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The tank company pushes through the field, flushing out the enemy and destroying two "technicals"--white pickups, one with an antiaircraft gun and one with a machine gun mounted in the back. The tanks hold the east of the city, while infantry pushes up from the south toward the tanks. The 3/4 Battalion skirts the city's edge. The Marines don't want to be drawn into street fighting, and it appears that dozens of Iraqi soldiers managed to withdraw into the city. Still, the chumming gambit is a success for the Marines. They have killed 92 Iraqis and taken 44 prisoners, and not one Marine has been injured. Says McCoy: "Let's quit pussyfooting and call it what it is. It's murder, it's slaughter, it's clubbing baby harp seals."
The next time could be different, though, and McCoy knows it: "As casual as we talk about it, taking human life is not to be taken lightly. Without getting all heavy and syrupy about it, it's a big deal. Sooner or later they're going to get one of us, or two of us, or five of us or more. It's just not our time yet. But odds are it's going to happen."
Two days later, in fact. Fresh from battle, McCoy's unit reverses course and heads east, crossing the Tigris over a bridge captured earlier. We pass under the gates of Kut and into the town. To the north of the road is open ground, dotted by a few houses. To the south, a large palm grove, thick with grass.
Suddenly, gunfire rings out. "Baynes, Baynes, three o'clock," shouts McCoy to the gunner atop his humvee. Small-arms fire pesters the convoy from the palm grove and buildings to the southeast. An RPG round hits the side of an armored vehicle. The Marines pour out of their amtracs and charge into the grove, driving forward, taking bunkers, hiding behind berms. A Marine goes down, a kid, a bullet through his stomach. Bullets fly over the hood of McCoy's humvee. For a few minutes this grove seems like the hottest place on earth. There are smoke and explosions and bullets and cries.
And then it is over. The Marines push through, destroying weapons, capturing prisoners. An injured Iraqi soldier is dragged up to the road, his right leg twisted at the knee so that his foot faces backward. Another lies down next to me. "Don't kill me," he says in English. "Please, I can't fight. My arm, don't twist it left or right. It's broken." The Marines have destroyed 10 tanks and 14 antiaircraft guns and killed 78 Iraqis. As the Marines withdraw from town, thousands of Iraqi civilians, mostly men, are waiting at the gates to go in, as if they were working in a factory, taking over for the death shift.
The Marines have suffered one dead and three wounded. By the scorecard of battle, that's a huge victory, but "all that's not worth a Marine's life," says McCoy. "These are my boys. They did it for me. I went to the injured, and they said, 'We got them, sir.' They're still thinking of approval even then. They're good kids. Only they're not kids anymore."
Lamenting a Civilian Casualty KARBALA ALEX PERRY