Part 9 (1/2)

So, for Bellavia, the moment of abject terror pa.s.sed quickly as he focused on his prey. He raised his M4 carbine and prepared to fire. Unlike many early-twenty-first-century American grunts, he had little interest in hunting. But he knew that hunters often emitted a quick noise to startle their prey into stopping short or turning toward the shooter. Sergeant Bellavia called out casually: ”Hey.” Sure enough, the insurgent stopped and looked at Bellavia, presenting a perfect target. The twenty-nine-year-old squad leader squeezed off two tracer bullets that streaked into the man's chest and shoulder. Both hits produced ”a puff of smoke, like exhaust from a cigarette.” As the wounded man stumbled around, his eyes bulged and he screamed in agony. ”He howls, a long mewling, pain-wracked scream.” Staff Sergeant Colin Fitts, a fellow squad leader, swung his shotgun into position atop Bellavia's helmet and laced the man with two slugs, tearing one of his arms off, knocking him down. A SAW gunner on the roof added several bullets that tore him up even more. When several of the machine gunner's bullets missed, they bounced up and down the street and off nearby houses. Then all was silence again.

A surge of adrenaline-laced excitement swept through Bellavia. He was so euphoric at killing the insurgent that he felt as if his vital organs were rearranging inside of him. His triumph instilled in him a keen sense of masculinity, as if he had now proven himself a better man than the insurgent. He felt powerful, almost invulnerable. He cupped his hand to his mouth and emitted an animal-like cry of victory: ”You can't kill me! You hear me, f.u.c.kers? You will never kill me!” He was excited to be alive. He was also overcome with relief that he had what it took to kill another human being in such a personal fas.h.i.+on. ”Combat distilled to its purest form is a test of manhood,” he wrote. ”In modern warfare, that man-to-man challenge is often hidden by modern technology-the splash of artillery fire can be random, a rocket or bomb or IED can be anonymous. Those things make combat a roll of the dice. But on this street and in these houses, it can be man-to-man. My skills against his. I caught him napping and he died.”

In such instances, when soldiers kill face-to-face, euphoria can erode quickly into guilt over taking life. The perceptive Bellavia expected this contradiction and even welcomed it. ”Combat is a descent into the darkest part of the human soul. A place where the most exalted n.o.bility and the most wretched baseness reside naturally together. What a man finds there defines how he measures himself for the rest of his life. I embrace the battle. I welcome it into my soul.” By doing so, he was probably trying to master the guilt that often leads to post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is, to a great extent, a product of guilt-survivor's guilt, guilt at not measuring up to one's self-image or the expectations of others in combat, most of all, guilt at having killed. Staff Sergeant Bellavia knew all the risks. Every bit a professional grunt, he was determined to overcome them.

As it turned out, the insurgent had been in the process of laying a horrifying trap for 2-2 Infantry. The battery he was carrying was meant to touch off a colossal amount of explosives that were packed into a house that the grunts were about to clear. ”The whole thing was wired to blow,” Bellavia recalled. ”I've never seen that much C-4 [explosive] in my entire life. It looked like a log cabin, that's how many bricks were all taped together on the walls.” Propane tanks and even a fuel tank from a jet aircraft were cleverly arranged among the whole deadly bouquet. When Bellavia had first spotted the insurgent, he had been heading for a nearby fighting hole. His mission, the soldiers soon understood, had been to wait for the platoon to enter the house and then touch the battery to wires leading away from the house, into the hole. The ensuing combination of flames and powerful explosives of this BCIED (building-contained improvised explosive device) would, most likely, have killed everyone in the platoon. With this chilling discovery, Bellavia and the others felt anything but guilt. They were pleased, and relieved, that they had killed the bearded man.

Creeped out by the thought that other BCIEDs might await them, the Ramrod grunts spent the rest of the night clearing houses. Their knees and elbows were already raw from sc.r.a.ping against rubble and gla.s.s. They encountered more b.o.o.by traps but none so elaborate as the notorious first BCIED. At each house they expected major resistance, and there were a few firefights, but most of the buildings were unoccupied. Newell's battalion was moving so quickly that they were already closing in on Highway 10. The speedy advance had a downside, though. As the pre-a.s.sault plan had envisioned, Newell's a.s.sault platoons were smas.h.i.+ng through the enemy's prepared defenses, disrupting their movements, and killing some of them. But there were no front lines and 2-2 Infantry was deeper into the city than the neighboring Marines. This meant that the insurgents were all around Newell's men, capable of popping up anywhere.

After sunrise, when the Americans no longer enjoyed the advantage of their night vision devices, the enemy fighters grew more aggressive. Sergeant Bellavia's squad was on a rooftop, looking south, when, from all around them, they heard a chorus of voices hollering to one another in Arabic. The voices trailed away and a single whistle blew. As the whistle tapered off, he and his men heard the sound of several dozen feet tromping through the dizzying warren of streets and alleys around them. ”They're coming for us,” Bellavia thought.

The squad's supporting Bradleys and tanks were, for the moment, occupied elsewhere. Although it would take them several minutes to work their way into position, around buildings and through streets, they could help if need be. The sergeant turned to his men: ”We're not gonna bring any Brads up,” he said to them. ”We're gonna make them think they've trapped dismounts in the open without support. They're gonna rush us, and we'll f.u.c.king take them out. Hooah?” His grunts all replied with ”Hooahs” of their own. In the early-twenty-first-century Army, this ubiquitous word had many meanings, ranging from ”okay” to ”gung ho” to ”I agree” or even ”I understand.” The soldiers were arrayed in a firing line, covering every angle of approach, with SAWs, M4s, and M16s at the ready. Bellavia, ever the conscientious NCO, reminded his shooters to aim low and adjust high for maximum accuracy. The air was dusty and thick. Visibility was good. They could see for several blocks in every direction, although the sight revealed little more than the typical mishmash of drab, sandstone-colored buildings that characterized much of Fallujah.

The attacking insurgents soon ran into serious trouble. From the vantage point of a nearby house, Fitts's squad opened fire through windows and doors and slaughtered several of them. In the stunned aftermath, Fitts moved his people out of that house and linked up with Bellavia. All was quiet now. No one was in sight. The two sergeants estimated that somewhere out there was a force of about fifty or sixty mujahideen. They were desperately looking for the Americans but they did not know exactly where they were. They were probably spooked by the ambush Fitts had just sprung on them.

Suddenly, from about one hundred meters to the north (behind the line of the American advance), they heard a voice crying ”Allah!” The grunts peered in that direction and saw a man in the middle of the street, aiming a machine gun, with an ammo belt wrapped around his arm, Rambo style. He was walking toward the Americans, chanting ”Allah!” and mumbling to himself. ”The muj are probing us,” Bellavia wrote. ”This lone fighter is a sacrificial lamb, baiting us to open fire and reveal our positions. It is a chilling way to employ a comrade.” Still the courageous man kept coming. His tone was resolute, defiant and pa.s.sionate.

Bellavia, like most of the Americans, was contemptuous of the enemy's fanaticism and cruelty, but he could not help but respect the insurgent's valor and belief in his cause, odious though the sergeant believed that cause to be. Bellavia's ambivalence was quite similar to the way Marines had felt about their j.a.panese enemies at Guam and Peleliu. When the machine-gun-wielding man got too close for comfort, Sergeant Bellavia ordered his machine gunners to open fire. Their staccato bursts spewed bullets into the pavement around the man. He looked right up at the Americans and roared at them in a tone that quaked with rage. Just as he opened fire, the machine-gun bullets tore through his legs like a saw. ”White bone exposed, the insurgent collapses onto his severed legs,” Bellavia recalled. ”He screams in agony, but refuses to give up the fight. Blood pools around him in the street.” Still the man leaned on his trigger. His rounds smashed into the American-held building with dull thuds. Another American burst engulfed him. ”The insurgent is ripped apart. Chunks of flesh spray across the road.”

He had done his job, though. Within a minute, the Americans began taking intense machine-gun, rifle, and RPG fire. ”The enemy is. .h.i.tting us with everything he has,” Bellavia wrote. ”Our wall becomes torn and pitted along the west and north sides. Figures dart between buildings and race across the street below.” Some of them were in and around the houses across the street, no more than thirty meters away. In the recollection of one witness, they wore ”tracksuit pants and the uniforms of the Iraqi National Guard.” The Americans laced into them with everything at their disposal. The heavy cyclic bursts of machine guns melded crazily with the semiautomatic, throaty cracking of rifles. Plumes of smoke rose from the feed trays of the SAWs. Empty bra.s.s casings tinkled onto the ledge of the roof and spilled downward into the street or onto the rooftop. A fragment from a tracer round hit Sergeant Warren Misa in the face. Bellavia fished it out. Misa was okay but his face was swollen and infected where the fragment had burrowed into the skin.

The two sides screamed and cursed at each other. One of the Americans stood up, shouted ”fire in the hole!” and fired an AT4 rocket at an insurgent taking cover behind a gate below. Someone let out a whoop, like a child exulting over fireworks. The gate exploded. Two machine gunners followed with several bursts, killing the enemy shooter. An RPG exploded just below the ledge, shaking the entire roof with concussion. Many others streaked by, ”flying left and right, impacting buildings,” in the recollection of one soldier. The firefight was evolving into a standoff. At this rate, though, the Americans risked losing fire superiority to the more numerous insurgents.

Fitts and Bellavia decided to play the mech infantryman's ace in the hole. One of them got on the radio and called up a Bradley commanded by Staff Sergeant Cory Brown, a man nicknamed ”Grizzly Bear” by his platoon mates because of his personal courage. The two rifle sergeants asked Brown to attack alone down the insurgent-held street. The intrepid Bradley commander readily accepted the challenge. ”The Bradley rolls forward down the street and straight into the insurgents,” Bellavia recalled. ”At first, they're astonished the Brad is counterattacking by itself. But they quickly swarm the Brad with tracers. RPGs strike the road around it.” The Bradley responded with a steady barrage of 25-millimeter. The abrupt sonic booming of the rounds slashed the air as the sh.e.l.ls smashed into rooftops, windows, asphalt, and, most likely, people. Each round evoked miniwaves of shock and a.s.saulted eardrums.

An IED exploded near Brown's Bradley, obscuring it in dust and smoke. The mujahideen thought they had crippled the Brad. A group of them rushed down the street, trying to close the distance to Brown's vehicle, destroy it at intimate range, and kill the three crewmen. On the rooftop, the grunts had a perfect view of the enemy's movements (thus personifying the military term ”overwatch”). Several of them had M203 grenade launchers attached to their rifles. They dropped 40-millimeter grenades among the enemy, pinning them down while the riflemen and machine gunners scythed them with bullets. A few went down and did not get up. Others scrambled for cover.

Brown's Bradley rolled warily in reverse down the street, back toward the friendly support of Bellavia's group. An enemy RPG team materialized next to a cistern and snapped off a shot. The warhead exploded next to Brown's battered and scarred Bradley but did no major damage. In response, Staff Sergeant Brown raised his TOW box and unleashed the fury of this fearsome weapon upon them. ”When it comes to urban fighting,” Bellavia commented, ”a TOW is a gift from the Pentagon G.o.ds.” The TOW hurtled down the street and exploded next to the cistern, killing the RPG men. Bellavia saw other enemy survivors making a run for it. ”Our guns cut down seven of them. [One] insurgent runs out of his sandals before Ruiz shoots him in the belly. Our men cheer wildly and shout taunts.”

The longer the battle raged, the more it favored the Americans. With the insurgent locations pinpointed, the dismounts began to work closely with tanks and Bradleys, devastating the enemy with coordinated fire. Once pinned down, it was hard for them to escape. The Brigade Reconnaissance Troop, still fighting from the cloverleaf outside of town, added still more Bradley, tank, machine-gun, and sniper fire, killing even more enemy. The muj could not hope to succeed against this effective blend of armored firepower and quality dismounted infantrymen. ”We . . . scored a significant victory,” Bellavia said. ”We suffered only one slightly wounded and killed many, many bad guys. We withstood a multidirectional attack for over three and a half hours.”12 Under the weight of this combined arms power, 2-2 Infantry kept advancing swiftly. In one instance, they spotted large numbers of armed insurgents moving into a mosque that was located in neighboring Marines' area of responsibility. The soldiers radioed the Marines and asked for permission to fire artillery at the mosque. Since 1/8's rifle companies were still a considerable distance from the mosque, they finally a.s.sented after about an hour's worth of cautious conversations about the political wisdom of sh.e.l.ling such a holy site. Firing from Camp Fallujah several miles away, Paladin 155-millimeter howitzer crews unleashed a staggered pair of twenty-round barrages right onto the mosque and its surrounding area. ”Some hit the building and some hit just south of it,” Lieutenant Neil Prakash, a tank commander who helped call in the rounds, later said, ”but every explosion went off, and it was like a volcano: three to five guys shot up like they'd come out of a geyser.” Prakash's tank was near Highway 10, a couple thousand meters from the mosque. In his turret, he leaned forward and gazed at the flying bodies through his commander's sight. He had done much of the spotting for the artillerymen. Now he surveyed the gruesome results of his competence as bodies flew in every direction. ”They were perfectly still, not waving or fanning their arms or anything. They were already dead as they were going airborne and blossoming out. I was looking at this place and it was just smoldering. There are very few times that I've ever felt sorry for the enemy, but this time they just got slaughtered.”

Back at the cloverleaf, one of the reconnaissance scouts peered through his L-RAS and saw a round impact ”on the left side of the building and I saw three bodies fly into the air. It was awesome.” Several of the Americans saw bodies. .h.i.t the ground and bounce two stories into the air. Some bounced as high as five stories. ”It was the most insane, surreal thing I'd ever seen, just watching these bodies fly,” one of them said. ”They looked like dolls.” They may have looked like dolls, but they were flesh-and-blood men, destroyed with ruthless finality by modern firepower. It was the essence of the violent horror that characterizes modern war.

As the sh.e.l.ls exploded against and in the mosque, survivors poured outside in hopes of escaping. ”[They] were stumbling out, coughing from the smoke,” Captain Chris Boggiano of the Brigade Reconnaissance Troop recalled. A fresh barrage landed among them, blowing some to pieces. Arms, heads, and pieces of flesh flew in all directions. Lieutenant Prakash watched one enemy fighter emerge ”out of the gray smoke, and he's holding his stomach, dragging his AK by the sling, and he's gagging and retching; and just then . . . ten more rounds landed right on top of his head.” The sh.e.l.ling killed between forty and seventy insurgents, including one of Zarqawi's top lieutenants.

By late afternoon on November 9, 2-2 Infantry had secured Highway 10. Many of the 2-2 grunts yearned to continue their advance and keep the enemy in disarray. They wanted to push across the highway and clear the industrial areas of south Fallujah. But they were too far ahead of the Marines to do that, so they paused at Highway 10. To some of the soldiers, the Marines seemed slow and deliberate, too preoccupied with clearing every last building before continuing the advance. ”You could see the differences in how we fight,” Major Eric Krivda, the XO of 2-2, said. ”We'd do whatever we could to drop [a] building first” with tanks and Bradleys. ”The last possible resort is we send an infantry squad in to clean up the remnants.” Captain Fowler, an Army tanker, even claimed that the pause allowed the insurgents ”to move back behind our lines. We ended up forcing them out again, but we don't like to pay for the same ground twice.” Some of the Marines, conversely, thought the Army was moving so fast because they were simply riding around in armored vehicles, shooting at targets and moving on, without dismounting and truly eliminating resistance.

Both perceptions were wrong. For the most part, the battle was unfolding according to plan. In a figurative sense, the Army was shattering the enemy's wall; the Marines were cleaning up the rubble. Each and every building did have to be cleared or the insurgents would infiltrate back into them. Marine light infantry and the Iraqi battalions were best suited for that time-consuming, exhausting task. By the same token, the Army's mechanized capability was ideal for urban fire support and mobility, so it was not the least bit surprising that Lieutenant Colonel Newell's 2-2 Infantry moved faster than the Marines. Newell's small number of dismounts, and not any deficiency on the part of the Marines, meant that 2-2 would have to do much back-clearing of areas the unit had already traversed. ”We do have some disadvantages in not having lots of dismounted infantry,” Newell said, ”so that's why . . . there needs to be a balanced organization. It's a complementary relations.h.i.+p.” At Fallujah, the concept of melding Marine light infantry dexterity with Army mechanized brawn worked very well, and with an amazing minimum of friendly fire problems.

Thus, Newell's grunts began clearing buildings on either side of Highway 10 ”to destroy pockets of enemy resistance bypa.s.sed during the attack south,” the unit after action report said. By now, hungry packs of stray dogs and cats had learned to follow the Americans as they a.s.saulted the buildings, because they left behind so many bodies in their wake. One soldier witnessed a cat eat the lips off a dead insurgent. Sergeant Bellavia saw several hungry dogs feeding on the remains of a dead enemy fighter. ”The dogs gnaw and tear at his flesh. One comes up, his snout smeared in gore. My stomach flutters.” In some cases, the animals ate all the way through to the bone.

Covered by Abramses and Bradleys, the Army grunts kicked in so many doors, cleared so many houses, dodged so many b.o.o.by traps, and destroyed so many weapons caches that they lost count. Time after time, the grunts lined up in a stack, on either side of a doorway, hugging the wall, each man orienting his weapon to cover a different sector, each wondering to himself if he was about to enter a BCIED or a house full of jihadis. The skin of the grunts was peppered with nicks and cuts. Their eyes were rimmed with dark circles. They stank of dust, cordite, stale MRE crumbs, body odor, and soiled underwear. The sweaty T-s.h.i.+rts that hugged their irritated skin had given many of them p.r.i.c.kly heat. They were irritable and surly. They were coated with the disgust and cynicism of infantrymen in combat.

Firefights erupted on various blocks. The Americans annihilated anyone in their path. On one street, an enemy machine gunner opened up on a group of Americans just as they rammed through the door of the house he was defending. He wounded three of them before the grunts pulled back and a Mark 19 gunner blew the enemy gunner to pieces. Sergeant Bellavia came upon another muj gunner lying in rubble alongside his weapon. The sergeant and one of his team leaders opened fire. ”I hit him twice in the back and hear his lungs expel a sudden rush of air. Was it a death rattle? I'm not sure.” A pool of sticky, dark red blood engulfed the fighter. The other soldier shot him in the head. Bellavia nudged his legs apart and kicked him in the groin, just to make sure he wasn't playing possum. The sergeant's boot sank deep into his leg cavity and he realized that the man had no s.c.r.o.t.u.m or p.e.n.i.s left. Needless to say, the man was very dead.13 A few minutes later, as the clock neared midnight and the men were on the verge of exhaustion, the platoon a.s.saulted a handsome two-story square-shaped home. Behind the house was a nice courtyard garden. Bellavia figured that the house and garden must have belonged to someone with money. He knew that this was the Askari District, where many of Saddam's military officers had lived.

The lead soldiers found the front door unlocked. In the stack, there were men from both Bellavia's squad and Fitts's. With Sergeant Misa in the lead, they surged into the dark front room of the house. The only illumination came from the SureFire flashlights they had fastened onto their rifles. Beams of light bounced along the walls and corners as each soldier cleared his respective sector. Bellavia was outside, in the courtyard, watching this through a window when, all of a sudden, he heard shooting and a lot of it. He rushed inside, just in time to see tracers ricocheting off the floor and walls. There were so many that, to Bellavia, it looked like someone had thrown a telephone pole on top of a big campfire, sending embers flying in all directions. The tracers sizzled and hissed. They touched off little fires in piles of garbage and papers strewn about the house.

The shots were snapping off quickly, fast and desperate. The noise was deafening. Confusion reigned supreme. At first the sergeant thought his men were shooting at nothing so he screamed at them to cease fire. But, in reality, they were in heavy contact, pinned down in the living room by withering fire from well-hidden insurgents. The term ”pinned down” is, in essence, a slice of military vernacular that means the enemy fire is so accurate, so deadly, so thick that any movement can bring instant death.

Two jihadis were hunkered down in the middle of the house, near a central stairwell, with well-sighted fields of fire into the living room and the foyer of the house. The truly amazing thing was that, with hundreds of bullets buzzing around, no one on either side had gotten hit yet. Bellavia chanced a look through the foyer doorway and saw the two muj shooting from behind ”a pair of three-foot-high concrete Jersey barriers with little more than their heads and shoulders exposed. One of the insurgents holds an AK-47 against each shoulder with the barrels resting on one barrier. The other man has a Russian belt-fed PKM machine gun perched atop the other barrier.” Fitts and several other soldiers were pinned down opposite the doorway, on the other side of the living room.

A round grazed Private First Cla.s.s Jim Metcalf, one of the SAW gunners, right under his body armor. He stumbled and cried out: ”I'm hit!” The Americans heard the insurgents laughing above the din, mocking Metcalf, taunting him: I'm heeet!! I'm heeet!! At the same time shards of gla.s.s and debris practically filled the air. One of the soldiers took some fragments to the eyes and hollered: ”My face! My eyes!” The insurgents laughed some more and wailed in mock distress: At the same time shards of gla.s.s and debris practically filled the air. One of the soldiers took some fragments to the eyes and hollered: ”My face! My eyes!” The insurgents laughed some more and wailed in mock distress: Ohhhhh, my feeece! My eyes! Ohhhhh, my feeece! My eyes! The sound of their voices made the hair on Bellavia's neck stand up. It was as if they were questioning the manhood of the Americans. The sergeant was filled with rage and fear, and it is safe to say the others were, too. As a leader, he tried to remain calm enough to consider what to do. He realized that, with several men pinned down inside the house, the supporting fire of tanks, Bradleys, artillery, and close air support were all useless. The enemy had designed their fighting position for just this type of close encounter. ”This ambush is the product of study,” he wrote, ”an enemy who has thoroughly a.n.a.lyzed our strengths and weaknesses. They've created a fighting position that negates our advantages of firepower and mobility. All we can do is fight them at point-blank range with the weapons in our hands.” The sound of their voices made the hair on Bellavia's neck stand up. It was as if they were questioning the manhood of the Americans. The sergeant was filled with rage and fear, and it is safe to say the others were, too. As a leader, he tried to remain calm enough to consider what to do. He realized that, with several men pinned down inside the house, the supporting fire of tanks, Bradleys, artillery, and close air support were all useless. The enemy had designed their fighting position for just this type of close encounter. ”This ambush is the product of study,” he wrote, ”an enemy who has thoroughly a.n.a.lyzed our strengths and weaknesses. They've created a fighting position that negates our advantages of firepower and mobility. All we can do is fight them at point-blank range with the weapons in our hands.”

This was exactly the sort of mano a mano situation that, according to the techno-vangelists, was supposed to be a relic of the past, but it was all too real and, in Fallujah, all too common. The two sides would fight to the finish with whatever weapons they had at their disposal. Wits, presence of mind, and valor counted for much in this terrifying environment. Here, weapons were the tools of fighting spirit.

Bellavia was in the best position to lean into the foyer and open fire on the insurgent position. This would put him squarely into a fatal funnel but it had to be done if Fitts and the other men were to have any chance to escape the house. Bellavia loved Fitts like a brother. The two men had been through nine months of combat together. Their feelings of brotherhood, combined with the squad leader's heavy sense of responsibility, extended to every man inside the house. Bellavia dreaded the idea of exposing himself in the fatal funnel, but he knew he must do it.

Hollering back and forth, he and the others worked out a plan. When Bellavia stepped into the doorway and opened up with his SAW, the others would vacate the house-quickly. The New Yorker readied the SAW. He was still enraged, yelling insults back and forth with the muj. His breathing was jagged and nervous. His palms were sweating. A thousand thoughts raced through his intelligent brain, but a line from The Exorcist The Exorcist came to dominate: ”The power of Christ compels you!” As a somewhat religious man, he was fascinated that this, of all things, would come to him during such a moment of peril. Perhaps it was because he equated his struggle against the insurgents to the movie priest's epic battle with demons. He muttered a short prayer, stood up, and opened fire at the stairwell: ”Go! Go! Go! Get out!” he screamed. came to dominate: ”The power of Christ compels you!” As a somewhat religious man, he was fascinated that this, of all things, would come to him during such a moment of peril. Perhaps it was because he equated his struggle against the insurgents to the movie priest's epic battle with demons. He muttered a short prayer, stood up, and opened fire at the stairwell: ”Go! Go! Go! Get out!” he screamed.

Sergeant Bellavia stood in the doorway and pointed his weapon at the Jersey barriers. The SAW can fire over seven hundred rounds per minute and Bellavia had a full drum of two hundred 5.56-millimeter bullets to cook off. As he leaned on the trigger, the insurgents did the same. ”Bullets bash into the wall to my left. The doorframe splinters. Tracers hiss this way and that, bouncing off the bricks and ceiling. Bullets slam into the Jersey barriers and penetrate to their hard foam centers. Hunks of foam pop out of the holes I've made and cartwheel across the room. I can see their faces and they're angry but they're smiling; they look completely evil.”

He caught his glimpses of their grinning visages against his own muzzle flashes and the streaking lights of tracer rounds. Behind him, Fitts and the others scrambled out of the house. Bellavia's SAW fire was so overwhelming that the insurgents had to duck or risk having their smiling heads blown off. ”Get out there,” he thought. ”Clear the room and juice these guys.” But it was as if his legs were cemented in place. He could not bring himself to walk up on them and kill them at point-blank range. He did not know why. Perhaps he was afraid of pus.h.i.+ng his luck any further. Perhaps he was repelled by the idea of snuffing out their lives at handshake range. Regardless, when he ran out of ammo, he bolted from the house, enraged at himself for not finis.h.i.+ng them off.

He found Fitts and several other men just beyond the garden, taking cover behind a wall. Bellavia was absolutely disgusted with himself. He paced around roaring and cursing. ”There's no escaping this: I cut and ran. When s.h.i.+t got hot, I ran. I'm an NCO. I'm supposed to lead by example.” He felt like a fraud and a coward. He had joined the Army, in part, to prove to himself that he was no such thing. Like any good sergeant, he felt a strong obligation to lead his soldiers. To him, running from an enemy-occupied house was not the way to do that. The insurgents were still spewing fire from that house. Near misses sparked on the pavement all around the Americans. ”We're all gonna die,” one frightened man said. ”We're not going to die!” Bellavia shouted back. ”They're gonna f.u.c.king die!” He was calming himself as much as he was calming the scared soldier.