Read Online House to House: A Tale of Modern War by David Bellavia - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David Bellavia
Ads: Link
fight, and he will face this battle with new responsibility. He’s been my Bravo Team leader for only a few weeks. The burden of his new leadership role weighs heavily on him.
Despite how he looks right now, my intuition tells me he will be just fine. Outside of a firefight, he can be squirrelly as hell. When I made him my Bravo Team leader, Cantrell practically had kittens. “No way is that fucking meatball gonna be a team leader in my platoon. That kid is a fucking Martian.” Cantrell was probably thinking about all the dumb-ass things we’d all seen Sucholas do. The morning after we flew to Kuwait from Germany, out in the desert, Sucholas limped up to me and asked for help. Drunk the night before, he had accidentally stabbed himself with a knife, leaving a four-inch gash on one leg. He tried to balm it with superglue. More than anything, it petrified him that Cantrell might find out.
Sucholas could be a meatball. But Cantrell had never seen him in a fight. I had. On April 8, I watched him shoot an insurgent in the neck. The man fell and began to bleed out. Rather than finishing him, Sucholas waited patiently for the wounded man’s buddies to come to the rescue. Sure enough, three guys broke cover to get to their comrade, and Sucholas coolly dispatched all of them. He never panics, never recoils. He may look terrified now, but once we’re in the shit, I know he’ll be rock steady.
I don’t have to worry about Knapp either. He has so much confidence that it borders on arrogance. In garrison back in Germany, that arrogant streak irritated the shit out of me. Here in Iraq, it is a comfort. He is unflappable in a fight, and I have long since learned to depend on him.
Tonight, his jaw is set as he listens to my brief. He looks resolute. No fear in his eyes. Instead, he’s on top of everything and oozes professionalism. Frankly, he’s a brilliant noncommissioned officer—aggressive, confident, and willing to execute any order. I will rely heavily on him in the days to come.
Ruiz sits through my brief and periodically rubs the letters he’s written on his knuckles. He’s composed as ever. He’s ready. Ruiz can handle anything. I don’t have to worry about him either.
Private Brett Pulley, Sucholas’s rifleman and the squad’s most junior man, stares at me with a look of bafflement. He’s new and he’s green. The rest of us have had to work extra hard to keep Pulley from getting himself killed. His lack of experience is a burden we will all shoulder together.
Homeschooled and highly sheltered as a kid, Pulley wasn’t prepared to join the real world. Somehow, he fell into a job as a roadie for a rock band. When Pulley spoke of those days, his accounts were full of hard manual labor mixed with a steady diet of dope and booze. Squad leaders hear so many exaggerated stories of drugs and hardship from the lower enlisted ranks that rarely are they taken seriously. But Pulley’s tales of woe were told with long satellite delays of sentences. I often wonder if this is all an act, or if his brain really had been stewed in a pharmacological soup for such a long time that he is beyond hope.
I search Pulley’s face for any sign of comprehension. Does he understand the enormity of what we face? Where is the fear? A little fear is good; it will keep us on our toes.
“What the fuck you looking at, dick?” I try to rattle him.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing…asshole? Nothing…motherfucker? Nothing…faggot?”
“Nothing, Sergeant. ”
Knapp jumps up and gets two inches from Pulley’s face.
“You better pull your fucking nuts out, Pulley, or you ain’t coming home. You hear me, bitch?”
“Roger, Sergeant.”
I see no fear in Pulley, but I’m hard-pressed to see signs of life at all. He’s the one I will have to watch.
I wrap up the briefing. “We’ll be leaving at oh dark, retard. Santos, how we doing on the C-4?”
“Sergeant, we got so many bombs, I can’t count ’em.”
Earlier in the week I
Despite how he looks right now, my intuition tells me he will be just fine. Outside of a firefight, he can be squirrelly as hell. When I made him my Bravo Team leader, Cantrell practically had kittens. “No way is that fucking meatball gonna be a team leader in my platoon. That kid is a fucking Martian.” Cantrell was probably thinking about all the dumb-ass things we’d all seen Sucholas do. The morning after we flew to Kuwait from Germany, out in the desert, Sucholas limped up to me and asked for help. Drunk the night before, he had accidentally stabbed himself with a knife, leaving a four-inch gash on one leg. He tried to balm it with superglue. More than anything, it petrified him that Cantrell might find out.
Sucholas could be a meatball. But Cantrell had never seen him in a fight. I had. On April 8, I watched him shoot an insurgent in the neck. The man fell and began to bleed out. Rather than finishing him, Sucholas waited patiently for the wounded man’s buddies to come to the rescue. Sure enough, three guys broke cover to get to their comrade, and Sucholas coolly dispatched all of them. He never panics, never recoils. He may look terrified now, but once we’re in the shit, I know he’ll be rock steady.
I don’t have to worry about Knapp either. He has so much confidence that it borders on arrogance. In garrison back in Germany, that arrogant streak irritated the shit out of me. Here in Iraq, it is a comfort. He is unflappable in a fight, and I have long since learned to depend on him.
Tonight, his jaw is set as he listens to my brief. He looks resolute. No fear in his eyes. Instead, he’s on top of everything and oozes professionalism. Frankly, he’s a brilliant noncommissioned officer—aggressive, confident, and willing to execute any order. I will rely heavily on him in the days to come.
Ruiz sits through my brief and periodically rubs the letters he’s written on his knuckles. He’s composed as ever. He’s ready. Ruiz can handle anything. I don’t have to worry about him either.
Private Brett Pulley, Sucholas’s rifleman and the squad’s most junior man, stares at me with a look of bafflement. He’s new and he’s green. The rest of us have had to work extra hard to keep Pulley from getting himself killed. His lack of experience is a burden we will all shoulder together.
Homeschooled and highly sheltered as a kid, Pulley wasn’t prepared to join the real world. Somehow, he fell into a job as a roadie for a rock band. When Pulley spoke of those days, his accounts were full of hard manual labor mixed with a steady diet of dope and booze. Squad leaders hear so many exaggerated stories of drugs and hardship from the lower enlisted ranks that rarely are they taken seriously. But Pulley’s tales of woe were told with long satellite delays of sentences. I often wonder if this is all an act, or if his brain really had been stewed in a pharmacological soup for such a long time that he is beyond hope.
I search Pulley’s face for any sign of comprehension. Does he understand the enormity of what we face? Where is the fear? A little fear is good; it will keep us on our toes.
“What the fuck you looking at, dick?” I try to rattle him.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing…asshole? Nothing…motherfucker? Nothing…faggot?”
“Nothing, Sergeant. ”
Knapp jumps up and gets two inches from Pulley’s face.
“You better pull your fucking nuts out, Pulley, or you ain’t coming home. You hear me, bitch?”
“Roger, Sergeant.”
I see no fear in Pulley, but I’m hard-pressed to see signs of life at all. He’s the one I will have to watch.
I wrap up the briefing. “We’ll be leaving at oh dark, retard. Santos, how we doing on the C-4?”
“Sergeant, we got so many bombs, I can’t count ’em.”
Earlier in the week I
Similar Books
