Memoirs written in prose of Sergeant Robertson, Damon M. USMC while in Iraq | ...with frequent appearances of King Hammurabi.
If you are new to this journal, make sure to start reading in chronological order by scrolling down to the bottom of the oldest post in October 2004. Damon's letters from August 20th, 2004 - October 23rd, 2004 were all added to this blog on Oct. 23rd, 2004. All subsequent letters are posted in real time.
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Dear Persons of Irreproachable Repute: I've spent the last four hours on watch, having come straight from MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program) training to a wind-chilled and lifeless post. Waking dream, panicky phantasms of camel spiders scurry through my brain. Just waiting for the day I see one of the saucer sized versions. Load. Lock. Aim. Breathe. FIRE EVERY ROUND YOU HAVE IN A SINGLE CURTAIN OF PUNISHING COPPER-JACKETED LEAD AND RUN LIKE A SCARED LITTLE GIRL. [not that I'm slamming little girls. There's nothing wrong with acting like one, so long as you actually *are* one. It's funny when you see grown men, Marines even, jump as one of these not-so-little horrors comes scurrying out of the dark. Oh, you'll scream like a girl alright.] This morning on watch, I am alone. Having never stood watch at "o-dark 30" in the morning, I have time to reflect. There is a man I know here whose story might make you laugh if you didn't know the context. I have a picture of him in his bunk, laying on top of his sleeping bag, his rifle propped on the window sill behind him. In his right hand he holds an unsheathed K-bar (Big Knife for those of you who don't know). I suppose I took the picture because it really was funny, it being the first time I'd seen anyone do that. Then, as the days progressed here, I noticed that he does it every night. All the time. And what's more you have to be careful how you wake him up, how close you're standing, because there's something legitimate about the situation. He isn't one of those wanna-be cop types who thinks he's hard as nails. He really is. And if you paid enough attention to the way he laughs, and what he laughs about, you'd see the sparkle in his eyes that isn't mirth, but mitigated pain, and you'd take a second to wonder if this is a really clueless child hidden in the chiseled body of a killer, or if this is really a killer, through and through, and like most of us he doesn't know what to do with the pain he keeps so very close inside. We're careful when we tiptoe up to his bunk, gingerly take the knife out of his hands, and set it down on the sill next to the M-16. None of us want him rolling over in his sleep and cutting himself by accident. Or cutting one of us in the morning when we go to wake him up. He doesn't jerk to life so quickly most days, but we all know it only takes one mishap, one unlucky moment and that irreducible pair of veins you have in your neck might get reduced. I know he has kids. Yet, one night as we sat in a small group, just four NCO's myself included, I asked him if he'd ever been married, wondering to myself whether they'd been born outside marriage, or with a live-in girlfriend, or what not. We were sipping some hard alcohol one of us had smuggled in-theatre. Not enough to get anyone drunk, but enough to make us think we are rewarding ourselves for all the self-inflicted butt-breaking work we pull off. The words were out of my mouth, as is characteristic for me, before I had the chance to do the simple equating in my head and figure it was a subject he probably didn't want broached. But he's a brave man, and honest. "I was married for six years and divorced my wife because of her infidelity." Oh. There is a pause. I look at him squarely, soberly. I am sorry. I didn't mean to pry, I say. "It's not prying," he says, sipping his sprite and *whatever* drink he's made. "It was during the first deployment to Iraq. While I was gone my best friend and her had an affair. My best friend was also my business partner, so when I came back I lost my job, too." "That's F*ing terrible," says Super Marine. The man continues with only the slightest of nods. "I got work as a construction foreman making almost the same amount of money. But basically I came home from Iraq to find I was living in a different kind of hell, so being here again is really mostly a relief." I hear all this knowing something else about him, too. Last time he was here, he got into a firefight while serving as an observer with a Recon unit (Marine special operations forces). He went through 16 magazines -- almost 500 rounds. We never ask him if he's killed bodies. We know. I know. Look at the hurt in his eyes whenever he tries to laugh, the dangerous and selfless way he pulls stunts all day long. The knife in his hands and the uneasy slumber. How seldom he steals away from the flight line, even during the down hours, to call his two lovely children. You notice a lot of things here if you look long enough. The sand, the dust, hardly ever move even though the wind never stops blowing over us from somewhere in the west. It's an odd thing, the wind, on days when the dust storms roll through. The air throbs, not so much moving in any single direction but just stirring things up into a big eye-clogging mess. I sat on watch one day during daylight hours and noticed that when the sand does blow, it's in long lines, from west to east, and those streaks of kicked up crud are like paths, the flow interrupted regularly by little dust swirls; sort of look like the impact of invisible feet trodding on the flat plain where Saddam thought it'd be good to build his Al Asad airstrip. Like spirits-- maybe I can be poetic-- the wind always blows, but the sand only moves when the spirits drift accross it (?). ... I had a conversation with my staff sergeant a few days ago (or yesterday? who knows. the days, long hours that we work with little sleep and never a day off, all drift together and move very slowly). One of the things he told me was this: "None of you are ready for combat. You're not grunts. You come here with all your motivation, wanting to get your asses shot off, and you haven't got a F*ing clue. None of you have the mentality you need to have." We've had a calm conversation up 'til now. I came to him to discuss the problem I've been having with my Marine, whose rank is below mine, but whose billet far succeeds my own. He's capable, a good Marine, except for the fact that there isn't a shred of true humility in him whatsoever. It makes it hard to punish a man you think is outstanding on so many levels but behaves, from time to time and in a very public manner, in such a way that his insubordination cannot be ignored. The Ssgt and I have been talking a long time already. He's already cracked a bit-- I say cracked rather than "opened up" -- because he started to get frustrated with all of us and he let me see his own frustration in the process. I'm not here pestering him about getting me on convoys or off to some other "real Marine" training. Other guys do that enough, and I know that because I hear him talking to them all the time, saying the same things to the same impatient people day in and day out. "When it's time, you'll know. It's not a matter of *if*, but *when*, and you will know as soon as I do." He's a grunt, or at least he was before he changed his MOS to motor transport. He was told he'd be on convoys, too, just like I was, and he's been suckered as bad as any of us. He's angry, too, and I see it through the cracks. And what he says-- the part about none of us having any sober clue about what to expect in a combat situation-- stings for more than one reason. First, it's the same tired old crap I've heard from active duty Marines since I joined the Corps 4 years ago (yay, only 2 more years left...). "You're not real Marines. You're only pretending," our old 1st Sgt used to say. Then, and I know this, they go back to their offices and wonder why we don't put out a good day's sweat when they yell and scream at us. Don't attack our hearts. Our motivation will be intact if you refrain from expressing your personal anguish and dissatisfaction in this way. Don't blame us for trusting your word. We try to follow you. Do not speak filth into our hearts and minds, and you won't see filth come out in our actions. It's a simple equation, and I know that even Neverspeaks wouldn't bother to say it it's so simple an observation. Yeah, that is if he ever opened his mouth at all. Second, I'm not a complete boot. I've seen four years, which I openly admit to him is nothing compared to his 13, but it's something precisely because I've paid attention. I'm 27. I'm educated. And while that doesn't mean everything, it stands for more than nothing as well. I know I'm not RECON hard. I know I'm not some high-speed grunt somehow saddled with an engineer's hat. I'm the engineer who spends his off time training and running and lifting weights and thank you very much, I do have the mental attitude that I'm in a combat zone. But what does it matter, I think, if I can stitch my shots so close on a target at the range that the radius of the bullet holes touch one another? It doesn't matter a bit. So long as you have leaders like this, who don't believe in you, who don't notice how hard you try to stay sharp even when the others around you let their bodies slough into bags of crap. It's the distinction that matters. Pay attention. Yeah, you're in the same boat, Ssgt, so take a look up from your oar and notice who the hell else here pulls hard like you do. We're here. You'd notice a lot of these things, if you bothered to look long enough. ... :D
# posted by chevas @ 7:39 PM 