis. A beautiful green lawn inset with several concrete walkways stretches across the front yard. A few small trees and saplings provide a little bit of shade. A garden lies beyond the trees along the side yard. I don’t see any of Kraft’s men anywhere.
We’ll have to run at least forty feet across open ground to reach the front door. The twin second-story windows are like eyes watching me. How am I going to do this?
Be their leader. Show them by example.
I want to, but I’ve never felt such crippling fear before. Every neuron is sending “flee” messages to my brain. Any sane man would run from this chaos.
“Sounds like a platoon plus in there,” Smokes says in a flat voice.
Kraft and his men need you.
That does it. Thinking of them suddenly makes me resolute. For the moment, the fear seems to fade into the background. I clench my jaw.
“Workman! Let’s go! Let’s go!” shouts Levine.
Corporal Steve Snell echoes him. “Hurry! Come on! Let’s get into the damned house!”
I step around the gate, and sprint flat-out for the house. I’m giving it all I have, but it feels like time has slowed down. The doorway yawns before me, like a mouth about to swallow me whole. Yet the harder I run, the more unreachable the doorway appears. Gunfire echoes around me, intermingled with screams in both Arabic and English. Someone wails in agony. I can’t tell where it is coming from; all I can do is keep driving for the door.
Suddenly, time speeds up. I launch myself through the door and come to a crashing halt in a hallway about two yards from a stairwell that leads to the second story. Behind me, the rest of the squad squeezes through the door. I turn and order them to clear the first floor. The men fan out, rifles leveled.
Overhead, the gunfight grows even more intense. Over the constant rap-rap-rap of many AK’s, I hear a steady ripping sound. It reminds me of our M240 Golf machine guns, only deeper and with a slightly slower rate of fire.
It dawns on me. There is a crew-served weapon upstairs.
I look over at the stairwell again. Kraft is there, pinned against a wall. He’s shouting something at me, but I can’t hear him. His words are smothered by the gunfire.
“Kraft! What the hell is going on?”
He shouts something to me again and throws a radio at me. I can’t make heads or tails of what he said, and I have no use for the radio, so I toss it into the front yard. Then I see Sergeant Sam Gardiola next to him. He half-crouches on a landing about fifteen steps up the stairwell. Just above his head is a ragged line of bullet holes.
Thunder erupts overhead. The right stairwell wall dissolves into bits of flying concrete and dust. Gardiola ducks just as bullets chew into a strip of inlaid marble on either side of his head.
Another fusillade rips through the stairwell. Kraft and Gardiola both dive for the first-floor hallway. Behind me, my squad consolidates. I hear Smokes and Flannery shout, “First floor’s clear.”
Kraft pulls my arm and leads me back outside. We’re in the kill zone again, running for the street. I don’t know what he wants, but we all follow him. Bullets tear up the precisely manicured lawn as we go.
Somehow, we all stream through the gate and get back against the wall. For the moment, we’re safe and unhurt.
“Hey! Do we have Marines in there?” I hear someone yell. I look up the street and see Lieutenant Putnam running up to us. The sight of him puzzles me. I’m not sure why he’s here, as he’s not part of our company. When he reaches Kraft, he asks again, “Do we have Marines in there?”
Kraft nods. “Yes, sir.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Raleigh and Phillips for sure. They’re trapped on the second floor.”
The LT swears furiously, then says, “Okay, we gotta go get ’em out. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You men!”—he points to several of my squadmates—“Set up a support by fire position across the street. Get some fire into the second floor!” As they dash off to execute that order, the LT turns to the rest of us. “Everyone else follow me!” The LT charges through the gate like a halfback going through the defensive line. I jackrabbit after him. Again, I’m in the kill zone, out in the open. My breathing is fast and shallow, and my eyes are cockades, wide and pregnant with fear. I’m running into the fight again, but this time, I know we’ll be going upstairs.
At least the lieutenant will lead the way this time. I’ll have a human shield in front of me.
It is time to earn my pay.
I follow the LT right across the lawn. He makes no effort to zigzag or throw the gunners off in the windows above our heads. This time, we face no incoming fire, at least none that I can detect. We make it through the front door unscathed. As we do, the LT spins around and covers down on the front yard. I’m alone for several heartbeats, staring at the bullet-scarred stairwell.
Then it dawns on me. I’m in front again.
Another stab of fear drives into my heart. For a second, it is so intense I feel like the wind’s been knocked out of me. I try to breathe but hitch and stall. My face flushes. My hands shake. I don’t know if I can do this.
Too late. You’re screwed. You’re not leaving this house alive.
I see myself on the landing, M16 in hand, blood pouring from multiple wounds. That is my fate. This is the day I am to die.
The realization comes like a slap in the face. It clears my head and drives the fear from me. My hands stop shaking. I can breathe again.
I am going to die here, and the thought is a comfort, not a curse. I won’t disgrace myself. I won’t die screaming. I will go out hard, fighting to the end.
I drop my M16’s magazine out and replace it with a fresh one. Thirty rounds. I’m ready to go.
Behind me, the rest of my squad, Kraft, and the LT have arrived. I move toward the first step. I see it is marble, and the stairs themselves are built from wrought iron. There’s dead space under the stairwell, and I shine my SureFire in there to clear it. The light casts a fishbonelike shadow of the stairs against the far wall. Nothing’s there. We’re good to go.
“Grenade!” somebody shouts. I see a frag careen off a wood railing near the landing. Then it comes bouncing down the stairs straight for me, as inexorably as a Slinky.
“Grenade! Get down!” I scream. The squad scatters. I have nowhere to run and no time to do it. I take three strides forward and leap under the stairs. I slide into the corner and turn my head just as the grenade explodes less than ten feet from me. A whoosh of shrapnel rushes overhead. My ears go numb. A persistent ringing is all I hear. I check myself over and am surprised to find no wounds.
What the hell? Who pulled that stunt?
Somebody whispers something to me. Through the smoke in the hallway I see Kraft and Levine. Their mouths are moving in exaggerated ways. Then I realize they’re shouting. I’m so deafened by the grenade that I barely hear their voices.
A long burst from an AK punctures my silence, but it sounds distant and muffled. The fighting on the second floor continues.
I get to my feet and dash back to the squad. Levine grabs my shoulders and yells in my ear, “You okay?” He sounds like he’s shouting at me through a fish tank.
I give him a thumbs-up. “Good to go.”
The LT reappears. “Sorry about that.”
Before I can call him any one of the many names that come to mind, he tells the squad, “Okay, on three we go upstairs, got it?”
Everyone nods. The men stack up. Behind me. The LT disappears toward the rear.
“One!”
You’ve got to do this. The men upstairs need us.
“Two!”
There’s no finer way to die than leading men in battle. Cling to that. Let it be your guiding thought, if not your last one.
“Three!”
I close my eyes, grip my rifle, and run.