Redeployment(48)

He hadn’t even paused to consider what I was suggesting. “You’re saying this is weaker than that.”

“Weak, strong, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “You think Lieutenant Colonel Fehr will ever become Colonel Fehr if he tells higher, ‘Hey, we think we did some war crimes’?”

It wasn’t a question I wanted to answer. Eventually, looking at my feet, feeling childish, I said, “I suppose not.”

“And he’s the one who decides if there’s something worth investigating. Look, you know how I feel about that man, but he’s handling Charlie Company about as well as anybody could. They came to Iraq to kill people, so he gave them the kill people AO. And he’s been shrinking their AO as Bravo gets better control of theirs.”

What he was saying didn’t really register. “Bravo?” I said.

“They’re getting more responsibility while Charlie’s getting less. And at the end of the deployment, Captain Boden will get a FITREP that makes sure he’s never given a command again. Happy?”

He could see I wasn’t.

“Look, Father,” Eklund said. “In a war like this, there’s no easy answer. Neighborhood gets roughed up, sometimes. Sometimes, by accident, there’s civilian casualties. It’s not our fault.”

That was too much. “No?” I said. “It’s never our fault?”

He leaned toward me and pointed his finger in my face. “Look, Chaps, you have no idea what these guys are dealing with. On my last deployment I saw a couple insurgents literally hiding behind a group of Iraqi children and shooting at us. Do you know how hard it is to get shot at and not respond? And that’s what my Marines did. They let themselves get shot at because they didn’t want to risk hurting children.”

“That’s not what’s happening now.”

“Most Marines are good kids. Really good kids. But it’s like they say, this is a morally bruising battlefield. My first deployment, some of those same Marines fired on a vehicle coming too fast at a TCP. They killed a family, but they followed EOF perfectly. The driver was drunk or crazy or whatever and kept coming, even after the warning shots. They fired on the car to save the lives of their fellow Marines. Which is noble, even if you then find out you didn’t kill al-Qaeda—you killed a nine-year-old girl and her parents instead.”

“Well,” I said, “if Bravo’s doing okay, and Charlie’s—”

“Bravo’s got good leaders and a calmer AO,” he said. “They trained their Marines right. Captain Seiris is good. First Sergeant Nolan’s a rock star. Their company gunny is retarded, but all of their lieutenants are good to go except maybe one, and he’s got a stellar platoon sergeant. But not everybody can be competent. It’s too late for Charlie to be anything other than what it is. Our Kill Company. But this is a war. A Kill Company’s not the worst thing to have.”





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A few days later I voiced my concerns, in somewhat stronger language, to the JAG. I got the same response. What Rodriguez told me didn’t warrant anything other than a discussion with the company commander, who would handle it as he thought appropriate. Nothing would happen. I felt I was letting Rodriguez down, but I had no power. And the war ground on.

Three weeks later we had our thirteenth casualty. Gerald Martin Vorencamp. IED. Two weeks after that, our fourteenth. Jean-Paul Sepion. Neither from Charlie Company, though they had a few more serious, nonfatal injuries during the same period.





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Not long after Sepion’s death, one of the Divine Office’s morning prayers was Psalm 144: “Blessed be the Lord, my help, who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war.” Kneeling against my rack in my spare little trailer, I faltered. I turned back to the previous prayer, from Daniel: “Today there is no prince, no prophet, no leader, no holocaust, no sacrifice. No offering, no incense, no first-fruits offered to you—no way to obtain your mercy.”

I stopped reading and tried to pray with my own words. I asked God to protect the battalion from further harm. I knew He would not. I asked Him to bring abuses to light. I knew He would not. I asked Him, finally, for grace.

When I turned back to the Divine Office, I read the words with empty disengagement.





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That afternoon I met another Marine from Rodriguez’s platoon, a lance corporal. He did little to calm my worries.