Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War

by Evan Wright

When they finally get around to searching the rest of the fighters, every one of them has a Syrian passport. After news spreads of the foreign identities of the enemy combatants, the Marines are excited. “We just fought actual terrorists,” Doc Bryan says. After nearly two weeks of never knowing who was shooting at them, the Marines can finally put a face to the enemy. Later, intelligence officers in First Marine Division will estimate that as many as 50 percent of all combatants in central Iraq were foreigners. “Saddam offered these men land, money and wives to come and fight for him,” one officer tells me. He adds that foreign fighters were simply dropped off at intersections by Iraqi Fedayeen, given weapons and told to attack the Americans when they came up the road. At times, the foreign jihadis were simply used to buy time for Iraqi soldiers to change out of their uniforms and flee.