Free None Left Behind by Charles W. Sasser Page A

and insurgent fighters began taking a toll. For the Americans on Malibu, each day and night was something to be dreaded and feared, a condition that exacted a heavy psychological penalty from soldiers tasked to drive out insurgents and bring peace and stability to The Triangle of Death.

TWELVE
    First Platoon’s convoy of four trucks was headed east toward Mahmudiyah on a long-route recon of Sportster Road when it came upon four IA soldiers smoking and joking in the middle of the road. Lieutenant Allen Vargo called a halt at a safe distance. Iraqi soldiers and interpreters assigned to work with Delta Company had proved trustworthy so far, but no one knew these guys. Every now and again, a suicide bomber dressed in IA or police uniform wormed his way into a chow hall or something, touched himself off like a rocket, and wasted a whole shitpot full of friendlies. You could never afford to get complacent or careless in a guerrilla war.
    â€œJimenez, go up there and see what those assholes are doing,” Vargo instructed. Jimenez’ command of the Arab tongue had proved valuable. Terps were often in short supply or busy elsewhere.
    Specialist Alex Jimenez clambered out of the hummer and approached the uniformed Iraqis with a grin. The guy never seemed to have a bad day. He returned to report that the IAs had located a buried IED and were there to keep watch over it until somebody came up to dismantle it. Except it was getting near nightfall and the IAs were going to leave. You weren’t going to catch
them
out in the dark.
    Lieutenant Vargo radioed Company HQ for guidance.
    â€œ
Delta One-Six
,” HQ responded, “
remain at the site and secure it until EOD arrives.”
    The IA took off, leaving First Platoon at the scene as the shadows lengthened and the sun turned a sick red preparatory to dropping out of sight.
    â€œDelta X-Ray, is EOD still enroute?” Vargo requested of HQ.
    â€œ
Negative, One-Six. They got tied up. You’ll have to RON
[remain overnight].”
    Apparently, you weren’t going to catch EOD out in the dark either.
    â€œTied up, my ass!” Sergeant Anthony Schober exploded. “Them fuckers are afraid of the night.”
    â€œAnd you’re not?” Jimenez chided him.
    The prospect of playing sitting ducks overnight had about as much appeal as undergoing a root canal without Novocain. Lieutenant Vargo circled the wagons into a defensive posture and placed everyone on fifty-fifty alert. There were a few little brown houses further down, open fields on one side of the road with a few hairy goats bleating around, and an orchard on the opposite side with an irrigation ditch full of water between the hummer and the groves.
    â€œRhodes, don’t go near the water,” Platoon Sergeant Charles Burke teased. Rhodes had become the butt of good-natured kidding since the night he almost drowned.
    â€œSar-jent, basically the only way I’m going to take so much as a bath in this shitbag country is in my canteen cup.”
    The orchard provided the most likely avenue of enemy approach. Having been neglected, it was grown up with chest-high weeds and undergrowth. Vargo and Platoon Sergeant Burke discussed putting out OP/LPs (observation, listening posts) but decided that would be suicide. The insurgents knew the terrain better and had already proved their ability to sneak around like jungle cats. Better to hole up inside armor and wait for daybreak. Isolated in Indian Country made for some long nights.
    Â 
    Twelve hours later, the sun was coming up again after a surprisingly uneventful night, the muezzin in distant villages were go-carting, and HQ advised that Second Platoon was enroute with water and chow. First Platoon had gone through most of its supplies the day before and during the night. As for EOD, there were so many IEDs all over the AO that these guys were stretched thin and worn ragged.
    Just when Lieutenant Vargo had about given up on Second Platoon,