Chapter 20 #2
“I’m not sure about trust, Ms. Taylor. I haven’t really had to test that.
But I sure as hell don’t like him. And here’s something else you need to understand.
Outside of DEVCOM, you’ve only got a four-person officer corps at Camp Hayden.
General Morgan, Colonel Howe, Major Klasky, and Captain Pickman.
But that doesn’t stop them from forming factions.
Pickman is General Morgan’s guy. Morgan likes that the captain is in direct communication with me and my platoon, and the general oftentimes goes around Howe and Klasky, which of course pisses them off. ”
This place had more drama and infighting than junior high. Brodie said, “General Morgan thinks you can beat the tin men. He told us he pushes you, and that he is not very popular.”
Miller nodded. “He pushes us, and he uses Captain Pickman’s hands.
They’re a real dynamic duo. Morgan’s the type of general you dread serving under.
He’s arrogant, he’s disconnected from what’s happening on the ground, and he uses his men to try to prove something about himself.
And Pickman is the worst kind of junior officer.
Ass-kissing those above him and condescending to those below him, including the NCOs who know a hell of a lot more than he does. ”
Sergeant First Class Miller wasn’t kidding about being honest. The man was understandably bitter, and had seen firsthand how the punishing training regimen was wreaking both physical and psychological damage on his men.
Taylor asked, “And what about Colonel Howe and Major Klasky?”
Miller replied, “They’re more by the book.
They believe the directive coming down from on high, or at least pretend they do for the sake of their careers.
Personally, I think Pickman’s thrown his lot in with the wrong faction.
Then again, one benefit of being enlisted is you can sit out a lot of this political bullshit. ”
Brodie informed Miller that he and Taylor had both been enlisted soldiers—E3s—and seen combat, she in Afghanistan, he in Iraq. Miller was particularly interested in Brodie’s Iraq service. “Where and when did you serve?”
“End of oh-three and most of oh-four. Third Stryker Brigade. Mainly Baghdad area, but the most action I saw was in the Second Battle of Fallujah.”
Miller looked him in the eyes. “Life’s strange, Mr. Brodie.”
“How’s that?”
“I was in Fallujah a few years back for the sequel.”
The Third Battle of Fallujah had taken place in 2016, when the Iraqi Army successfully wrested control of the city from ISIS.
Brodie remembered the news coverage, and how it had been retraumatizing for some of his old battle buddies—seeing the same city and the same streets that their friends had died to liberate, now a dozen years later back in the hands of a new jihadi army even crazier than the last. History wasn’t supposed to repeat itself that quickly.
He said to Miller, “I thought we just provided air support for that operation.”
“Officially. But Rangers were on the ground to help the Iraqis, who fought bravely, though not always competently.” He looked at Brodie. “We were aware of the bitter irony, being back there after all that you and yours had sacrificed. We told ourselves, maybe this time the peace would last.”
“Maybe it will.”
Miller scanned the desert horizon. “When I was briefed on this mission, on what we’d be doing here, I was hopeful.
I thought, maybe with enough time, enough technology, there would come a day when we could fight a war without so many flag-draped coffins coming down the ramps of the C-130s. But then I came to understand.”
Taylor asked, “Understand what, Sergeant?”
Miller kept his eyes on the horizon. “Hardly any civilians had managed to escape Fallujah before our assault. ISIS wouldn’t let them leave.
So we were fighting to take a city of women and children, shops and shopkeepers, schools, hospitals.
That changed how we fought. Made us go slower than we would have liked, changed our tactics and priorities.
A lot of Iraqi soldiers died because of that.
But that was their duty, and they performed it honorably.
They gave their lives to spare the lives of civilians. ”
He turned and looked into the mock village of cinderblock buildings and destroyed cars.
“There’s no life here. Not even a simulation of life.
Nothing fragile you have to try to not break.
The tin men don’t know the meaning of a life you have to protect, not take.
They’re programmed to kill everything with a heat signature.
So, what are we training for? What are they training for? ”
Brodie looked out at the gray village and the ruined cars, the streets lined with rows of faceless buildings—a shell of a place, a discarded exoskeleton. A necropolis.
Sergeant Miller turned to look at Brodie and Taylor.
Something had changed in his eyes. They were less weary, more alert and intentioned.
“Agents, I don’t know what happened to Major Ames.
That’s the truth. But I do know what has happened to my men.
And I do know what would happen if these goddamned things were ever unleashed upon the world. They must be destroyed.”