Generation Kill

by Evan Wright

CULTURALLY, these Marines would be virtually unrecognizable to their forebears in the “Greatest Generation.” They are kids raised on hip-hop, Marilyn Manson and Jerry Springer. For them, “motherfucker” is a term of endearment. For some, slain rapper Tupac is an American patriot whose writings are better known than the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. There are tough guys among them who pray to Buddha and quote Eastern philosophies and New Age precepts gleaned from watching Oprah and old kung fu movies. There are former gangbangers, a sprinkling of born-again Christians and quite a few guys who before entering the Corps were daily dope smokers; many of them dream of the day when they get out and are once again united with their beloved bud. These young men represent what is more or less America’s first generation of disposable children. More than half of the guys in the platoon come from broken homes and were raised by absentee, single, working parents. Many are on more intimate terms with video games, reality TV shows and Internet porn than they are with their own parents. Before the “War on Terrorism” began, not a whole lot was expected of this generation other than the hope that those in it would squeak through high school without pulling too many more mass shootings in the manner of Columbine. But since the 9/11 attacks, the weight of America’s “War on Terrorism” has fallen on their shoulders. For many in the platoon, their war started within hours of the Twin Towers fallin...

prologue

There is an undeniable Peter Pan quality to the military. A Marine psychiatrist attached to the First Division says, “The whole structure of the military is designed to mature young men to function responsibly while at the same time preserving their adolescent sense of invulnerability.”

Person calls each one out, “ ’Nother flip-flop. ’Nother dude walking around somewhere with one sandal on.” “Shut the fuck up, Person,” Colbert says. “You know what happens when you get out of the Marine Corps,” Person continues. “You get your brains back.” “I mean it, Person. Shut your goddamn piehole.” At times, the two of them bicker like an old married couple. Being a rank lower than Colbert, Person can never directly express anger to him, but on occasions when Colbert is too harsh and Person’s feelings are hurt, his driving becomes erratic. There are sudden turns, and the brakes are hit for no reason. It will happen even in combat situations, with Colbert suddenly in the role of wooing his driver back with retractions and apologies.

Brad/Ray

Sutherby looks and talks exactly the way you’d expect a Marine sniper to. He is tall and gaunt, with unblinking, pale-blue eyes, and speaks in a dry, almost airless voice. His laconic mannerisms are no doubt reinforced by the fact that Sutherby is slightly hearing impaired.

Hawkeye

It’s not the first time the citizens of Nasiriyah have been screwed by the Americans. On February 15, 1991, during the first Gulf War, George H. W. Bush gave a speech at the UN in which he urged “the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.” The U.S. military also dropped thousands of leaflets on the country, urging the same. Few heeded this call more than the citizens of Nasiriyah. While the Iraqi army was routed in Kuwait, the mostly Shia populace of Nasiriyah led a coup against Baathist leaders controlling the city. When Saddam’s armed forces subsequently came in to put down the uprising, they did so with the tacit approval of the Americans, who allowed them to use helicopters against the rebels. (The American administration at the time didn’t want to see Iraq torn apart by rebellion; Bush’s call for an overthrow of the government had merely been a ploy to tie up Iraq’s armed forces while the U.S. military prepared to battle them in Kuwait.) After the resistance was quashed in Nasiriyah, months of bloody reprisals followed, in which thousands of its citizens are believed to have been killed.

disgusting

There are several loud cracks behind us—rounds from enemy snipers. “Oh, sweet Jesus!” Colbert says, highly annoyed. He’s lying on the ground, glassing the city through binoculars, listening to the company radio network on a portable unit. He turns to Fick. “Sir, our great commander,” he says, referring to Encino Man, “just had the wherewithal to inform me there seem to be enemy snipers about. He suggests we ought to be on the lookout for them.” Person laughs. “Brad,” he says, calling Colbert by his first name. “Check it out, over there.” He points to a spot near the barricades into the city. Colbert turns his binoculars in the direction Person is pointing. “Person,” he asks, “are those ducks …?” “Yeah, they’re fucking.” Person laughs.

oh Ray

AN HOUR LATER, the Marines have set up a camp off the edge of the airfield. They are told they will stay here for a day or longer. For the first time in a week, many of the Marines take their boots and socks off. They unfurl cammie nets for shade and lounge beside their Humvees. The dirt here, augmented by a luxuriously thick piling of dung from camels who graze on the local scrubweed, is pillow-soft. Distant artillery thunders with a steady, calming rhythm.

comfort in a warzone

Recon Marines like Colbert are in their hearts almost like bird-watchers. They have a passion for observing things that exists all by itself, separate from whatever thrills they get out of guns and blowing things up. They seem truly happy whenever a chance comes to puzzle out the nature of small (but potentially lethal) mysteries on the horizon. This time, in the case of these enigmatic lights, Colbert concludes, “Those are the lights of a village.” He sounds almost disappointed.

Recon marines are like birdos

What it boils down to is that under clear skies, in open terrain with almost no vegetation, the Marines don’t have a clue what’s out there beyond the perimeter. Even with the best optics and surveillance assets in the world, no one knows what happened to nearly 10,000 pounds of bombs and missiles dropped a few kilometers outside the encampment. They may as well have been dropping them in the Bermuda Triangle. It’s not that the technology is bad or its operators incompetent, but the fog of war persists on even the clearest of nights.

fog of war

A shoeless farmer approaches. His face is narrow and bony from what looks to be a lifetime of starvation. Shaking his fist, speaking in a raspy voice, he says through a translator that he’s been waiting for the Americans to come since the first Gulf War. He explains that he used to live in a Shia marshland south of here. Saddam drained the marshes and ruined the farmland to punish the people there for supporting the 1991 rebellion. “Saddam believes if he starves the people we will follow him like slaves. It’s terrorism by the system itself.” I ask the farmer why he welcomes Americans invading his country. “We are already living in hell,” he says. “If you let us pray and don’t interfere with our women, we accept you.” The farmer, with gray hair and his narrow face wrapped in wrinkles, looks to be about sixty, with a lot of those being hard years. I ask him when he was born. 1964. I tell him we’re the same age. He leans toward me, smiling and pointing to his face. “Compared to you, I look like an old man” he says. “This is because of my life under Saddam.” I find his self-awareness unsettling. One of the few comforts I have when looking at images of distant suffering is the hope that the starving child with flies on his face doesn’t know how pathetic he is. If all he knows is misery, maybe his suffering isn’t as bad. But this farmer has shattered that comforting illusion. He’s wretched, and he knows it. Before going off, he warns the translator that we are entering an area w...

self awareness

Nearby, there’s a locked windowless hut. Marines try to kick the door in, but it’s padlocked with a chain. They chop it off with bolt cutters and find the village stash: two AK rifles, piles of weed and some bags with white powder that looks like either cocaine or heroin. Colbert confiscates the rifles but leaves the drugs. “We’re not here to fuck with their livelihoods,” he says.

the War On Drugs does not happen in Iraq

In Colbert’s vehicle, the Mark-19 jammed again—as it has in two previous engagements. Hasser, who’s manning the weapon, screams, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” and pounds the roof of the Humvee, trying to unjam it. He lets out a half-crazed scream. “Raaah!” Colbert shouts up to him, “Walt! You’re losing control of yourself. Shut the fuck up and take a deep breath.” “This goddamn gun!” Hasser shouts. His voice cracks. “It’s a piece of shit!” “Walt, you know I like you a lot,” Colbert says, trying to calm him. “But it’s not going to help if you lose control of your emotions. We just don’t have enough LSA to keep it lubed properly. There’s nothing we can do about it.” He adds, “I’m sorry I had to yell at you.”

Colbert and Hasser. Dad and kid.

Any carnage visited on the vehicles, hamlets, farms or people is shrouded from us by the darkness. All we see are the pretty lights of the rockets’ red glare.

nice choice of words there Evan

The spell is broken when a Recon unit 500 meters down the line opens up on a truck leaving the city, putting an end to the birdsong in the trees. In the distance, a man jumps out holding an AK. He jogs through a field on the other side of the canal. We watch lazily from the grass as he’s gunned down by other Marines. The birds have resumed their singing when the man shot by the Marines reappears across the canal, limping and weaving like a drunk. Nobody shoots him. He’s not holding a gun anymore. The ROE are scrupulously observed. Even so, they cannot mask the sheer brutality of the situation.

reminds me of Haguenau

When this report is passed over the radio to Colbert’s team, Person speculates that the villagers might be helping because they are genuinely on our side. “They’re not on anybody’s side,” Colbert says. “These are simple people. They don’t care about war. They’d probably tell the Iraqis where we were if they rolled through here. They just want to farm and raise sheep.”

there's an ASOIAF quote that goes here

Fick’s own coping mechanism for combat is what he calls the “Dead Man Walking Method.” Instead of reassuring himself, as some do, that he’s invincible or that his fate is in God’s hands (which wouldn’t work for him since he leans toward agnosticism), he operates on the assumption that he’s already a dead man, so getting shot makes no difference.

the Speirs philosophy

Captain America runs up shouting, “Shoot him!” Kocher ignores him as usual.

trust your NCO

Again we sit in silence, broken abruptly when Trombley cuts a loud fart. Everyone jumps. Nerves are so wired in the vehicle, some mistook it for the blast of a distant mortar. “Jesus!” Colbert says. “Sorry,” Trombley apologizes.

lol

Reyes explains, “For the wild dogs, war is a feast.”

a feast for crows perhaps?

Then Captain America veers into Nietzschean speculation on the deadly nature of battle. “Some of us are not going to make it out of here. Each of us has to test the limits of his will to survive in this reality.” He leans forward and speaks in grave tones. “Right now, at any time, we could die. It almost makes you lose your sanity.” His pupils quiver with increased intensity. “The fear of dying will make you lose your sanity. But to remain calm and stay in a place where you think you will die, that is the definition of insane, too. You must become insane to survive in combat.”

McGraw on insanity

Just before sundown, the Marines hold a memorial for Horsehead in their camp. About fifteen of them gather in the grass, next to an M-4 rifle planted upright in the dirt with a helmet on it.

they still do that

Hunched over the wheel, his helmet weighted down with his NVGs, Person says, “Man, when I get home, I’m gonna eat the fuck out of my girlfriend’s pussy.”

Ray denies he said that, Evan insists he did, but denied it because he didn't want his mum to read that.

One Marine in First Recon’s support unit freaks out early in the stay at this camp. The episode is prompted after a Game Boy (which he brought into Iraq in violation of battalion regulations) disappeared from his rucksack. Early one afternoon following the battalion’s arrival at Ad Diwaniyah, he runs into the warehouse serving as a chow hall with his M-16, puts it to the head of the suspected thief, racks a round into the chamber and screams, “Give me back my Game Boy!” Other Marines talk him out of pulling the trigger. The battalion isolates him for a few days, then returns him to his unit. The Game Boy is never recovered.

its the same after every war

Fick let loose a stream of Marine Corps-grade epithets. In civilian life Fick tries to avoid swearing. One of his notes to me after he read an early draft of Generation Kill was “too much swearing throughout.”

you sound like Dick Winters Nate

In the prologue to Generation Kill I quoted Lance Corporal Trombley comparing an ambush to playing Grand Theft Auto. The quote proved to be misleading to some. After the publication of Generation Kill, Trombley’s reference to Grand Theft Auto was cited in several news stories as proof that to the young men and women serving in America’s armed forces, war was no more real than playing a video game.

so that's where that line in the series stems from