Feb 2, 2015
Fick has one of those laughs involving momentary loss of control that causes him to pitch forward like someone knocked him on the back of the head
Generation Kill, Evan Wright
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Fick has one of those laughs involving momentary loss of control that causes him to pitch forward like someone knocked him on the back of the head
Generation Kill, Evan Wright
Espera gathers men from his team and Colbert's and passes on the briefing Fick just delivered on the change in the ROE. He summarizes Fick's briefing like this: 'You see a motherfucker through a window with an AK, cap his ass.' But then he warns the men, 'Don't get buck fever like Casey Kasem did the other night at the canal. You cap an old lady sweeping her porch, 'cause you think her broom is a weapon, it's on all of us"
Generation Kill, Evan Wright
I know this might sound weird," Trombley says, "but deep down inside, I want to know what it feels like to get shot. Not that I want to get shot, but the reality is, I feel more nervous watching a game on TV at home that I do in all this." He tears into his plastic meal-ration bag. "All this gun-fighting is making me hungry," he says with a cheerful smile. "All this stupidity is making me want to kill myself," Person counters grimly, one of his first displays of low spirits in Iraq.
Generation Kill, Evan Wright
Christeson grew up with computers, playing Doom, a game that to him is almost ancient history. After high school he received an appointment to go to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, but in the wake of 9/11 he decided to become a grunt Marine to do something for his country -and to get in on the action. Up until the invasion, his closet brush with history was the day Jared Fogle, the guy who lost 300 pounds on the Subway Diet, came to his town, and Christeson got to meet him in person. "I thought if I punched him in the face I would be on TV," he says, recalling the historic encounter. "But he wasn't as big as I thought he'd be, for someone you see all the time on TV."
Generation Kill, Evan Wright
I glimpse Corporal Jason Liley, the twenty-three-year-old driver of Espera's vehicle, clenching the wheel, staring ahead unblinking. His lips are moving. He later tells me that although he's not a big Christian, he was saying, "Lord see us through," over and over.
Generation Kill, Evan Wright
Pappy has a bullet rip through his foot and come out the other side, his torn boot gushing blood from both holes. He tourniquets the wound, resumes firing, gets on the radio and says, "Team Two has a man hit." He speaks of himself in the third person, he says because he doesn't want to panic the rest of the platoon.
Generation Kill, Evan Wright
Trombley sides in next to Espera. "You know, my great-great-great-grandfather was a mercenary up in Michigan who had a militia where they'd kill Indians for hire. He was really good at it." "You know Trombley," Espera says, "in the fishing village I'm from, Los Angeles, if I mention that I'm part Indian, most white motherfuckers will bring up some great-great-great-grandparent who was part Indian because they want to let me know that even though they look like white motherfuckers, they're actually down with my people. You are the first white motherfucker I've ever met who's said that."
Generation Kill, Evan Wright
When Stafford isn't standing up for his chosen race, he seldom speaks, other that to say, "Screwby." No one's quite certain what "screwby" means, not even Stafford. "I guess it means, 'this sucks,' or 'kind of cool'," he tells me.
Generation Kill, Evan Wright