Moon Dust | Generation Kill

Chapter 13: Cradle of Civilization

"Orders are to push North along route 7 until we get to a cut-off here." Nate marked a point on the map with blue pencil and made sure everyone got a good look at it before continuing. "Gentlemen—and lady—our A-O is now Mesopotamia. The land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, cradle of civilization."

Poke scoffed as he turned around and gazed at the dead, fly-infested Iraqi bodies that scattered the side of the road. "The marines ahead of us sure civilized these motherfuckers."

Taking in the scene for himself, Nate sighed. "Second LAR was out here alone last night, pushed through Nasiriyah ahead of us, set up here. RPG teams came at them all night, they cut them down with their bushmasters."

Poke nodded. "Mad respect for the LAV, sir."

"Don't get too comfortable." Nate shrugged as he squinted his eyes at some of the bodies that lay further out in the sand. "We're losing them after ten kliks." He then turned back to the map. "Cutting off the highway here, separating from the main element. And once we leave the hardball here, Godfather has us pushing through a canal area rolling on our own."

After ending the short meeting, Nate began to gather up the map and other supplies from the hood of the humvee. Breaking away from the group, Katie pulled her helmet off of her head and wiped the sweat from her forehead and the back of her neck. "You know, as a kid who grew up somewhere where it snowed every winter, I used to really hate the snow and the cold." The overheated woman exhaled as Brad fell into pace next to her. "Right now, though ... right now I could really go for some snow."

"I hate the snow." Brad huffed, unsurprisingly admitting to disliking yet another thing. 

Katie just chuckled. "Yeah, why's that?" She decided to humor him. 

"You can't ride a motorcycle in the snow," he stated simply.

"That you can't." Katie acknowledged. "I didn't know you rode a motorcycle. That's pretty cool."

"There's a lot you don't know about me." Brad lowered his voice slightly as he and Katie neared the others. "And I intend to keep it that way."

Katie just rolled her eyes; by then, she was used to Brad's antics and flip-flopping moods. "Yeah, you better be careful. Wouldn't want me to steal your identity or anything like that."

If Brad had heard Katie's remark, he didn't say anything in response to it. Instead, he turned his attention to Poke, who was going on about something or another. "Still railing on the white man?" Brad asked.

"I don't hate the white man no more. Leave that to these motherfuckers." Poke gestured to the deceased Iraqis with his packaged MRE. "Me? I'm just staying here in Iraq, eating my pound cake, playing on a white man's team."

"Not the surrendering Iraqis we've seen." Brad eyed the bodies, many of which had weapons lying on or around them. "These guys came to fight."

"Dawg, motherfucker died trying to get a round off." Poke pointed to the dead man who was still clutching his rocket-launcher. "Combat discipline."

Minutes later, the order was given to move out again, and like a well-trained herd of sheep, the men and woman of Bravo Company piled back into their vehicles and were back on the road again in ten minutes. The constant stop and go nature of a reconnaissance battalion was tiring, repetitive, and frankly, a little taxing to begin with, but slowly, Katie and Whiskey were getting used to it.

"All Hitman Two Victors, observe everything, admire nothing."

Blinking away the exhaustion, Ray shook the sleep out of his head and tried his hardest to focus on the road. "Man, I am so high from not sleeping," he said out loud so everyone in the humvee could hear before he decided that the best way to curb his sleep deprivation was to begin yet another rant. "So check this out: maybe they didn't issue the wrong colour fatigues for the invasion. Maybe our blouses actually aren't green. Maybe they are desert beige. You know like sometimes colours actually start to look different when you're so sleep-deprived? Like the sun, it looks red when it actually is yellow. You know, maybe our blouses aren't green. We're just so fucking sleep-deprived that's the way that they look to us."