Chapter 40
He was the guy I'd called a dumba.s.s on the radio earlier. I've never seen a more grateful Marine.
"THE LEGEND"
My boys returned from their adventures out east soon afterward. They greeted me with their usual warmth.
"Oh, we know the Legend's here," they said as soon as they saw me. "All of a sudden we hear there's two kills at Camp Ramadi. People are dying up north. We knew the Legend was here. You're the only motherf.u.c.ker who's ever killed anyone out there."
I laughed.
The nickname "the Legend" had started back in Fallujah, around the time of the beach ball incident, or maybe when I got that really long shot. Before that, my nickname had been Tex.
Of course, it wasn't just "Legend." There was more than a little mocking that went with it-THE LEGEND. One of my guys-Dauber, I think it was, even turned it all around and called me THE MYTH, cutting me down to size.
It was all good-natured, in a way more of an honor than a full-uniform medal ceremony.
I really liked Dauber. Even though he was a new guy, he was a sniper, and a pretty good one. He could hold his own in a firefight-and trading insults. I had a real soft spot for him, and when it came time to haze him, I didn't hit him... much.
Even if the guys joked about it, Legend was one of the better nicknames you could get. Take Dauber. That's not his real name (at the moment, he's doing what we'll call "government work"). The nickname came from a character in the television series Coach. There, Dauber was the typical dumb-jock type. In real life, he's actually an intelligent guy, but that fact was of no consideration in his getting named.
But one of the best nicknames was Ryan Job's: Biggles.
It was a big, goofy name for a big, goofy guy. Dauber takes credit for it-the word, he claims, was a combination of "big" and "giggles" that had been invented for one of his relatives.
He mentioned it one day, applying it to Ryan. Someone else on the team used it, and within seconds, it had stuck.
Biggles.
Ryan hated it, naturally, which certainly helped it stick.
Along the way, someone later found a little purple hippo. Of course, it had to go to the guy who had the hippo face. And Ryan became Biggles the Desert Hippo.
Ryan being Ryan, he turned it all around. It wasn't a joke on him; it was his joke. Biggles the Desert Hippo, best 60 gunner on the planet.
He carried that hippo everywhere, even into battle. You just had to love the guy.
THE PUNISHERS
Our platoon had its own nickname, one that went beyond Cadillac.
We called ourselves the Punishers.
For those of you who are not familiar with the character, the Punisher debuted in a Marvel comic book series in the 1970s. He's a real bad-a.s.s who rights wrongs, delivering vigilante justice. A movie by the same name had just come out; the Punisher wore a s.h.i.+rt with a stylized white skull.
Our
That's what we were all about. So we adapted his symbol-a skull-and made it our own, with some modifications. We spray-painted it on our Hummers and body armor, and our helmets and all our guns. And we spray-painted it on every building or wall we could. We wanted people to know, We're here and we want to f.u.c.k with you.
It was our version of psyops.
You see us? We're the people kicking your a.s.s. Fear us. Because we will kill you, motherf.u.c.ker.
You are bad. We are badder. We are bad-a.s.s.
Our sister platoon wanted to use the template we used to mark our gear, but we wouldn't let them. We told them we were the Punishers. They had to get their own symbol.
We went a bit light with our Hummers. They were named, mostly, for G.I. Joe characters, like Duke and Snake Eyes. Just because war is h.e.l.l doesn't mean you can't have a little fun.
We had a good team that deployment, starting at the top. Decent officers, and a really excellent chief named Tony.
Tony had trained as a sniper. He was not only a bad-a.s.s, he was an old bad-a.s.s, at least for a SEAL-rumor has it he was forty that deployment.
SEALs usually do not make it to forty and stay out in the field. We're too beat-up. But Tony somehow managed it. He was a hard-core son of a b.i.t.c.h, and we would have followed him to h.e.l.l and back.
I was the point man-snipers usually are-when we went on patrols. Tony was almost always right behind me. Generally, the chief will be toward the rear of the formation, covering everybody else's a.s.s, but in this case our LT reasoned that having two snipers at the head of the platoon was more effective.
One night soon after the entire platoon had gotten back together, we traveled about seventeen kilometers east of Ramadi. The area was green and fertile-so much so that it looked to us like the Vietnamese jungle, compared to the desert we'd been operating in. We called it Viet Ram.
One night not long after the unit reunited, we were deposited at a patrol area and began walking toward a suspected insurgent stronghold on foot. Eventually, we came to a huge ditch with a bridge going across it. Most of the time, these bridges were b.o.o.by-trapped, and in this case we had intel indicating this one definitely was. So I went up and stood there, s.h.i.+ning my laser to look for a trip wire.
I played the light across the top of the bridge but saw nothing. I ducked a little lower and tried again. Still nothing. I looked everywhere I could think of, but found no contact wires, no IEDs, no b.o.o.by-traps, nothing.
But since I'd been told the bridge was b.o.o.by-trapped, I was sure there had to be something there.
I looked again. My EOD-the bomb disposal expert-was waiting behind me. All I had to do was find a trip wire or the bomb itself, and he'd have it disarmed in seconds.
But I couldn't find s.h.i.+t. Finally, I told Tony, "Let's go across."
Don't get the wrong image: I wasn't charging across that bridge. I had my rifle in one hand and the other parked protectively over my family jewels.
That wouldn't have saved my life if an IED exploded, but at least I'd be intact for the funeral.
The bridge was all of ten feet long, but it must have taken me an hour to get across that thing. When I finally reached the other side, I was soaking wet from sweat. I turned around to give the other guys the thumbs-up. But there was no one there. They'd all ducked behind some rocks and brush, waiting for me to blow up.
Even Tony, who, as point man, should have been right behind me.
"Motherf.u.c.ker!" I yelled. "Where the h.e.l.l did you go?"
"There's no reason for more than one of us to get blown up," he told me matter-of-factly as he came across.
TERPS
Fallujah had been taken in an all-out a.s.sault, moving through the city in a very organized fas.h.i.+on. While it had been successful, the attack had also caused a lot of damage, which had supposedly hurt support for the new Iraqi government.
You can argue whether that's true or not-I sure would-but the top American command didn't want the same thing to happen in Ramadi. So, while the Army worked on a plan for taking Ramadi with minimal destruction, we went to war in the area nearby.
We started with DAs. We had four interpreters-terps, as we called them-who helped us deal with the locals. At least one and usually two would go out with us.