companies, as well as Humvees, Abrams tanks, and armored personnel carriers (APCs). We moved at a snailâs paceâabout twenty miles per hour. I sat up with one of the truck drivers, and along the way looked out at blown-up tanks and discarded vehicles with bones strewn about them.
Somewhere inside Iraq, our convoy divided into smaller pieces. Our company of 120 men was sent alone into Ramadi. It would be our job to relieve the 82nd Airborne Division and to take control of the city of some 300,000 people. I was terrified and expected that we would be driving straight into a war zone. I imagined Iraqi soldiers launching grenades and spraying bullets, and it didnât seem possible to me that such a small group. of Americans could defend themselves in the city. However, on entering Ramadi, we were greeted with waves and cheers. Children racing up toward our vehicles shouted for food and water. So far, at least, this was the last thing Iâd expected from a war zone.
I traveled with my six squad mates in our armored personnel carrier. It was about the length of a four-door car and the width of a lane of traffic. Made of steel, it lacked the thickness of a tank and the durability to resist rocket-propelled grenades. There was room for four or so men below, and for another two or three up top to operate machine guns. From the moment I entered Iraq, I was obsessed with the thought of being caught inside a burning tank. I preferred to sit on top of the vehicle and risk sniper fire. In Iraq, whenever I traveled on our APC, I always took my position on top, monitoring the streets and the rooftops with my M-249 automatic weapon ready. The M-249 weighs thirty-six pounds fully loaded. It is formally called a squad automatic weapon, but we called it a SAW for short, becauseâat two thousand rounds a minuteâit would saw right through any person it hit.
I was scared out of my wits that first day in Ramadi. Our own air force had just finished bombing these people, but as soon as we got out of our vehicles we began patrolling their streets, on foot. With nearly a hundred pounds of weaponry, equipment, and clothing on my back, I was about as mobile as a cow. It was just my platoon, twenty guys, walking single file through streets full of Iraqis. I could not stop thinking that anywhere, at any time, some half-starved sniper on a roof could have taken me out in no time flat. Iraqi kids surrounded me in swarms, hands out, asking for water and food.
I kept hearing the last words Brandi said to me before I flew out of Colorado Springs: âDonât you let those terrorists near you, Josh. Even if they are kids. Get them before they get you.â I also kept thinking about my officersâ repeated warnings: âIf you feel threatened, kill first and ask questions later.â I had army chants buzzing through my head, too, those chants weâd picked up in Fort Carson while we learned the ins and outs of blowing things up with C-4 explosives.
Take a playground
Fill it full of kids.
Drop on some napalm
And barbecue some ribs.
On that first day in Ramadi, when I saw kids coming at us from every direction with noses running and hands outstretched, I felt surrounded by Muslims, terrorists, bomb throwers, and killers. They came in all sizes, of that I was sure. Why not children too?
In Ramadi, my platoon set up camp in a bombed-out palace just a stoneâs throw from the Euphrates River. There was marble everywhere: the floors, walls, and pillars. I saw a destroyed elevator and a tiled mural of Saddam Hussein. The former groundskeeper ran up to us and said the palace had once belonged to Saddam Hussein himself. He was an older man who didnât appear to have anything to do, or any work to keep him going. He stayed near our troops to run errands and fetch drinks for the sergeants, for what I presumed was a little pocket change. I unrolled my sleeping bag on the floor, about one hundred feet from an unexploded
Somewhere inside Iraq, our convoy divided into smaller pieces. Our company of 120 men was sent alone into Ramadi. It would be our job to relieve the 82nd Airborne Division and to take control of the city of some 300,000 people. I was terrified and expected that we would be driving straight into a war zone. I imagined Iraqi soldiers launching grenades and spraying bullets, and it didnât seem possible to me that such a small group. of Americans could defend themselves in the city. However, on entering Ramadi, we were greeted with waves and cheers. Children racing up toward our vehicles shouted for food and water. So far, at least, this was the last thing Iâd expected from a war zone.
I traveled with my six squad mates in our armored personnel carrier. It was about the length of a four-door car and the width of a lane of traffic. Made of steel, it lacked the thickness of a tank and the durability to resist rocket-propelled grenades. There was room for four or so men below, and for another two or three up top to operate machine guns. From the moment I entered Iraq, I was obsessed with the thought of being caught inside a burning tank. I preferred to sit on top of the vehicle and risk sniper fire. In Iraq, whenever I traveled on our APC, I always took my position on top, monitoring the streets and the rooftops with my M-249 automatic weapon ready. The M-249 weighs thirty-six pounds fully loaded. It is formally called a squad automatic weapon, but we called it a SAW for short, becauseâat two thousand rounds a minuteâit would saw right through any person it hit.
I was scared out of my wits that first day in Ramadi. Our own air force had just finished bombing these people, but as soon as we got out of our vehicles we began patrolling their streets, on foot. With nearly a hundred pounds of weaponry, equipment, and clothing on my back, I was about as mobile as a cow. It was just my platoon, twenty guys, walking single file through streets full of Iraqis. I could not stop thinking that anywhere, at any time, some half-starved sniper on a roof could have taken me out in no time flat. Iraqi kids surrounded me in swarms, hands out, asking for water and food.
I kept hearing the last words Brandi said to me before I flew out of Colorado Springs: âDonât you let those terrorists near you, Josh. Even if they are kids. Get them before they get you.â I also kept thinking about my officersâ repeated warnings: âIf you feel threatened, kill first and ask questions later.â I had army chants buzzing through my head, too, those chants weâd picked up in Fort Carson while we learned the ins and outs of blowing things up with C-4 explosives.
Take a playground
Fill it full of kids.
Drop on some napalm
And barbecue some ribs.
On that first day in Ramadi, when I saw kids coming at us from every direction with noses running and hands outstretched, I felt surrounded by Muslims, terrorists, bomb throwers, and killers. They came in all sizes, of that I was sure. Why not children too?
In Ramadi, my platoon set up camp in a bombed-out palace just a stoneâs throw from the Euphrates River. There was marble everywhere: the floors, walls, and pillars. I saw a destroyed elevator and a tiled mural of Saddam Hussein. The former groundskeeper ran up to us and said the palace had once belonged to Saddam Hussein himself. He was an older man who didnât appear to have anything to do, or any work to keep him going. He stayed near our troops to run errands and fetch drinks for the sergeants, for what I presumed was a little pocket change. I unrolled my sleeping bag on the floor, about one hundred feet from an unexploded
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