Call Sign Chaos by Jim Mattis & Bing West

Call Sign Chaos by Jim Mattis & Bing West

Author:Jim Mattis & Bing West
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-09-02T16:00:00+00:00


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While we could not bring any Marines into the city, John met routinely with Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman, who was glumly watching the radical jihadists grow bolder. Suleiman was a relatively junior officer without a real Iraqi chain of command. By dint of duty and personality, he was trying to protect his city. He quietly informed John where IEDs were being emplaced and which neighborhoods were falling under control of the terrorists. He wanted to take action but was not strong enough to do so with his outnumbered men.

Then, one torrid day in early August, Suleiman called John to say that his second-in-command had been kidnapped by Janabi. Suleiman said he was driving to the mosque to get him released. John urged him to wait until we received permission to go with him. Suleiman refused; he believed he had to move immediately.

When he arrived at the mosque, Janabi had him seized and dragged inside. That night, he was beaten, scalding water was poured over him, and he “confessed” to betraying Islam. His decapitated body was dumped outside our lines, and recordings of his “confession” were distributed in the marketplaces. John was furious and wanted to take tanks to the mosque and seize Janabi. But our orders from Baghdad remained firm: No.

Each day, somewhere in Anbar, Marine patrols were killing insurgents, and each day, a U.S. soldier, sailor, or Marine lost his life or a limb. It was a morally bruising fight, in most instances ceding the first shot to an enemy in civilian clothes. I was out every day, driving hundreds of miles a week to meet with the squads, village elders, and company commanders. My biggest concern was that somewhere in the chain of command, a commander was not keeping up the spirits of his men or was losing touch with the reality faced by his grunts. Nothing was more important to me than maintaining the fighting spirit of our troops and their confidence in their leaders on the battlefield.

You can’t fool the troops. Our young men had to harden their hearts to kill proficiently, without allowing indifference to noncombatant suffering to form a callus on their souls. I had to understand the light and the dark competing in their hearts, because we needed lads who could do grim, violent work without becoming evil in the process, lads who could do harsh things yet not lose their humanity.

By dropping in and getting face-to-face with the grunts, I could get a feel for what the squads were thinking, what frustrated them. Was there anything I could do spiritually or physically to help?

My command challenge was to convey to my troops a seemingly contradictory message: “Be polite, be professional—but have a plan to kill everyone you meet.” A twenty-year-old corporal is in command of nineteen-year-olds and speaks only a few Arabic phrases. In an atavistic environment, his squad has to act ethically and without lashing out at the fearful and the innocent.

But when someone shoots at a Marine, he becomes fair game.



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