Matterhorn

by Karl Marlantes

The flaw in the general’s logic was that after a non-infantry officer had made the inevitable mistakes of any new officer in combat, all of which were paid for by the troops under his command, he would be transferred back to his primary military occupation in the rear, subjecting the troops to breaking in yet another new officer and dying because of the new officer’s mistakes.

Experience and continuity

They were all checking their weapons, adjusting straps, stuffing favorite C-rations into pockets for lunch, and taking final drinks of water before topping off their canteens—all the nervous rituals one does to keep the ego functioning in the face of imminent death.

The truth

Hamilton had traded jobs to help relieve boredom. The scout dog, Pat, sniffed at each Marine as he went by, memorizing his smell. Once in the jungle, Pat would be alert to any smell that was different. Arran said Pat could memorize well over a hundred individual scents.

Several of the kids were squirting insect repellent on their faces and legs.

For the jungle

So the one probable became a fact. Fitch radioed it in to battalion. Major Blakely, the battalion operations officer, claimed it for the battalion as a confirmed, because Rider said he’d seen the guy he shot go down. The commander of the artillery battery, however, claimed it for his unit. The records had to show two dead NVA. So they did. But at regiment it looked odd—two kills with no probables. So a probable got added. It

Mellas worked hard like the rest of them, learning from Jancowitz the subtleties of bunker construction. Don’t use rocks, because they splinter into deadly shards. Dig pits and shelves to keep feet and ass free of standing water. Interlace hard material with soft to absorb blast energy. Soon Mellas was not only helping with the hacking and hauling but enjoying the intricate planning of the total defense. He carefully walked the ground from the jungle upward, finding how the lay of the land channeled attackers into natural avenues of approach. Then he set the bunkers so that the avenues of approach would be filled with machine-gun bullets.

How to site def

Then the whole rear of the column would pile up on the kids who were stopped. Word would pass up and down until it reached a radio. “We’re back in contact.” Then the front of the inchworm would move blindly off. Slowly each part would feel the tug of the one in front of it and each Marine would start walking again, boots barely lifted from the mud of the trail, steps short and slow. Meanwhile the back would still be piling up and stopping. By the time the back of the column would get unpiled and moving, there would be another break in the front.

Problem with long column

laughing. “No fucking comments from the junior officer

Mellas’s whole body was zinging. His hands quivered. He started at nearly every noise and talked too rapidly, and too much, on the radio. He kept mentally replaying the scene, wondering how he could have reacted faster and killed more of them, wondering if Connolly was aware that, while he was changing magazines, Mellas had saved him by firing. He wondered if people outside the company would hear about his action and how his platoon had succeeded when Alpha Company had lost so many in a similar ambush.

The pang of acceptance

In this new Marine Corps of careful staff work and covering your ass with paper, it just wasn’t the same.

Mellas took only a second to realize that he’d just had his first lesson in real leadership.

Just do something

For those not on point, thoughts turned to memories of better times, meals they had eaten, girls they had known or wished they had known better. For those on point, there was no past; there was only the frightening now.

They waited there, looking east for the first light, listening for the sound of a chopper. Just before dawn, Parker went into convulsions and died as the three of them tried to keep him from drowning. Challand was still alive when the medevac bird came up the narrow gorge, fighting the erratic wind currents, the rotar wash spraying water behind it like a hydroplane. It took out two bodies not yet on the planet twenty years, one living and one dead.

The feeling

Mellas tossed the wallet down at Fitch. Then he dug into his pocket and pulled out the soldier’s unit and rank patches. He looked at them, then at Fitch and Hawke, who were no longer eating. “I let him crawl toward home with his guts hanging out.” He started sobbing. “I just left him there.” Snot was streaming from his nose. “I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” His hands were now shaking with his body as he clenched the two pieces of cloth to his eyes.

Leaders guilt

He turned to look at Simpson. “America uses us like whores, Simpson. When it wants a good fuck it pours in the money and we give it a moment of glory. Then when it’s over, it sneaks out the back door and pretends it doesn’t know who we are.”

Armies are same everywhere

An hour later Mellas was at the supply tent, doing paperwork that ranged from writing press releases for local newspapers about the activities of local boys to handling inquiries about paternity suits from Red Cross workers to straightening out paycheck allocations to divorced wives, current wives, and women illegally claiming to be wives, mothers, and mothers-in-law. To Mellas it seemed as if half the company came from broken homes and had wives or parents who were drunks, dope addicts, runaways, prostitutes, or child beaters. Two things about this surprised him. The first was the fact itself. The second was that everyone seemed to cope with it so well.

He stood again. It was well known that Arran had extended his tour twice because the scout dogs couldn’t be transferred to other handlers, and when their tour was over, they were killed. Someone back in the world had declared them too dangerous to bring home.

Empathy and compassion

Arran grinned, looked down at Pat, and then looked up at the clouds, embarrassed. “Hope you motherfuckers don’t get launched,” he said. “We’ll see you on your next op.” They watched Arran and Pat walk off. They all knew that it could be the last time.

penis began to slowly rise, fall, then rise again, egged on

The attack might have looked as if it were still being directed by the leaders, but it wasn’t. It went forward because each Marine knew what to do.

Level of training

Victory in combat is like sex with a prostitute. For a moment you forget everything in the sudden physical rush, but then you have to pay your money to the woman showing you the door. You see the dirt on the walls and your sorry image in the mirror.

Nice quote

Had the others done the same, the attack would have stopped, and the outcome would have been a disaster. But the attack went on—not because of any conscious decision, but because of friendship.

Camaradarie

Watching Goodwin with more than a little envy, he had to admit that he wanted to kill because part of him was thrilled by killing.

Eliminating a gods creation

Why did Hamilton die and he live?

Survivors Guilt

mortar fire. He was only dimly aware of people shouting, running, scrambling for the door of the tent. “He’s fuckin’

“Murphy’s right. The troops get fucked even worse if the good guys don’t stay in.”

Point to stay