goof-offs.”
—MATTHEW CARTIER, ILLINOIS
With the platoon back at Fires, Staff Sgt. Matt Cartier was beginning to feel a bit more upbeat. The fear of the IEDs gave the Taliban a mental edge, but he sensed that the gloom enveloping the platoon had lifted slightly. The operation had proved an elementary point: the enemy could not plant mines everywhere.
Garcia was putting it together. The Iraqi experience had led the Marines astray. In Iraq, a dozen or more civilians lived in a concrete house encased by a stout concrete wall that separated it from the next house. Fifty or sixty houses made up a block, several dozen blocks constituted a neighborhood. The neighborhoods were bounded by broad streets. Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias fought for every inch of turf. As soon as a family on one block was frightened intofleeing, the other side moved in one of its own families. Both Shiite and Sunni fighters planted IEDs along the roads used by the U.S. military, but not inside recently vacated houses families from their own side would occupy within a day or two.
In Sangin, the Taliban were placing their IEDs inside the courtyards and rooms of abandoned compounds. On their forays over the years, coalition troops occasionally stayed overnight in a few isolated, easily defended compounds, abandoned due to the fighting. After they left, the Taliban set pressure plates in the rooms, walls, courtyards, and adjoining pathways. Unlike in the fields, the Taliban didn’t keep track of where they placed them.
Once a compound was rigged, no locals would go near it. A family lost their home, but the Taliban didn’t care. They set the rules, and everyone was supposed to contribute to the jihad against the infidel foreigners. Abandoning his farm was the least a farmer could contribute. Hundreds of compounds stood empty for months. The Taliban reserved a few for their intermittent use. The others were death traps awaiting a fresh set of foreigners.
In 2010, Sangin wasn’t ready for economic development, local government, or farm granges. It might never be ready. The Taliban were embedded among the people. Some were auxiliaries—young men living at home with AKs hidden nearby. Most were roaming about in gangs of four to six, staying in one abandoned compound for several days before moving to another. Whenever the Marines left the wire, farmers and Taliban alike grabbed their cell phones and Icoms to report their movement.
Sangin was like France in late 1944, a battleground where the civilians hid or ran away while the two armed sides slugged it out. The practical definition of control is the confidence to walk where you please, without being shot at. A dog pisses on trees to mark his territory. Similarly, young insurgents cannot resist taking potshots at government soldiers. The same was true in Vietnam and Iraq. Judgingby the daily sniping at every patrol, the Taliban were firmly in control.
Back at Fires, Garcia called together his three squad leaders. Lieutenant West was immensely popular and his spirit hung over the platoon. Garcia knew he had to tread carefully.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “Our routine will be two squad patrols each day, with a third squad as the QRF”—Quick Reaction Force.
Sgt. Dominic Esquibel, thirty-three, led the 1st Squad. Esquibel wore the ugliest black-rimmed glasses known to man, with shatterproof lenses thick enough to stop a bullet. Slight of frame and diffident in demeanor, he would blend in among the geeks manning the Genius Bar at an Apple Store.
On Thanksgiving Day back in 2004, Esquibel’s platoon was completing its twenty-first day of house-to-house fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Suicidal jihadists were hiding amid the city’s 10,000 houses. In three weeks, the Marines had engaged in more firefights inside rooms than the combined total of all police SWAT teams in history.
Esquibel’s platoon was assigned to a sector called Queens, a slum neighborhood of one-story concrete
—MATTHEW CARTIER, ILLINOIS
With the platoon back at Fires, Staff Sgt. Matt Cartier was beginning to feel a bit more upbeat. The fear of the IEDs gave the Taliban a mental edge, but he sensed that the gloom enveloping the platoon had lifted slightly. The operation had proved an elementary point: the enemy could not plant mines everywhere.
Garcia was putting it together. The Iraqi experience had led the Marines astray. In Iraq, a dozen or more civilians lived in a concrete house encased by a stout concrete wall that separated it from the next house. Fifty or sixty houses made up a block, several dozen blocks constituted a neighborhood. The neighborhoods were bounded by broad streets. Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias fought for every inch of turf. As soon as a family on one block was frightened intofleeing, the other side moved in one of its own families. Both Shiite and Sunni fighters planted IEDs along the roads used by the U.S. military, but not inside recently vacated houses families from their own side would occupy within a day or two.
In Sangin, the Taliban were placing their IEDs inside the courtyards and rooms of abandoned compounds. On their forays over the years, coalition troops occasionally stayed overnight in a few isolated, easily defended compounds, abandoned due to the fighting. After they left, the Taliban set pressure plates in the rooms, walls, courtyards, and adjoining pathways. Unlike in the fields, the Taliban didn’t keep track of where they placed them.
Once a compound was rigged, no locals would go near it. A family lost their home, but the Taliban didn’t care. They set the rules, and everyone was supposed to contribute to the jihad against the infidel foreigners. Abandoning his farm was the least a farmer could contribute. Hundreds of compounds stood empty for months. The Taliban reserved a few for their intermittent use. The others were death traps awaiting a fresh set of foreigners.
In 2010, Sangin wasn’t ready for economic development, local government, or farm granges. It might never be ready. The Taliban were embedded among the people. Some were auxiliaries—young men living at home with AKs hidden nearby. Most were roaming about in gangs of four to six, staying in one abandoned compound for several days before moving to another. Whenever the Marines left the wire, farmers and Taliban alike grabbed their cell phones and Icoms to report their movement.
Sangin was like France in late 1944, a battleground where the civilians hid or ran away while the two armed sides slugged it out. The practical definition of control is the confidence to walk where you please, without being shot at. A dog pisses on trees to mark his territory. Similarly, young insurgents cannot resist taking potshots at government soldiers. The same was true in Vietnam and Iraq. Judgingby the daily sniping at every patrol, the Taliban were firmly in control.
Back at Fires, Garcia called together his three squad leaders. Lieutenant West was immensely popular and his spirit hung over the platoon. Garcia knew he had to tread carefully.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “Our routine will be two squad patrols each day, with a third squad as the QRF”—Quick Reaction Force.
Sgt. Dominic Esquibel, thirty-three, led the 1st Squad. Esquibel wore the ugliest black-rimmed glasses known to man, with shatterproof lenses thick enough to stop a bullet. Slight of frame and diffident in demeanor, he would blend in among the geeks manning the Genius Bar at an Apple Store.
On Thanksgiving Day back in 2004, Esquibel’s platoon was completing its twenty-first day of house-to-house fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Suicidal jihadists were hiding amid the city’s 10,000 houses. In three weeks, the Marines had engaged in more firefights inside rooms than the combined total of all police SWAT teams in history.
Esquibel’s platoon was assigned to a sector called Queens, a slum neighborhood of one-story concrete
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