Entertainment, Books - Army Times

Excerpt from ‘Hard Corps’

Up overhead, Cobra helicopters whirled on their way to strafe roads and buildings. When the helos passed, the palm fronds on our trees swayed. As the gun battle inside the house raged on, I glanced behind me at the wall we’d just burst through. The sight made my heart jump. The only portion of the wall not riddled with enemy bullets was a narrow twenty-four-inch patch that mirrored the outline of my palm tree trunk. The enemy was now less than fifty feet away. The guesthouse-turned-bunker facing us was filled with fully armed shooters. I began firing round after round of 40mm at the bunker. Some of the rounds almost made it into the small window.

But I couldn’t get a steady shot, because if I stayed exposed, I’d get killed. That’s when I heard a break in the action; the enemy gun from the guesthouse bunker had jammed. I jumped out from behind my tree and charged the bunker while Gardner, Garcia and Jaramillo laid down suppressive fire. Halfway to the bunker, I heard the enemy AK-47 reengage and resume firing.

I was stranded.

If I could have mashed the pause button at that instant of my life, it was the only time I was absolutely certain I was going to die.

Not “thought” I was going to die, or “worried” I might die, but knew it. I turned to break contact and braced for my worst fear: getting shot in the back. Getting shot in the back is the worst way for a Marine to die, because it means he was in retreat. Nothing gets pounded into a grunt more than the phrase “Marines never retreat!”

It’s the worst way to go out. And had I died, I would have considered it a disgraceful and shameful death. I started sprinting back to a different palm tree some twenty-five yards away. My back was a bull’s-eye. On the way back, I noticed an enemy RPG launcher on the ground. To this day, I can’t fully explain why I did what I did next: I snatched up the weapon, even though the motion slowed me down and gave the enemy more time to shoot me. Most troublingly, I didn’t have a clue how to fire an RPG. But for whatever reason, I picked it up. And for whatever reason, I survived. Now I was in possession of a foreign weapon that I’d never held and had not the slightest idea how to use.

I took cover behind another tree and looked the weapon over.

I’d seen them in movies and pictures, but we were never trained how to use enemy weapons. I fumbled with the rocket until it snapped firmly into place. I thought that if I could just somehow figure out how to fire the damn thing, I could destroy the building and free up my brothers. Plus — and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it — I loved the idea of shooting these bastards with their own damn weapon.

I popped out from behind my palm tree.

Squeeze.

Nothing.

I reloaded the rocket, checked the sights and put it back up on my shoulder again before exposing myself from behind the tree a second time.

Squeeze. Nothing again.

“Motherf-----!” I muttered.

I started to wonder whether there was a reason this stupid thing had been tossed onto the battlefield; maybe it was a dud. That’s when the launcher’s dual-trigger system caught my eye. If it didn’t work this time, I was done fooling with the thing.

No sooner had I exposed myself and gotten into a kneeling firing position than I heard Gardner get hit in the ribs. Gardner’s screams sounded like someone getting his arms sawed off. His body collapsed to the ground. He was seven yards away, lying in an expanding pool of deep-red blood.

The Fedayeen zeroed in on his body. Their rounds punched the dirt around him. Gardner’s face turned as white as Tardif’s had. Blood was pouring out of his mouth, along with gargling sounds. Later we’d learn that he’d been paralyzed from the waist down, but at the time, all we knew was that if we didn’t do something fast, another round would find and kill him.

I thought, If I’m going to fire this thing, I better do it now, because if I don’t, they’re going to kill Gardner.

I pointed the RPG back at the terrorists, aimed at the structure, braced for the kickback and squeezed the trigger. The rocket zoomed across the yard, tearing through the bunker and killing two of the five shooters inside. Most important, the blast bought us a much-needed ten- to fifteen-second break in the action that gave my teammates the time to drag Gardner out of the line of fire.

But even as our guys were scrambling to get Gardner to safety, the three surviving terrorists began firing on the half-dead Gardner and the Marines struggling to drag him to safety.

Something inside me snapped. I went primal.

I ran directly for the enemy bunker, firing my M-16 as Garcia and Jaramillo laid covering fire. When I got fifteen meters from the terrorists who’d paralyzed our brother, the bolt on my rifle locked to the rear; I was out of ammo. I dropped my weapon, which hung from a sling around my body, and prepped a hand grenade while running the final seven meters. I could hear the shooters yelling in Arabic. They ducked down behind their bunker wall and blindly sprayed rounds out of the window.

When my body slammed against the outer wall of their bunker, I threw a grenade as hard as I could into the open window and stood with my back against the wall, waiting for the blast. The concussion from the explosion jolted me forward. A pink mist and body parts flew past me. There had been no outlet for the explosion to go anywhere. It was like those guys got put in a blender.

I wasn’t sure whether I was alive or dead. It was the most surreal feeling I have ever experienced. My ears had liquid running out of them, and my head ached. I was silent and calm. So was the yard. There were body parts all around me. Two of the bastards who’d shot Gardner lay mutilated on the ground in front of me. I glanced down. Their intestines, slathered in blood, were hanging outside their stomachs.

I reloaded my M-16 and walked behind the blown-up structure.

I turned the corner and something moved. Lying on the ground was a severely wounded Fedayeen fighter with an AK-47. As he drew his weapon into a shooting position, I fired four shots — two to the head and two to the chest.

Seconds later, Garcia ran up to me.

“Holy sh--!” he said. “Did you see what you did to those guys?”

I was exhausted — more tired than I’d even been before. I don’t know if I ever really replied.