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Excerpts

PROLOGUE

The Coffins of Muqdadiyah

April 9, 2004
Diyala Province, Iraq

Dust cakes our faces, invades our sinuses, and stings our eyes. The heat bakes the moisture from us with utter relentlessness. Our body temperatures hover at a hundred and three. Our ears ring. On the edge of heat exhaustion, we get dizzy as our stomachs heave.

We have the spastic shits, with stabs of pain as our guts liquefy thanks to the menagerie of local bacteria. Inside our base's filthy outhouses, swarms of flies crawl over us. Without ventilation, those outhouses are furnaces, pungent with the acrid smell of well-cooked urine.

All this, and we get shot at, too.

Welcome to the infantry. This is our day, our job. It sucks, and we hate it, but we endure for two reasons. First, there is nobility and purpose in our lives. We are America's warrior class. We protect; we avenge. Second, every moment in the infantry is a test. If we measure up to the worst days, such as this one, it proves we stand a breed apart from all other men.

Where we work, there are no cubicles. There are no break rooms. Ties are foreign objects; we commute in armored fighting vehicles.

Our workplace is not some sterile office or humming factory. It is a stretch of desolate highway in a vast and empty land. A guard tower burns in the background. Shattered bodies litter the ground around us. Vacant corpse eyes, bulging and horror-struck, stare back at us. The stench of burned flesh is thick in our nostrils. This was once an Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) checkpoint, designed to regulate traffic in and out of Muqdadiyah, one of the key cities in the Diyala Province. Thanks to a surprise attack launched earlier in the morning, it is nothing more than a funeral pyre. We arrived too late to help, and our earnest but untrained allies died horribly as the insurgents swept over them. One Iraqi soldier took a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). All that's left of him are his boots and soggy piles of bloody meat splattered around the guard tower.

This is our workplace. We began to acclimate to such horrors right after arriving in the country. While on our second patrol in Iraq, a civilian candy truck tried to merge with a column of our armored vehicles, only to get run over and squashed. The occupants were smashed beyond recognition. Our first sight of death was a man and his wife both ripped open and dismembered, their intestines strewn across shattered boxes of candy bars. The entire platoon hadn't eaten for twenty-four hours. We stopped, and as we stood guard around the wreckage, we grew increasingly hungry. Finally, I stole a few nibbles from one of the cleaner candy bars. Others wiped away the gore and fuel from the wrappers and joined me.

That was three weeks ago. We're veterans now, proud that we can stomach such sights and still carry out our job. It is this misery that defines us, gives us our identity. It also cleaves infantrymen apart from everyone else in uniform. Some call it arrogance. So be it. We call it pride since we believe fervently in what we are doing.

"Check it out," calls Staff Sergeant Colin Fitts. He points to a Humvee rolling up the highway toward our battlefield.

The two of us pause and watch the rig approach. Fitts is a Mississippian with a gravelly voice and intense eyes. We're so close that long ago I learned to tell every entertaining story from his life in more detail than he can, and he can do the same with mine.

The Humvee screeches to a stop a short distance from us. In the right seat sits a clean-cut major. With his tiny, wire-rimmed glasses, he looks like an accountant in Kevlar. He's so clean that I doubt he's more than a few hours removed from his last shower. I can't even remember when I last had one. We've been making do with whore's baths -- baby wipes to the armpits and private parts -- since running water is a luxury not bestowed upon the infantry.

Right here we have the dichotomy that defines our military. We all wear the same uniform, but we might as well be from two different armies. We're the frontline bullet-chewers. This officer embodies all that we despise about the other half. He is scrubbed; we are filthy. His skin has rarely seen the sun. We are sunburned and leathery. He is well fed and a bit on the pudgy side. Most of our platoon has lost over ten pounds since getting to Diyala. Maybe that's because when we get a chance to eat, the appetite doesn't stick around long. Our mess hall is an abandoned Iraqi morgue.

"Boys," the major says, "Go tell your sergeant that Quarter Cav is here!" The major obviously thinks he has a flair for drama. He doesn't realize that he's just insulted both of us. Fitts and I are both staff sergeants; our rank insignia are not easily missed. Fitts turns bright red.

In our world, the world of the infantry, this major is a wannabe. He sits safe behind the wire, but tries to act the part of a combat leader. Most of the time we must simply suffer fools like him as we go about our business.

I'm prepared to do just that. Fitts, on the other hand, has no inner censor. He's allergic to bullshit and fears nobody. He's made plenty of enemies in our battalion for this, but you have to admire a man who reacts with pure honesty to every situation and never, not once, considers the consequences to his career. It has cost him, too. Several times he has lost rank, but he always earns his stripes back.

Fitts nods to the major and shouts across the road to his A Team leader, "Hey, Sergeant Misa! The Quarter Cav is here. What's that? You don't give a fucking shit either? Well, that makes two of us, two hundred-fifty thousand if you count the whole sector."

My jaw drops. Fitts has just emasculated a major the same way he would a private. I wait for the fallout.

The major stammers, pushes his glasses up on his nose, turns to his driver and says, "Move on."

The Humvee speeds up the highway for the safety of Forward Operating Base Normandy. The fact that we are willing to submit ourselves to filthy conditions and brutal fighting sometimes gives us a free pass with the other half of the army. It is the one card that saves our asses from charges of insubordination.

Sergeant Warren Misa steps over a rag-dolled Iraqi corpse and approaches Fitts. A muscular, Cebu-born Filipino who grew up in Cincinnati, Misa is the only man I've ever met who speaks Tagalog with an Ohio accent. We can barely understand him.

"Sergeant Fitts?"

"Yeah, Misa?"

"They are trying to get you on the radio. There's trouble in Muqdadiyah again."

We head for our Bradley Fighting Vehicles and pile inside. The interiors of these armored troop carriers are like mobile ovens in the Iraqi heat. In our fifty pounds of full battle rattle -- Kevlar, body armor, ammo, weapon, water, and night vision -- we sweat pounds off on every drive. It makes us long for the less terminal heat of the FOB outhouses.

The Brads lurch forward, leaving the shattered checkpoint in their dust. A short ride later, we reach downtown Muqdadiyah. It was here the day before that our platoon saw the heaviest fighting of its short combat career.

"Holy shit," comes the voice of our platoon sergeant, James Cantrell, over the Bradley's internal speaker. I peer out the viewing port and gasp.

We're surrounded by coffins.

Fresh wooden ones line both sides of the street. In places they're piled two and three high. Nearby, an old man stoops over two boards as he swings a hammer. I realize he's building a coffin lid. More lids lie scattered on the street around him, blocking our path ahead.

Cantrell orders us to dismount. Our vehicle's ramp flops down and clangs onto the street. We sprint out into the brutal morning sun. Buildings still smolder. A battle-damaged house has already been gutted by men wielding sledge hammers. All around us, interspersed among the coffins, women cry and children stare into space. Old men, survivors of Saddam's reign of violence, the war with Iran, and Gulf War I, regard us with hollowed eyes.

We slowly make our way past the house we used as our casualty collection point the day before. Stacked out front are three caskets. I wonder if one of them houses the teenaged kid I had to shoot.

In the middle of yesterday's fight, my squad reached a gated and walled house. Sergeant Hugh Hall, our platoon's stocky, door-crushing bruiser, smashed the gate and led the way into a courtyard. Just as we got inside, the face of the house suddenly exploded. A chunk of spinning concrete slammed into Hall and sent the rest of us flying for cover. A sudden barrage followed as three Bradley armored vehicles opened up with their 25-milli-meter Bushmaster cannons in response to the explosion of the enemy rocket. As the high-explosive rounds tore up the area outside of the house, the din was so intense I could hardly hear.

Over the radio, I made out Cantrell yelling -- "Bellavia, give me a fucking SITREP." Cantrell's voice is the only thing that can rise above the cacophony of a firefight. He has a real gift there.

Confused and dazed, I initially failed to respond. Cantrell didn't like this.

"BELLAVIA, ARE YOU FUCKING OKAY?"

I finally found the wherewithal to respond. All I had heard was the Bradley fire, so I finally screamed back, "Stop shooting! You're hitting our location."

"Hey asshole, that wasn't us. That was a fucking RPG," Cantrell's voice booms through the radio. "And here comes another."

The top of a large palm tree in the courtyard suddenly exploded overhead. Cantrell and the other Bradleys immediately returned fire. Bits of wood and burned leaves rained down on us. Hall, already covered with concrete dust, dirt, and blood, blurted out, "Would they kill that muthafucka already?"

"Get inside and take the roof," I holler over our Bradley's fire.

The men moved for the door. As they forced their way inside, I peered around the corner and caught sight of a gunman on a nearby rooftop. I studied him for a moment, unsure whose side he was on. He could be a friendly local. We'd seen them before shooting at the black-clad Mahdi militiamen who infiltrated this part of the city earlier in the fight. Not everyone with a rifle was an enemy.

The gunman on the roof was a teenaged boy, maybe sixteen years old. I could see him scanning for targets, his back to me. He held an AK-47 without a stock. Was he just a stupid kid trying to protect his family? Was he one of Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite fanatics? I kept my eyes on him and prayed he'd put the AK down and just get back inside his own house. I didn't want to shoot him.

He turned and saw me, and I could see the terror on his sweat-streaked face. I put him in my sights just as he adjusted his AK against his shoulder. I had beaten him on the draw. My own rifle was snug in my shoulder, the sight resting on him. The kid stood no chance. My weapon just needed a flick of the safety and a butterfly's kiss of pressure on the trigger.

Please don't do this. You don't need to die.

The AK went to full ready-up. Was he aiming at me? I couldn't be sure, but the barrel was trained at my level. Do I shoot? Do I risk not shooting? Was he silently trying to save me from some unseen threat? I didn't know. I had to make a decision.

Please forgive me for this.

I pulled my trigger. The kid's chin fell to his chest, and a guttural moan escaped his lips. I fired again, missed, then pulled the trigger one more time. The bullet tore his jaw and ear off. Sergeant Hall came up alongside me, saw the AK and the boy, and finished him with four shots to his chest. He slumped against the low rooftop wall.

"Thanks, dude. I lost my zero," I said to Hall, explaining that my rifle sights were off-line, though that was the last thing going through my mind.

Now a day later on a street surrounded by coffins and mourning families, their grief is too much for us to witness. These poor people had been caught in the middle, abused by the fanatics who chose to fight us. Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militiamen are the foot soldiers of the Shia uprising. They're the ones who have created this chaos in Muqdadiyah. They use innocent people's homes and businesses as fighting positions and ambush points.

The angst-filled scenes on the street cannot compare to what we find inside these battle-scarred houses. Yesterday, my squad kicked in one door and stumbled right into a woman wearing a blood-soaked apron. She was sitting on the floor, howling with grief. She looked to be in her mid-forties and had Shia tattoos on her face. When she saw us, she stood and grasped Specialist Piotr Sucholas by the shoulders and gave him a kiss on his cheek. Then she turned and laid her head on Sergeant Hall's chest, as if to touch his heart.

I stepped forward and said in broken Arabic "La tah khaf madrua? Am ree kee tabeeb. Weina mujahadeen kelp?" Do not be afraid. Injured? American doctor. Where are the mujahadeen dogs?

She bent and kissed my wedding ring. "Baby madrua. Baby madrua." The despair in her voice was washed away by the sound of a little girl's laughter. When the giggling child came in from the kitchen and clutched her mother's leg, we immediately realized she had Down's syndrome. I was struck by the beauty of this child. Specialist Pedro Contreras, whose heart was always the biggest in our platoon, knelt by her side and gave her a butterscotch candy. Contreras loved Iraqi kids. He had a six-year-old nephew back home, and seeing these little ones made him ache for the boy.

We didn't see the injured baby at first -- we still had a job to do. I moved upstairs, searching for an insurgent who had been shooting at our Bradleys. Halfway up, I discovered a smear of blood on the steps. Then I found a tuft of human hair. Another step up, I saw a tiny leg.

Baby madrua.

Ah, fuck. Fuck.

The child was dead. She was torn apart at the top of the stairs. Specialist Michael Gross had followed me partway up the stairs. I turned to him and screamed, "Get back down! I said get the fuck back down!" Gross stopped suddenly, then eased off the stairs, a wounded look on his face. I was overly harsh, but I didn't want him to see what was left of this dead child.

Leaving the squad on the first floor, I went to clear the roof alone. Three dead goats lay bleeding on the rooftop next to a dead Mahdi militiaman dressed in black with a gold armband. He had died with an AK in hand, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher leaning against the wall at his side. My stomach churned. Was this the woman's husband? Had he really endangered his family by shooting at us from his own rooftop? What kind of human does this? Revolted, I fled downstairs. The rest of the squad had found shell casings in the children's bedroom. The Mahdi militiaman had been shooting from the window there as well.

I'll never forget that house. The woman kissed each of us good-bye. As she touched her lips to my cheek, I pointed to my wedding ring and asked her where her husband was.

"Weina zoah jik? Shoof nee, shoof nee." Where is your husband? Show me, show me.

She spat onto the floor and cried, "Kelp." Dog. I guessed he was the corpse on her roof. I touched my heart and tried to convey my feelings, but the language barrier was too great.

Her surviving daughter giggled and waved good-bye.

Now I wonder if the woman is among the crowd around the coffins. If I saw her, what would I say?

Cantrell orders us back into our Bradleys. I climb inside. The ramp closes behind me. We move out. Over the radio, we hear that our battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Newell, and his security detail have made contact with insurgents. We race off to support him.

Newell's Humvee has a .50-caliber M2 machine gun in its turret. When we arrive, his gunner, Sergeant Sean Grady, is busy hosing down a grove of trees the insurgents are using for concealment. In response, a trio of rocket-propelled grenades land in front of his Humvee. Our battalion commander ignores the incoming and from the right seat he coordinates the fight with a radio in each ear. He is unflappable.

The radio chatter makes us tense and anxious to get into the fight.

Newell's two-rig convoy takes fire from both sides of the highway. The volume swells as more rockets streak across the road. Suddenly, a small boy of perhaps five or six steps out into the street. Standing next to Newell's Humvee, the kid holds up first two fingers, then five fingers.

Sergeant Grady swings his machine gun around. It is obvious that the boy is signaling to the Mahdi militiamen how many American vehicles and soldiers are present.

As Grady racks the bolt on his machine gun, Newell realizes what his gunner has in mind. "Don't shoot the child," he orders.

"Sir, the kid is giving our position away," says Grady, his voice nearly drowned out by the swelling volume of incoming fire.

"Don't shoot the child," Newell reiterates, his voice stern. Grady gets the message. Our colonel possesses a black-and-white sense of morality. The kid, no matter what he's doing, will not be targeted. At times, our battalion commander's adherence to such niceties frustrates us, but I know in time we will thank him. Nobody wants a child on his conscience.

From the backseat of the Humvee, the Iraqi Defense Corps officer accompanying Newell leans forward and says, "Those men out there, sir, they are mine."

Never intimidated, Newell ignores the Iraqi colonel and remains focused on fighting his task force. The Iraqi colonel falls silent and turns to look out his window. Grady sees him smiling. Is he a Mahdi militia sympathizer, too?

By the time my Bradley reached the fight and dropped its ramp, Staff Sergeant Colin Fitts is on the ground ahead of me, with his entire squad and my B Team. They're advancing eastward under heavy fire. We've got to catch up with them and give him support. We sprint across open ground, making a mad dash through heavy but poorly aimed machine-gun fire. The professional in me derides their skill.

These bastards could kill us all if they'd just give us a two-finger lead.

The heat of the morning is already intense. By the time we reach a cluster of buildings, I am lightheaded and a bit fuzzy from the near-brush with heat exhaustion.

Assault rifles bark. Bullets ping around us. We run along a wall, turn into an alley, and start weaving around houses and shacks. Every doorway, window, and rooftop is a potential threat. We keep our heads on a swivel as we run, looking for shooters.

We cross through two alleys before a wave of small-arms fire bursts in front of us. The rapid metallic bangs of Fitts's M4 rifle follow hard on the heels of the lighter cracks of AK-47 fire. Fitts and a dozen good men, his nine-man squad and three from my squad, are out there unsupported. I've got to get to them. We home in on the sound of battle.

We cross more alleys, pass more houses. Ahead a few blocks, I catch sight of three of Fitts's men hugging a wall and blasting away with their rifles. Where's Fitts? I turn and lead my men up an alleyway. I intend to move parallel to his squad's position with the intent to envelope the enemy that Fitts has encountered.

Behind us, an M4 rifle barks. I spin around and see Lieutenant Christopher Walls, our platoon leader, on the trigger. In the maze of alleyways, I know he'll have a hard time finding us as we continue to advance. I tell Specialist John Ruiz, Private First Class Raymond Cullins, and Sergeant Alan Pratt to hang back and wait for him while I move forward to find Fitts and figure out how we can consolidate both squads.

I reach a corner, peer around, and finally spot Fitts and the rest of First Squad. They've taken cover up a small side street about a football field away from me. They're twenty meters from a walled compound.

Inside the compound sits a small house with a sandbagged machine-gun nest in one window. The nest looks empty, and the gun's barrel points skyward. Yet many of the rockets and much of the small-arms fire sizzling our way seems to be coming from this area.

Fitts is taking fire from his rear, too. Black-hooded insurgents slash through the alleys all around Fitts's squad. Rockets zip and explode over low-walled compounds. Machine guns chatter. I can see clearly that Mahdi militia have surrounded First Squad. There's only one option for Fitts: get his men inside a house and seize a rooftop that can be used as a defensive position. The nearest house is the one inside the walled compound. That's the one he'll take down. Fitts and I think alike. He doesn't see me, but I know what he's doing. If Fitts is able to seize that defensive position inside the compound, he'll gain a solid foothold in this neighborhood and a position that can weather the cross fire his squad is now in. I prepare to maneuver my A Fire Team to support him.

Pratt, Collins, and Ruiz advance toward me, only to take fire from an alleyway. They stop to return fire, embroiled in a fight of their own. I realize my team won't be able to support First Squad. We're strung out over about fifty yards of enemy-infested urban jungle and preoccupied with our own survival.

Up the alley, I see Fitts gathering his men in a wedge formation to move on the compound and escape the crossfire. He leads them forward, opening into a reverse-horseshoe formation. Fitts is doing it by the book. As they reach just outside the compound's wall and move toward the front gate, multiple machine guns unleash a torrent of fire at them from the upper stories of another fortified complex about three hundred meters away.

Desperately, I scan for targets. Fitts needs me to put suppressive fire on that complex, but the buildings near me mask my view. I can't see anyone to shoot.

Fitts leads the men forward even as Misa and others loft a volley of 40mm grenades toward the fortified complex. They boom in the distance, but the incoming fire doesn't diminish.

As Fitts's squad approaches the compound's entrance, they enter hell. Bullets smack around them on the street, coming from every point on the compass. Insurgents are firing from everywhere. First Squad is caught in a triple crossfire. Their only hope is to get inside the building.

As a rash of bullets tear the ground around Gross and Con-treras, Fitts never hesitates. His M4 blazing, Fitts leads his squad and my B Team in a dash for the house. Tracers whiz past them like hot embers from a windblown bonfire. I seethe. I can't see anyone to shoot. I can't help. My first instinct is to run into the open and give our enemy someone else to shoot at.

I'm just about to move when it happens. Fitts is crouched and shooting into the other side of the compound when his right forearm snaps back violently. A spray of blood fills the air. He doesn't break stride. He takes two more steps, switches his rifle to his left hand and braces it under his armpit. He fires it like a child's toy with his one good arm.

Then his left arm jerks and slumps as another bullet strikes him in the left bicep, right above the elbow. His rifle tilts to the ground and he triggers several rounds into the dirt. He staggers, drops his rifle, and falls down.

Ten feet behind Fitts, Specialist Desean Ellis spins backward and screams. Even from my distant vantage point, almost a hundred meters away, I hear a terrible ripping sound, like denim jeans being torn apart. A bullet has hit him in the right quadricep. As he spins I can see a crimson stain on Ellis's pants. He crumples to the ground.

Summoning reserves of strength, Fitts retrieves his M4 rifle and regains his feet. He pumps four or five quick shots into the house as he stumbles forward. Behind him, his men go "cyclic" with their automatic weapons' rate of fire. Properly trained infantrymen don't do that in close combat except in desperate circumstances. Faced with the loss of their leader, they have no choice but to turn their weapons into lethal showerheads.

A shape appears in the doorway. Fitts fires at the insurgent, triggering his weapon now with his thumb and the ring finger of his opposing hand. Sergeant Hall unleashes a volley as well. The enemy collapses in the doorway. Seconds later, another takes his place. Contreras shoots him dead with two well-placed rounds.

The abandoned machine gun in the second-story window suddenly tilts down. I see the movement and realize what it means. Somebody is manning the weapon now, and our men are in the open. I still have no clear shot. I can't help. My stomach churns. I rage against my own helplessness.

The gun barks. Bullets erupt all around the squad. The men scramble for their lives. Fitts has no chance. I see him double over as blood fountains from his right knee, his third hit. He sags into the dirt, blood pooling around him.

I cannot believe what I'm seeing. Fitts, my closest friend, has been shot three times, and I'm powerless to help. Searing heat ripples down my spine. I lose feeling in my legs. I can't move. I can't think. All I can do is watch in horror. I think of Fitts's wife. She's back home pregnant with their third child. How am I going to explain this day to her?

I can't look, but I have to.

Fitts is lying facedown in the dirt about ten meters from the house's front door. Misa launches another 40mm grenade into the machine-gun nest overhead just as two men charge out the front door.

To my amazement, Fitts grasps his M4 again and opens fire. He still has plenty of fight left in him.

Specialist Michael Gross kills the first man out the door. The second, a thin man with a dark beard, bolts through the doorway and passes straight into Private First Class Jim Metcalf's line of fire. He and Specialist Lance Ohle squeeze off several rounds and the thin man dies only a few steps from Fitts. Simultaneously two more militiamen duck out of a neighboring house. Specialist Jesse Flannery cuts them down as Contreras sprints to Fitts, picks him up, and starts to drag him backward toward the refuge of a walled compound.

"Get the fuck off me and grab security in that shack back there," orders Fitts. Behind the squad sits a tiny shack against the interior of the compound wall. Aside from the house itself, it is their best hope. The house seems to be clear of enemy fighters. The danger lies in the incoming fire from the neighboring buildings. In the middle of the compound, Fitts and Contreras are sitting ducks.

"I'm not leaving you here," argues Contreras.

"Get the fuck off me. Leave me here."

Reluctantly, Contreras drops Fitts just as another burst of fire laces the squad from their left. Contreras drops to one knee, turns, and drains his magazine in the direction of the incoming. He's exposed, but he doesn't care. He keeps banging away at targets I can't see. Empty shell casings fly through the gun's ejection port and tumble down on top of Fitts, who has started to crawl forward toward the enemy.

I hear a rifle bark from somewhere in front of me. I catch sight of a dark-faced Iraqi in Ray-Bans. He's on a roof using an Iranian-made rifle. I can't tell if he's on our side or not, but he seems to be suppressing the enemy around Fitts and the rest of First Squad. Not far from the compound, a rocket-toting militiaman breaks cover. Mr. Ray-Ban on the roof drops him with a series of well-placed shots.

I am so fucking confused right now.

Fitts rises to his feet. Using his rifle as a cane, he about-faces and limps the rest of the way to the compound wall without assistance. Hall moves toward Fitts, but I see him suddenly jerk and spin. A geyser of water shoots out of his CamelBak hydration pack.

"Hall, you hit, man?" shouts Misa.

"I know. I know, dude." Hall never slows, though three bullets have just hit him in the back. Only his body armor saved him.

The squad takes cover against the inside of the compound wall. Seconds later, a rocket-propelled grenade meant for Staff Sergeant Cory Brown's Bradley sails high and explodes against the outside of the wall.

A militiaman pops up on a rooftop, looking for a new angle from which to fire into the trapped squad. He's the first real target I've had, and I unload on him. He ducks and disappears, and I fume at myself for missing him.

My zero is off.

Behind me, Pratt and Ruiz are still battling by the alleyway. Insurgents take shots at them from between two buildings. They're in no position to help us. Bullets strike around them with high-pitched zips and whines.

I decide I need to move. I get to my feet and zig down an alleyway, then turn a corner. I stop short. I've come right up behind a man smoking a cigarette. His golden armband denoting membership in the Mahdi militia has fallen around his wrist.

He doesn't notice me. He's preoccupied with Mr. Ray-Ban on the roof only a few meters away. His back is to me. He casually continues to smoke, with his AK strapped over his right shoulder. At first I think I'm hallucinating. Does this jackoff think there are unionized smoke breaks in battle?

My weapon comes up automatically. I don't even think. In the second it takes to set the rifle on burst-fire, my surprise gives way to cold fury. The muzzle makes contact with the back of his head.

Fuck a zero. I can't miss now.

My finger twitches twice. Six rounds tear through his skull. His knees collapse together as if I'd just broken both his legs. As he sinks down he makes a snorting, piggish sound. I lower my barrel and trigger another three-round burst into his chest, just to be sure. He flops to the ground with a meaty slap.

His head bobbles back and forth. He snorts again. I convince myself that this is the man who shot Fitts, and I am roused to a full fury. His face looks like a bloody Halloween mask and I stomp it with my boot until he finally dies. While I spike his weapon, bending the barrel to assure that anyone who uses it again will only hurt themselves, I notice my entire boot is bathed in blood and gore.

Rockets fly. Our gunners in the Bradleys have a bead now. Specialist Shane Gossard, Staff Sergeant Brown's Bradley gunner, blasts away at insurgent positions as they make their way to Fitts's squad. Cantrell's gunner, Sergeant Chad Ellis, kills two men running with bags of rockets on their backs. In the cover of this chaos, my men run and shoot their way into the compound. Finally, I get through the gate and rush to Fitts.

He's lying on his back, his face waxen. I can tell he's in shock.

"How you doing, bro?"

"Been better. This fucking smarts."

That's all he'll say, despite taking three bullets from three different weapons.

I call Cantrell to bring in a medevac and get Fitts and Ellis out. When our platoon sergeant realizes two of his men are hurt, he goes ballistic. He speeds his Bradley to our rescue. Initially, he can't find us, and his wrath swells until I fear he's on the verge of an aneurism. He bellows repeatedly over the radio.

I strip Fitts of his weapon, magazines, night vision, and tools. He understands. He's in no condition to fight, and we'll need everything for what's ahead. I take everything off him but his can of Copenhagen dip.

Cantrell's Bradley arrives. Quickly, we load Fitts and Ellis aboard. Even as the ramp is raised, I hear Fitts giving orders to his men while Ellis screams for home.

The Bradley lumbers away, my best friend bleeding inside.

Moments later, we wade back into the fight. We battle from building to building. The killing continues unabated as darkness approaches. After dark, the advantage will be ours. With our night-vision equipment, we own the night. The Mahdi militiamen are fanatical but ill-trained. They only know how to die.

An Air Force F-16 jet arrives to fly back and forth overhead, bombs slung on the weapon pylons under each wing. They stay on those racks.

The pilot isn't allowed to drop his ordnance. Division doesn't want to have to rebuild the damage his bombs will cause. Apparently, we're fighting a kindler, gentler war.

Welcome to the infantry. Where hajji buildings are worth more than our lives. Fine, we'll live with the burden. It is just another test, another measure that sets us apart from the likes of that Quarter Cav major.

In Diyala, on April 9, 2004, we're in full battle rattle. The high-intensity urban fighting we've practiced since basic training is now finally allowed to be unleashed on our enemy. There is no weak-stomached four-star general to hold back on our reins. We are again the First Infantry Division of Vietnam and the beaches of Normandy. We pour through compound gates, rifles shouldered, targets falling as we trigger our weapons. Mahdi militiamen sprint from corner to corner, but we are quick and accurate with our aim. We knock them right out of their shoes. Our Brads are rolling, unleashing volley after volley from their Bushmasters into the nearby buildings. Yet the militiamen refuse to give up the fight. Tracers from unseen enemy positions spiderweb overhead. They make us earn every house and every inch.

This is our war: we can't shoot at every target, we can't always tell who is a target; but we look out for one another and we don't mind doing the nation's dirty work. Air Force pilots and Army majors expert in Microsoft PowerPoint have a perfectly clean view of it. We won't get support if it makes a mess.

Bring it.

We're the infantry.

War's a bitch, wear a helmet.

Copyright © 2007 by David Bellavia