Part 1
11.13.04, Saturday
The day before his men pushed into Fallujah,
Capt. Sims went through a "rock drill" with Task
Force 2-2. The platoons' leaders stood around a
sketch of the city, fashioned in the dirt with
rocks for houses and the tips of artillery
shells for mosques. Code names such as Objective
Panther and Objective Lion marked schools and
mosques to be taken.
Six days later, sitting with a map of the
city in front of him, Sims no longer spoke in
military lingo.
His friend, Lt. Iwan, was dead. The fight had
creased Sims' face, bleared his eyes and turned
his voice more hesitant.
"It's tough. I don't know what to think about
it yet," he said slowly, searching for words.
"All of this will be forever tainted because we
lost him."
A reporter offered him, again, a phone to
call his family. Sims thought about it, and said
no. He wanted to get through the fight first.
A CNN crew came by, accompanied by an escort
from Task Force 2-2's headquarters. They wanted
to see houses where there'd been fighting, and
they were taken to the one where Ofori killed a
man the day before.
One of the reporters asked Ofori to talk on
camera about killing the insurgent in the first
room. He said all he'd agree to do is point to
where it happened.
The fighter Ofori found by the pickup truck
had been nibbled on, probably by neighborhood
cats who always went for the softness of the
lips first. With his lips eaten away, the man's
teeth were frozen in a joker's grin.
Most of the First Platoon soldiers stayed
outside. They'd already seen the dead and didn't
need to see them again.
The men then loaded up in their Bradleys and,
with the tracks crunching the concrete below
them, rumbled down the street.
Sims took a group of men to clear a house so
they could set up an observation post on the
roof.
Inside, a group of rebels was waiting. They'd
slept for days on dirty mats and blankets,
eating green peppers and dates from plastic
tubs.
Gunfire raged when Sims and his men came
through the front door. Two soldiers were hit
near the shoulder and were rushed out by the men
next to them.
Crouching by a wall outside, Laird screamed
into his radio, "Negative, I cannot move, we're
pinned down right now! We have friendlies down!
Friendlies down!"
He crouched down on a knee, sweating and
waiting for help. A line of troops ran up,
taking cover. They shot their way into the
house.
They found Sims lying on the kitchen floor,
his blood pouring across dirty tile. An empty
teapot sat on concrete stairs nearby. A heart,
drawn in red with an arrow through it, adorned a
cabinet.
Someone grabbed a radio: "Terminator Six is
down."
"The b-------," Bentley said. "We've got a
blood trail leaving the building, going into the
next house."
A group of soldiers ran out the door, looking
for revenge. Others gathered blankets.
They couldn't lift Sims' body, so they called
in Howard, who lugged the squad's heavy machine
gun but whose broad shoulders were sagging from
the news.
Once Sims was laid on the floor of a Bradley
outside, six soldiers and a reporter climbed in,
slowly at first, trying not to step on the body.
Someone outside yelled at them to cram in, if
they had to step on Sims' body, do it, god damn
it, do it.
Gunfire was pounding back and forth.
The hatch closed. The soldiers stared at each
other. The soldiers stared at the ceiling. The
soldiers stared at the hatch. The soldiers
stared at anything but the mound on the floor.
Wright was sobbing and shaking. Howard had
tears streaming down his cheeks.
The Bradley dropped them off at another
house, where the platoon leaders from Alpha
Company had gathered in a courtyard. Their
commanding officer and their executive officer
were dead.
An airstrike with a 2,000-pound bomb was
ordered. Men huddled around each other, hugging
those who couldn't stop crying. They passed out
a handful of cigarettes.
Ofori had no tears on his face. He'd been
looking at the ground for 10 minutes.
Sgt. Isaac Ward walked up to him, put a hand
on his shoulder and said: "We have work to do
now. We'll talk about this later. Get ready to
go."
Artillery and mortar fragments flew over the
courtyard wall.
It was Bowden's 22nd birthday.
"I had to help put him in the body bag,"
Bowden said. "When we took the blanket off him
and saw his face, all these thoughts ran through
my head — I'd just seen him in the morning."
Laird and Ward rode to a house a few streets
away, where Marines had taken up camp. They
climbed some stairs, jumped over a wall and
stayed low as the bullets flew by. Looking out
over the houses, Laird called in artillery and
gave coordinates for the 2,000 bomb.
Smoke covered the horizon, and with a boom, a
mosque's minaret disappeared. Buildings burned.
Spc. James Barney, who drove the Bradley that
carried Sims' body, stood by the vehicle
outside, talking to himself. "We need to just
finish it, level the whole damn city," he said.
"I'm tired of this place, I'm tired of this
shit."
11.14.04, Sunday
Saturday night, the men rested for the first
time in seven days, sleeping on a patch of dirt
just outside the city. They huddled beneath
tarps, close to each other for body heat. When
they awoke, they walked around looking at their
Bradleys and the deep gouges on the sides from
AK-47 fire and shrapnel. One caught fire after
an RPG hit it, and its crew was sorting through
charred ammunition boxes and pulling out bullets
that hadn't cooked off. An RPG destroyed the
protection plate on the side of another, and in
daylight the soldiers could see the tip had been
an inch or so from exploding into the cabin.
Their uniforms were almost brown with dirt
and sweat. Several had blood on their pants.
The 1st Infantry Division's commanding
officer, Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste, came by,
his uniform clean and neatly pressed. He moved
quickly from one vehicle to the next, talking in
a low tone and shaking hands.
The soldiers looked at him with sunken eyes
and said little.
A few days later, Laird and some of the guys
were given a few hours at camp near Fallujah to
get some chow-hall food and take showers. They
sat at the table, with TV news about Iraq in the
background, and ate without talking much. A
discussion of Sims tapered off. The men who had
killed the captain had gotten away.
"Being in our track and smelling him — I'm
glad I never saw his face," Ward said of Sims.
On his way out, Laird turned and said he'd
been thinking about his son.
"I don't want my boy to know his daddy's a
killer," he said. With that, he picked up his
gun and walked out the door.
