McCoy's Marines: A six part series

[Jobber of the Week 0]

It seems to me that it's suprisingly late for another embedded reporter war story to come out, but this one is quite interesting as the reporter was trained as a Marine in his early days (and touches upon that in the first entry) and seems to actually know what he's talking about, compared to most reporters.

 

This one is about gearing up in Kuwait, tomorrow's about crossing into Iraq, Wednesday is more of Iraq, Thursday is about firefights, Friday is finishing up, and Saturday is heading home.

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=universal

 

DARKSIDE TOWARD BAGHDAD

 

They called me Paperboy. Even as a newspaper reporter, I'd seen little death. And I'd never seen anyone die. But I wanted to see a war. So when I had the chance for a seat on the 50-yard line in Iraq, I took it. I was what they called an "embedded reporter." I rode along with the Third Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment, as it loaded up in Kuwait and crossed into Iraq.

 

The Marines fought, killed, and some died; and they were the ones who pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein. The unit was led by Lt. Col. Bryan P. McCoy. Radio call sign: Darkside.

 

It's a joking reference to the movie "Star Wars." As in Darth Vader's "Come over to the dark side." But deep down, "Darkside" is a state of mind. That part of the brain that goes back to the caveman, to life and death and protecting what's yours.

 

It's the boy who picks up a stick and pretends it's a machine gun. It's playing war or cowboys and Indians. It's the love of movies with guns and bombs and car chases. It's the tingle at the start of a football game, or a fight.

 

Darkside understands it. As a Marine battalion commander, he has studied it, trained for it and applied it to a thousand men in his command. And then he put it to use in Iraq.

 

In addition to moving his thousand Marines across the battlefield and keeping them fed and healthy, Darkside had to control the violence of his men. He had to unleash it for battle, and then carefully put it away in a safe place when the shooting stopped. Some of this was his to control. Most was the result of training and careful selection of men who would serve in a fighting unit. Marines talk incessantly about "rules of engagement," whom to shoot and when to shoot them. It's not uncommon to see them killing enemy soldiers one minute, feeding candy to kids the next. Darkside is 40 years old. From Oklahoma. About 6 feet tall, 200 pounds. Hazel eyes and light brown hair in a Marine Corps high-and-tight cut.

 

He's an Army brat; his dad was an officer, two tours in Vietnam. But Army life didn't appeal to the younger McCoy. He liked the spirit and energy of the Marines. He lives the life of a modern-day Spartan. He trains hard, runs marathons, hikes long trails. "Being a Marine is not something I do," he once told me. "It's what I am."

 

McCoy has studied the great generals. He can tell you whom he admires and why. William Tecumseh Sherman for his straightforward, no-muss, no-fuss approach to war. Rommel for his tactical mind. Patton for aggressiveness. Napoleon for the ability to spot a weakness and act on it. The Spartans for their warrior ethic.

 

His favorite quote is from Sherman. "War is cruelty. There is no use in refining it. The crueler it is, the sooner it is over."

 

Second favorite is Rommel. "When in doubt, attack."

 

A couple of days after the fall of Baghdad, McCoy and I chat in the coffee shop of the Palestine Hotel and our thoughts go to the Marines who died during the war. McCoy will have to send letters to their families.

 

I ask him how he deals with it, the knowledge that they died under his command.

 

"I don't know," he says. "I don't think I have dealt with it."

 

Darkside is a Methodist. He believes that his profession and his religion are not at odds. As a Marine, he kills and orders others to kill. He sees it as a necessary evil. "In the world, there are sheep and there are wolves," he says. "I like to think of Marines as the sheepdogs.

 

"Someone has to know how to fight. If it weren't for the sheepdogs, where would the sheep be?"

 

THE MARINES

 

Marines believe. They believe they're the best fighters and the best lovers. They believe they are the toughest and the bravest.

 

A couple hundred years ago, there were no Marines, only sailors and soldiers. Aboard the tall-masted fighting ships, a group of sailors emerged: the meanest, toughest warriors who fought the enemy hand-to-hand in ship-to-ship battles, and who went on shore parties. These became a separate unit later and they were called Marines.

 

I don't know if that's why Marines are so cocky and full of themselves. But the corps has always attracted a certain type of person. People with something to prove. Who want to live on the edge. Many Marines went to boot camp one step ahead of county jail. Others were high school jocks who liked the attention, or kids proving their manhood.

 

It's June 1976 and I'm sitting at attention in a wooden barracks. This is Parris Island, South Carolina. I'm 17 years old.

 

We're waiting to get haircuts. We all have hair down to our shoulders, or longer. And Marine barbers don't really cut as much as shear.

 

They're taking guys four at a time into another room for their three-minute shearings. I'm staring out a screened window at people passing by. Marine wives and friends, laughing and strolling. They're free. I'm not.

 

I hear a commotion. Some brave young man has approached a drill instructor. The recruit is short and muscular. Handsome, with beautiful, dark curly hair. There's been a terrible mistake, he says. He's not supposed to be here.

 

I expect the drill instructor to explode and scream. But he doesn't. He smiles. He's going to pick the wings off a fly. What's the matter, young man, he asks gently. The boy, emboldened, smiles back. He says he lied on his enlistment papers. He has a bad back, a wrestling injury. His recruiter told him to lie about the injury so he could enlist. But now his back hurts and he realizes it was a mistake. Can he go home?

 

The DI smiles and calls to another couple of drill instructors. Listen to this sad story. And the boy says again, he has a bad back.

 

One DI says, I think we should process him right out of here.

 

I agree, says another.

 

But first, the original DI says, you're getting a haircut.

 

The three DIs grab the boy and pull him toward the barber room. He screams. No! It was a mistake! I don't want my hair cut!

 

He had gorgeous hair. Then it was gone. His scalp was mottled. When he crawled out of the barber's room, they took him from the barracks and we never saw him again.

 

Welcome to the Marine Corps.

 

Everything about Parris Island was brutal. The heat, the sand fleas, the running. The constant punishment: push-ups, jumping jacks, bend-and-thrusts.

 

The first night in our barracks we had to sleep at attention. The next day, someone did something stupid and the whole platoon had to do bend-and-thrusts. My hands hit hot pavement and blistered. That night, in the dark, I bit into those blisters with my teeth to drain the fluid.

 

Some kid couldn't take it. He cried and wet himself. So the drill instructors made him sleep at the front of the barracks, in full view of everyone, while they processed him out. Late at night, I could hear him crying, and all I could think was, I'm glad that's not me.

 

I was fully brainwashed as a Marine by the time I graduated boot camp. I came to my senses about three weeks later. I couldn't stand the thought of humping a pack and rifle everywhere. I sure as hell didn't want to kill anyone, or get killed.

 

I went to electronics school and learned how to fix radios. This was peacetime. I did my four years, drank a ton of beer, tried to make out with bar girls in Okinawa and Naples and took my leave with an honorable discharge.

 

I was most definitely not a warrior.

 

THE STUMPS

 

In the Mojave Desert, a hundred miles from nowhere, is the world's largest Marine base. Nine hundred square miles of sand and rock and a handful of barracks. This is Twentynine Palms, home of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Training Center.

 

I went to Twentynine Palms looking for a unit I could tag along with if the United States went to war in Iraq.

 

The Defense Department had been talking about a new program for journalists. The plan was to "embed" reporters and photographers in military units, to live, eat and sleep with them if they went to war. Like Ernie Pyle in World War II. But if you've spent time in the military, you know there are units that fight and many more that support the ones fighting. I wanted to find a unit that would be in the fight. I wanted to meet them, get to know them. And I wanted to be comfortable with them. I wanted to find a unit that knew what it was doing. So we would all make it out alive.

 

I went to Twentynine Palms because I figured anyone who trained there would be skilled at desert warfare. The bulk of the 1st Marine Division is based at Camp Pendleton, situated halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. But one infantry battalion lives at Twentynine Palms year-round. That unit is the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment.

 

Commanded by a lieutenant colonel nicknamed Darkside.

 

I discovered Three-Four by accident. I stayed with it on purpose.

 

No one was real excited about taking reporters to war. But Marines take orders. On my side, I had my Marine experience. And the fact that I was spending the time to get to know them. McCoy was out for most of the day. I met him late. I was impressed by his personality. He seemed motivated and intelligent. He was hard core, but not overbearing.

 

More than anything, I liked that he understood my job.

 

"I don't expect you to write only good things about us," he told me. "If we screw something up, I expect you to write about that, too. That's your job. Just be fair. That's all I ask." We would have reason to test that philosophy later.

 

Darkside likes being a battalion commander. He is king. He rules over his men, interacts with them, sleeps with them in the field. Battalion commander is the last job an officer has in which he can actually fight a battle. After the next promotion, you stick pins in maps and work out the logistics of getting bullets to the fighting men.

 

A battalion is like a small private company, in that it has a budget and a hierarchy and can function independently, at least within the confines of its orders. McCoy knew war was coming, and so he amped up the training program. He spent an entire year's ammunition budget in about a month. He wanted his Marines to feel comfortable with the sound and smell and feel of real bullets firing. Of course, if the war hadn't come, he would have been up a creek for spending wildly.

 

THE SERGEANT MAJOR

 

There are a thousand men, more or less, in a Marine infantry battalion. The most feared, respected, loved and hated man is the sergeant major.

 

He is the senior enlisted man in the battalion. There are nine enlisted ranks in the military and 10 officer ranks. Enlisted starts with private, then private first class and lance corporal. Those are the young guys, the ones who do most of the fighting and dying in war.

 

Then come the noncommissioned officers, the corporals and sergeants. The higher-ranking sergeants add "rockers," semicircular stripes, beneath their sergeant stripes when they get promoted. A staff sergeant has three stripes up and one rocker underneath. A gunnery sergeant has two. The sergeant major has four rockers. A sergeant major typically has served 20 or so years and been in units around the globe.

 

A Marine sergeant major provides order and discipline among the enlisted ranks, and he teaches lieutenants about life in the corps. The sergeant major of Three-Four is a cantankerous St. Louis native named Dave Howell. He has a bullet-shaped head and a thick chest. He seems taller than he is because he yells so much.

 

Howell was the perfect complement to the colonel. Howell never went to college, but he spent 24 years in the Marines. He can chew up and spit out a misbehaving private one minute and tell a dirty joke the next. None of his stories are printable, but the funniest ends with the line: "Peg leg? What peg leg?"

 

Howell was nice and polite to me in the way career military men are to civilians. He called me "sir." Normally, as a reporter, I ask the questions. But as my time with him progressed, I noticed that he was asking me things. And it occurred to me: I'm being interviewed.

 

Howell is a blunt man. And talking to him started me thinking, for the first time, about the harsh reality of war.

 

"If you go with us, you're going to see us out there killing people," he said matter-of-factly. "How do you think the American people will feel about that?"

 

I told him I had no idea how the American people would react. It would depend on how the U.S. troops conducted themselves.

 

Inside, I was wondering how I would react. I imagined Marines charging Iraqi lines, shooting and killing. Would I get close enough to witness it? Would I risk my life or would I sit in the rear and wait for the battle to be over?

 

THE 'WAIT

 

Welcome to Kuwait.

 

The Marines call it "The 'Wait." Marines, soldiers and sailors sit in Kuwait for weeks, some for months, waiting for the start of a war that everyone knows is coming.

 

Many had been here before, in 1991, the time the U.S. military slaughtered the Iraqis. That kind of victory leads to confidence: that another war to the north will be a cakewalk.

 

McCoy has been here before. He commanded a rifle company in the first Gulf War. "I knew 12 years ago that we would have to come back and finish the job," McCoy says. "I just didn't know when."

 

In Kuwait, the Marines train day and night. They shoot their M-16s and squad automatic weapons (SAWs). They fire the big nasty .50-caliber machine gun, mounted on the hoods of Humvees and turrets of tanks, and the MK-19, the fully automatic grenade launcher. They fire pistols and M-60 machine guns and mortars and the 120mm tank cannons.

 

Three-Four has been reconfigured for combat. Normally, an infantry battalion has three rifle companies, along with headquarters and weapons companies. But Three-Four has detached Lima Company and given it to the division's 1st Tank Battalion to provide ground support. In exchange, Three- Four has control over a company of M1A1 Abrams tanks, called Bravo Company.

 

The battalion is living in a patch of dust known as Camp Coyote, about 30 miles south of the Iraqi border.

 

Kuwait is flat as a table top and almost featureless. It's sand and more sand, with dust atop it. You can see far into the distance. You glance to the north often. It looks foreboding and dangerous. Way out on the horizon is a small white tent, an outpost. The only thing between two armies and a showdown.

 

The Kuwaitis build their American guests several tent cities in the north. Relatively nice white canvas tents with plywood flooring. Nobody has a cot. But the accommodations aren't bad by grunt standards. Nobody has to live in a hole in the dirt. There are portable toilets and several modular shower buildings. The men shower about once a week. Chow tents serve hot meals twice a day.

 

When sandstorms hit and the generators go down, breakfast is a banana and warm Kool-Aid. Even on good days, the meals are numbingly similar. Breakfast is runny scrambled eggs and a long white sausage the guys call "camel dick."

 

While the tents and Porta Pottis make life livable, the training regimen does not. The troops know the president is considering war. And they know the presence of a hundred thousand troops on Kuwaiti soil means it's more than likely.

 

So training is around the clock. You wake up at 2 a.m. to the sounds of armored vehicles lumbering past and sergeants shouting orders. Throughout the day, squads or platoons run about, their gear swaying and clanging.

 

Reporters and photographers are everywhere. The Defense Department wants coverage of the buildup and has been bringing reporters in and out of the camps for months.

 

I get to Kuwait in mid-February. About three weeks later, they embed us. I'm with three other journalists, Simon Robinson and Bob Nickelsberg, reporter and photographer from Time magazine, and Gary Scurka, a producer for National Geographic television.

 

Soon after we're embedded, I have a talk with the sergeant major about how and where we journalists will go to war. Kilo Company is the hot ticket. It's better trained and considered harder-charging than India Company. If you want to see action, go with Kilo.

 

But I'm not sure I want to get that close. I ask about riding with Howell. He says he plans to be wherever the worst of the fighting is. That sounds even worse. No matter. He says no reporter rides with him.

 

Later Howell gathers us and says Simon and Bob will ride with Kilo, Gary will ride with India. I'm to ride with the Main. The Main is the central support and headquarters company. It's safe there, Howell says, but close enough that I'll get good stories.

 

I feel deflated. I should have gone with Kilo. On the other hand, Kilo is going to mix it up. And God knows what will happen.

 

THE RUN

 

It's 4 a.m. Kilo Company is getting up. Their tents are near the reporters' tent, called a "hootch," so when the company gunny starts rousting people, you know it.

 

Kilo is going on a 5-mile march this morning. First Sgt. Jim Kirkland has invited the reporters to go along. I'm thinking, 5 miles, we can march that far. Except the company commander, Capt. Kevin Norton, likes surprises. War is full of them, he reasons. So, then, must be training.

 

In the predawn dark, we start off on a fast walk, everyone wearing flak jackets, helmets, weapons and ammunition. Norton is at the front of the column.

 

After a half mile, he breaks into a run. The grunts shake their heads, give a loud "Oooh-rah!" and they're off.

 

The infantry types dig this stuff. Less so the tank crews and the guys who drive the armored personnel carriers. They don't spend that much time on the ground.

 

The column moves like an accordion as people slow down and then speed up.

 

Someone starts singing the AC/DC song "Highway to Hell," and there are laughs. Except from the guys sucking wind. Kirkland runs up and down the line, shouting encouragement to some and threatening others if they should dare to drop out.

 

Machine gunners and mortar men have it worst. They have to carry heavy tripods and gun tubes. Some have to pass off their weapons to a buddy, but that comes at a price. They are hooted and shunned until they take back their loads.

 

Norton slows the pace to a walk, and some sigh with relief. It doesn't last long. After another half mile, Norton breaks into a trot. It's lighter now, and we can see the camp to one side and nothing but open sand to the other. Across that wide expanse, everyone knows, is Iraq.

 

We run and then we walk. Run and then walk. Run. Walk. Norton growls at the people behind him to keep up. He's carrying all his gear, but it's not enough. As we pass by an abandoned sentry post, he runs over and picks up a sandbag and tosses it over his shoulder. He needed some extra weight, he tells me later.

 

The company works its way around the entire camp over a period of about an hour and then makes a right onto the main road into camp just after sunup. As other Marines come out of their hootches and prepare for chow, Kilo Company is running past, drenched in sweat, singing cadence.

 

"The guys love that stuff," Norton says with a grin. "They want everyone to know who's the toughest."

 

Back at the Three-Four tents, Kilo has a morning formation. Then Norton calls his men around him and gives a pep talk. He talks about motivation, training, preparedness and war.

 

"All it takes is one guy over there in a foxhole with a machine gun who decides to make a stand," he says. "One motivated individual can hurt you if you're not prepared, if you're not thinking, all the time."

 

Later, at an Iraqi city known as Al Kut, that lesson will be learned the hard way.

 

THE SPEECH

 

On March 15, we go to sleep knowing that the president will address the nation the next morning about 4 a.m. Kuwait time. At 5 a.m., I awake to the sound of a camp coming apart.

 

The president has given Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave town. War is imminent.

 

Duffel bags are filled and packs readjusted. Canteens topped off. Humvees gassed. The tent city looks like a beehive hit by a broomstick.

 

In midafternoon, McCoy calls a battalion formation. The sergeant major orders the companies to attention, turns and salutes McCoy. The C.O. jumps onto the rear ramp of an armored assault vehicle. He puts the men at ease, calls them over to circle around him.

 

McCoy looks at his men. There's a good chance some won't come back. Maybe a lot won't. He has practiced this speech for weeks.

 

It is, perhaps, the most important thing he will ever say.

 

"You're ready," he says, nodding. "You've trained hard." He tells the men to expect fear. "That's normal," he says. "Accept it. Just know you're not out there alone. These will be some of the most memorable days in your lives. Friends you make here will be friends for life. He will be your brother forever."

 

McCoy talks about the battalion's first mission. They're going to Basra to engage an entire mechanized division, the Iraqi 51st. Which means they're going against tanks and infantry. Intelligence indicates thousands of soldiers in the division, though no one knows if it's at full strength. Still, the reports suggest that the battalion might be outnumbered 6 to 1. Maybe 8 to 1.

 

"We're going to slaughter the 51st Mechanized Division," McCoy says. "We're going to kill them and make an example out of them. If other Iraqi units see what happens to them, they might just go ahead and surrender."

 

It will not be a fair fight, he says. "My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby harp seals. We will hit them with everything we have."

 

McCoy reads a message from the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, Jim Mattis, who talks about the reasons for war, about Saddam Hussein and the weapons of mass destruction. The general reminds the Marines that the Iraqi people are not the enemy, that the Marines are not to think of themselves as invaders.

 

The general urges the men to remain sharp, and be smart. "Engage your brain before you engage your weapon," he writes. "Be the hunter, not the hunted."

 

In this war, maybe more so than others, the military worries about atrocities. The Marine Corps has its own hymn and there's a line in it: "Keep our honor clean." Do that, McCoy says.

 

And then it's over. Darkside jumps off the armored vehicle. The battalion goes back to work. Gear is stowed. Weapons oiled. In the midday heat, someone cranks up a boom box, loud, to the AC/DC heavy-metal song "Hells Bells."

 

THE BATTALION

 

Late in the afternoon, the battalion moves north, closer to Iraq. And then north again. As Washington threatens and cajoles, the 1st Marine Division is on the march. Three-Four stops a couple of miles south of Iraq, next to Highway 80, which leads to the Kuwait border town of Abdaly.

 

At night, we see cars driving down the road.

 

"You think those people would mess themselves if they knew what was out here?" asks Warrant Officer Gene Coughlin, better known as Gunner.

 

A Marine infantry battalion has enough firepower to level a small city.

 

Bravo Company has 15 M1A1 Abrams battle tanks. The battalion also has a platoon of armored assault vehicles (called AAVs) to carry infantry Marines. The AAVs are about 8 feet tall and 20 feet long and can carry 20 Marines. They are tracked vehicles, sometimes called Amtracs (for amphibious tractors) and can roll along at 40 mph on a hard surface. They're larger than the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicles, carry more men, but have less armor and firepower. The AAV has a turret with two guns, a .50-caliber machine gun and a 40mm automatic grenade launcher.

 

The battalion has combat engineers, mortars, scout vehicles with .50- caliber machine guns in turrets and anti-tank missiles.

 

They have forward air observers and artillery officers who can call in fire from jets, helicopter gunships or the big 155 howitzers that are usually just on the other side of the horizon. They have supply trains and communications squads.

 

There are handshakes all around and nods of "good luck" and "stay safe" as the Marines part to make final equipment and weapons checks before going to the fight.

 

Some Marines write a last letter home. Others burn letters and personal effects. Word is, in the last war Iraqis found the correspondence of U.S. troops and mailed horrible letters to their loved ones.

 

In the dusk that night, McCoy gathers his officers for a briefing. He reminds them to be leaders. That their conduct in battle would be important to their men. "When things are at their worst, you need to be seen the most," he says.

 

He points to the sun, setting behind the veil of a fine dust mist. "Look at that sunset," he says. "Remember it. That might be the last sunset some people see."

 

Then he grins, and quotes a line from a Bill Murray comedy about Army life called "Stripes."

 

"Lighten up, Francis."

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Part 2:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../DDC2PJ0412.DTL

 

THE BORDER

 

We wait in the desert for the war to start. A sandstorm kicks up. Visibility is 20 feet. Sand and dust and dirt get into every crevice, every weapon, food and water.

 

I'm still thinking of riding with Kilo, but I see that Simon and Bob are stuck in the back of an Amtrac, where it's hot, loud and cramped. And 'Tracs are big targets for an Iraqi with a rocket or mortar.

 

Then it occurs to me: ride with McCoy. Darkside has his own humvee. He rides close to the action. But he's smart enough to stay safe.

 

I approach him with my suggestion and he says yes. I'm thinking I'm pretty smart until I overhear him say, "I'll never get shot. People get killed all around me, but I never get hit."

 

This does not fill me with confidence.

 

But I take my gear to his vehicle. McCoy is in the front passenger seat next to a couple of vehicle-mounted radios. Cpl. Omar Monge is the driver, Lance Cpl. Garfield Shealy is McCoy's radio operator and Lance Cpl. Samuel Baynes rides in the turret hatch, manning an M-60 machine gun. I ride in the back.

 

We wait in the blowing sand.

 

GAS

 

Every couple of hours, we hear the alarm: "Gas, gas, gas." We scramble for the gas masks strapped to our hips and drag them over our heads. You can't breathe well in a gas mask. Air comes in through a filter on the side. Sweat drips down your cheeks and under your neck.

 

Everyone in the military trains for chemical, biological and nuclear attack. This has been going on for decades, since I was a young Marine. But it's taken on new urgency with this war.

 

People talk about how and when Saddam will use chemical or biological weapons. Most figure he'll wait until the noose is tight on Baghdad and he's about to go down in flames. Because it's a given that his army won't beat the U.S. military.

 

Even so, every time someone thinks he hears an artillery shell going off in Iraq, the gas alert sounds. If an Iraqi coughs on the other side of the border, a gas alert goes up. We stay masked for 10 minutes, 15, sometimes as much as an hour, before the all-clear sounds. Some guys fall asleep wearing their masks.

 

"I'd like to beat the hell out of whoever came up with the idea of chemical weapons to begin with," says Sgt. Kevin Smith, of Natchez, Miss.

 

Smith is a long-faced Southern boy who likes chewing tobacco and dirty jokes. He's one of my best friends in the battalion.

 

Late in the afternoon, I find Smith sitting on a dirt mound, opening an MRE.

 

"Please, join me, Mr. Koopman," he says. "I'm Kevin and I'll be your waiter this evening."

 

I sit down, and Smith opens one of the tan plastic bags. "Our special this evening is beefsteak with savory gravy," he says. "For dessert, we have some nice, um, Skittles."

 

"Where's my napkin?" I ask.

 

Smith hands me a rolled-up MRE toilet-paper ration and asks if I'd like to see the wine list.

 

We share the tepid water from his canteen.

 

Later, word comes down for everyone to put on MOPP suits. MOPP stands for Mission Oriented Protective Posture. Basically, it's a jacket and pants designed to protect the wearer from chemical and biological agents. It has an activated charcoal lining and can breathe, but not well.

 

We're told we'll stay in the suits until after we've crossed the border, maybe through the end of the war. We wear the suits over T-shirts and shorts; it's too hot for regular clothes.

 

THE NIGHT BEFORE WAR

 

We hear the sound of American artillery fire pounding Iraq. Helicopters buzz back and forth across the border. Inside the battalion tactical center, radios buzz. Engineers on the border are coming under Iraqi mortar attacks. A Marine tank has been hit by a Hellfire missile, fired from a Cobra gunship, in the first friendly-fire incident of the war.

 

No one knows what's going on to the north. No one knows whether the Iraqi army will hit hard or fade away.

 

An intelligence report says the Medina Division of Iraq's Republican Guard has secretly moved from Baghdad to the border.

 

The Medina Division is about the only Iraqi unit that the Marines respect.

 

And now, allegedly, here it are, ready to get down to business.

 

The news scares the hell out of me. Have the Iraqis developed a plan to ambush the Marines? It doesn't seem possible that the Iraqi military would win this, or any fight. Still, they could inflict damage and kill people. I have thoughts of a bloodbath. I picture hundreds of Iraq tanks dug into ambush positions. I picture the battalion caught in the middle, explosions all around, people dying and me trying to crawl into a hole.

 

The battalion staff stays up all night rewriting the battle plan. They have one night to redo what the division has worked on for months. No one gets much sleep.

 

If anyone is worried, they don't show it.

 

"Looks like the Republican Guard is going to come out and play," McCoy says in the morning. "Well, good on 'em. We'll slaughter them, too."

 

HOGAN'S ALLEY

 

The war starts in the morning.

 

The order to move comes from Ripper 6, the regimental commander, Col. Steve Hummer. McCoy's boss.

 

Pretty much the entire 1st Marine Division starts forward toward Iraq. The land is flat and sandy. You can see thick smoke on the horizon to the west and north.

 

The military movement is slow. The border between Iraq and Kuwait is strung with long lines of concertina wire and a deep trench. Engineers were there the night before to blow holes in the wire and make sure roads crossed the trenches. The result, however, is that Marine tanks and trucks bottleneck trying to get over the border quickly.

 

McCoy taps his radio handset impatiently against his helmet. "Go! Go! We've got to get past this!" he says to no one in particular.

 

Finally, the battalion moves through the gap. Into Iraq.

 

Now it's for real.

 

But there are no Iraqis. The battalion's tanks and AAVs pick up speed, cruising over bumps and berms north toward Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.

 

About a half hour after crossing the border, I see Iraqis. They live in low mud huts encircled by low mud walls. The terrain is greener here than in Kuwait. There are plowed fields and scrub brush.

 

People have hung white flags on their rooftops. They gather in courtyards to watch the tanks and trucks rumble past. Some wave. Most do not.

 

The Marines are on constant alert. At every stop, they dismount and set up defensive positions in the dirt. No one knows when or from where an attack might come.

 

There is none. The reports that the Iraqi Medina Division was readying for a border fight were false.

 

And then, we're at Basra.

 

Three-Four is ordered to attack and secure bridges on the outskirts of town, to attack and defeat the 51st Mechanized Infantry Division, which has its garrison on the southeast side of the city, and to secure Basra International Airport.

 

There is almost no fighting. Only scattered skirmishes, when some unlucky, or hardheaded, Iraqi soldier decides to dig in and make a fight of it. "We had guys out there killing the enemy," McCoy says. "A lot of Iraqis simply surrendered, but there were a few out there who decided to make a stand. You've got to respect them for that."

 

McCoy drives around the battlefield, looking for any place Iraqis might put up a fight. He goes to the garrison where the Iraqi division had been. Marine tanks prowl the roadway. They fire at Iraqi armored vehicles in the distance. You can see the rounds hit. Sparks shower the horizon to the sound of a distant "boom."

 

Most Iraqi armor appears to be abandoned and, in many cases, nonfunctional. But the tankers blow holes through them, just in case.

 

Adjacent to the Iraqi garrison barracks is a road that becomes known among the Marines as "Hogan's Alley." It's a reference to a training area at Quantico, Va., run by the FBI, where cops and Marines and soldiers practice "fire/don't-fire" exercises.

 

In this case, the Marines have Iraqi civilians in the distance and surrendering Iraqi soldiers alongside the various tanks and armored vehicles, as well as the occasional soldier who wants to fight.

 

The tanks move on the left side of the road. Their cannon blasts raise huge dust clouds. The concussion is tremendous. If you're within two city blocks of tank cannon, the blast hits you in the chest like a 2-by-4.

 

Across the ditch to the left is a family of sheepherders. Two young men, a boy, three women and a donkey. They're terrified.

 

The tank guns fire over them, slightly to the left and right.

 

Marine tank commanders get out of their top hatches and motion for the family to stay put and stay down.

 

"I was real worried for that family," Capt. Bryan Lewis, commander of the tank company, says later. "I was really quite proud that we got through there and did our job and they didn't have a scratch on them when we left."

 

It's at Hogan's Alley that the legend of Darkside grows.

 

As the tanks fire to the left, McCoy's humvee crawls along behind them to the right. McCoy gets out his binoculars and tries to make out hits in the distance. The humvee stops and McCoy looks to his right.

 

There, about 50 yards away, is an Iraqi T-55 tank. It's been dug into the dirt. Its turret is aboveground and its machine gun visible. If someone is inside that tank, he has only to traverse the turret and shoot us at point- blank range.

 

McCoy jumps out of the humvee with his M-16, followed by Shealy, the radio operator. The two men run over to the tank, pointing their rifles into the ditches and trenches dug next to it.

 

McCoy jumps onto the tank and tries the hatch. It's "battle-hatched," or locked from the inside. Which means there's probably a crew inside.

 

The two Marines run back to the humvee. McCoy yells, "Light it up." The colonel and Shealy fire their M-16s at the tank. The turret gunner, Baynes, opens up with his M-60. The bullets bounce harmlessly off the armor, knocking around the machine gun. Darkside is trying to rattle whoever's inside. Considering how close we are to the tank, this does not seem to be the best idea.

 

McCoy grabs a fragmentation grenade -- known as a "frag" -- from his vest and runs toward the tank. He throws the grenade into the trench next to the turret and hits the deck. The frag goes off; dust and dirt bounce 3 feet into the air.

 

Still nothing. We drive off. McCoy calls the Marine tank commander and tells him to hit the Iraqi tank. And I'm thinking, there's someone in there. Maybe a couple of guys. They're dead moments later when a high-explosive round blasts the turret.

 

Word gets around. Not only among the men of Three-Four but the regiment: Darkside is a hard charger. He gets up to where the fighting is. And he frags tanks.

 

"I can't let the lance corporals have all the fun," McCoy says.

 

He wasn't being entirely impetuous. Darkside also wanted to motivate his men. And he did.

 

As the Marines mop up around the garrison, it becomes clear that the Iraqis have no fight in them. The barracks are empty because the Iraqis have run. And now Iraqi soldiers start surrendering in groups. As the Marines drive down dirt roads, they find uniforms scattered everywhere. Helmets and AK-47s are in the ditches. There are so many guns lying around, the Marines don't bother to take them all. Sometimes they just run over them, trying to break them into pieces.

 

THE AIRPORT

 

The battalion now turns its attention to the airport.

 

McCoy gets on the radio to put his infantry and tanks together for a fast strike. Night has fallen, but that means nothing. Everyone has night-vision goggles. They wear them on their helmets and look like alien creatures.

 

But swampy land and the fog of war slow things down. In the middle of the night, the Marines swing around to the edge of the airport, but not everyone is in place, so the attack waits until dawn.

 

We sit in total darkness all night. I sleep about two hours, total. There's no room in the backseat of a humvee. Only about 3 inches of leg room. I sleep sitting upright, my body armor pushed up around my neck to keep my head from lolling to the side.

 

As the sun comes up, the Marines move in from the south. McCoy lets everyone know they are to leave the civilian portion of the airport alone. The U.S. military doesn't want to have to rebuild the area after the war. They focus on a military complex to the east.

 

A couple of low buildings and an earthen berm encircle an empty stretch of ground the size of a football field. Tanks and AAVs set up about 300 yards from the complex and pour machine-gun fire into it. Sparks fly from the buildings as the big .50 cals walk up and down the compound. From the distance, you see figures of men running. And falling under the hail of half-inch-thick bullets.

 

Then it's quiet. No targets present themselves. The buildings are shot to hell. The Marine turrets move left and right, looking for something, anything, to shoot.

 

This is the first combat I witness. It is anti-climactic. But the war has just begun.

 

A man appears in the distance. He's alone. Holding a white flag. He's wearing the green shirt and trousers of a regular army soldier, but no hat, and carrying no weapon.

 

"Keep the 60 on him," McCoy tells Baynes, in the turret. The man walks slowly toward the colonel's humvee. The driver, Cpl. Monge, gets out and motions for the man to lie face down in the dirt.

 

Monge kneels on the man's back and frisks him, twisting his torso to one side and then the other to search his pockets. He finds nothing but cash. A big wad of bills, all Iraqi dinars. Which means the whole stack might buy one good lunch in Baghdad.

 

"He said everyone is deserting," Monge reports. "He said he went to sleep last night dug in with his unit over by the bridge, and when he woke up everyone had gone but three of them. His buddy was too afraid to come out. He told this guy to go over and surrender, and if he lived through it, the other guy would come, too."

 

The radio crackles. Tan-colored vehicles are crossing a bridge to the north, heading toward the airport. Iraqi reinforcements. Inside his AAV, the Kilo Company commander, Capt. Kevin Norton, sees the Iraqis. He calls in artillery. The bridge and adjacent woods are engulfed in smoke as big shells scream in and lay waste to everything.

 

An old Sheraton Hotel separates the military compound from the civilian side of the airport. Marines move into the lobby. Gunshots ring out and explosions spark through the windows as grenades go off inside.

 

It's here that the only Marine injuries occur. A couple of guys throw grenades into rooms, to clear them, and they bounce back, fragging the throwers. But no one is hurt badly.

 

And so the Basra airport falls. At the terminal building, a dozen Iraqi civilians come out to greet the Marines. They're fearful, first of the Marines, and then, when it becomes obvious they won't be shot, for their families. They've seen Marine artillery shells landing in the city, in the direction of their homes. Artillery makes a godawful blast. It scares everyone.

 

The battalion moves down the road. People are exhausted. Norton, the Kilo Company commander, has a glazed look in his eyes. He can't focus. He has been without sleep for three days. He has killed Iraqis, coordinated his troops. Finally, incoherent, he puts his executive officer in charge and takes a nap.

 

"Norton's in the zone," McCoy says after a briefing. "It's the feeling you get when you run a marathon. Late in the game, you're past exhausted. Your brain stops functioning and you run on pure adrenaline. It's a scary place."

 

McCoy turns control of the airport over to British troops. The British will stay in Basra and fight a guerrilla war. Probably with the same troops who dropped their uniforms and guns along the side of the road.

 

People will look at Basra as a place where the Iraqis fought hard, harder than many imagined.

 

But not against the Marines.

 

On the way out, McCoy stops to cut down an Iraqi flag. It's on a flagpole at the entrance to the airport. The flagpole is adjacent to a huge poster of Saddam's face. McCoy uses his bayonet to cut off Saddam's mustache. Two guard shacks flank the entrance. Parked next to one shack are two vehicles, riddled with holes. One is a pickup and it's black from fire. It has an anti-aircraft gun attached to a trailer hitch.

 

As we drive past the pickup, I see the body of a man, maybe the driver. He's lying on his side in the charred vehicle. He's burned beyond recognition. The skin on his face is burned off to expose teeth locked in an eternal grimace.

 

"Man, that dude's f -- up," Shealy says.

 

I see a Marine approach the pickup, holding a camera. I'm thinking, 'Don't take that picture.' He puts the camera to his face and snaps a photograph. McCoy is on the radio, talking to Ripper 6. The Marines are on their way to Baghdad. Orders have them driving to the east side of the city. There they are to engage another mechanized division.

 

The plan has the 3rd Battalion taking a bridge, crossing it and fighting and harassing the Iraqi tanks until Marine tanks can get across and blast the hell out of them. In McCoy's words, Three-Four will "grab the tiger by the tail" until the tanks get across.

 

"Gents, you're about to make history," McCoy tells the Marines in his humvee.

 

This plan sounds suspiciously dangerous. But the Marines, once again, are nothing but optimistic. They're still looking for a good fight.

 

But first, there's about 300 miles of desert.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Part 3, too long to sit and copy and paste and work out all the unnecessary line breaks. And you either like this stuff or you don't, really.

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...DDRC2PJ1O34.DTL