One Million Steps: A Marine Platoon at War Read Online Free PDF Page B

Marines by their shoulders.
    “The Taliban think that flooding is going to stop us,” he yelled. “They have no idea the hell we’re going to unleash. I got your back, little brothers!”
    Carlisle was enraged.
    “The enemy doesn’t kill,” he screamed, “or take the limbs of any of us without paying tenfold. No one fucks with our family. We’ll drop the sledgehammer on their ass.”
    Within two days of pushing into the Green Zone, Battalion 3/5 had sufferedeight killed and two dozen wounded. A British officer later said, “We warned you.” He wasn’t being mean-spirited; the British had learned that the enemy fought for every foot of ground. If you left the perimeter, you took casualties.
    The Kilo Company first sergeant, Jorge Melendez, was wiry and meticulous. To him, everything had a place and an order to it. Each casualty somehow fitted into an unseen pattern.
    “God,” he said, “doesn’t give you burdens you can’t carry.”
    The Marines were carrying a heavy burden, their morale challenged by an enemy that was unafraid. Eventually either the Taliban would pull back or the Marines would cease to patrol. The outcome depended upon whose will broke first.

Chapter 2
LEADER LOST
    “The public doesn’t know what goes on out here on the front lines.”
    —KYLE DOYLE, CALIFORNIA
    While the fight and the waters swirled around PB Fires, a mile to the north Kilo’s 3rd Platoon was gingerly reconnoitering the terrain. The British had warned that the shrub growth on both sides of Route 611 was littered with mines. All day the platoon had exchanged shots with enemy skirmishers hidden in the cornfields and irrigation ditches. The technical term is “skulking”—shoot, slip along a ditch to another corn patch, wait half an hour, take a random shot, and scoot away. This was the American Indian way of war in skirmishes against the settlers in the eighteenth century.
    At the end of a frustrating day, 3rd Platoon had briefly glimpsed only two men with AKs.
    The platoon moved into an abandoned compound for the nightand Lt. Cameron West, the platoon commander, called the men together. A strapping outdoorsman who grew up on a cattle ranch in Georgia, he pushed his Marines hard. But on long marches when some straggled, he joked rather than yelled at them. West’s love of the land and outgoing manner had earned him the nickname “Big Country”.
    “We lost two Marines near Fires today,” he said. “IEDs are everywhere. Be damn careful. Watch out for each other. Third Platoon is out here by itself.”
    A rifle platoon of forty-four men, 3rd Platoon was augmented by two machine gun crews, two mortar crews, a forward observer, and a few snipers. The total number was fifty.
    Third Platoon was not a cross section of American society. Back in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, the draft guaranteed that a platoon resembled the face of America, diverse in backgrounds, tastes, and ambitions. In contrast, today’s military is self-selected, educated, and middle-class. Three out of four American youths cannot qualify mentally or physically for today’s military. Nevertheless, the Marine Corps has a one-year waiting list.
    The young men in 3rd Platoon were smarter, wealthier, fitter, and more committed than the average American. Most had joined the Marine Corps because of its tough, disciplined standards, and believed the Corps had changed them. They were well trained, but not to the degree of career professionals like the SEALs or Army Special Forces. Most planned to serve for four years and return to civilian life. Only four believed they would learn a trade in the Marine Corps.
    Everyone in the platoon had graduated from high school. Seventy-five percent came from a two-parent family, a strong indicator of emotional stability. The average age was twenty-one, and one in three was married, with at least one child. Most considered their tastes in music and movies to be the same as that of their civilian friends. They thought