Free I Lost My Love in Baghdad by Michael Hastings Page B

month, two men, two women, and two children in a car failed to stop at the extensive barriers and warning signs near OP2. A marine standing guard fired at the car. He shot the tires out. The car kept coming forward. He kept firing. The two women were killed, one of them the mother of the children in the backseat.
    Why didn’t they stop?
    Bad driving, dusty windshield, human error, stupid fucking Iraqis, who knows.
    The Rules of Engagement hadn’t saved the family. The ROEs were always a popular topic. The fact that they weren’t allowed to shoot to kill right away irritated the marines. The enemy always had the advantage—they could shoot first. As Khalid told me, “You’re supposed to wave, throw a flashbang, say hi, make a baloney-and-cheese sandwich, shoot in front, shoot the tire, shoot the other tire, have some tea, shoot the engine, and then shoot the windshield.”
    We started out on the patrol. There were four marines and five Iraqi Army soldiers on foot. I had on a Camelback, a water bottle you strapped onto your back so you could drink with your hands free. I carried a notebook. The morning patrol wasn’t too eventful—a stroll past a school where insurgents frequently launched ambushes, then on to a mosque where Khalid told me they hid all their weapons but which was nonetheless off-limits to search; then to a cemetery, again off-limits, where the insurgents stored more weapons. We went into a house for an activity called the “Yellow Pages” or the “knock and talk.” The purpose was to take photos and record the names of the men in the household and to poke around and see what there was to see. The men in this particular house did not look happy at the intrusion. We took a break, and the family offered us water. I sat down on a couch next to a marine and smoked a cigarette.
    It was a little tense. An Iraqi man, one of the family’s sons in his twenties, glared at each of the Americans, including me. I asked the marine sitting next to me if this was the usual reaction.
    â€œThis is nothing,” he said. “One time, we went into a house to do the knock and talk. One of our guys went up on the roof. The lieutenant was talking to the head of the household in the kitchen. All the women were waiting outside. We heard this sound, like it was raining, and then a woman screaming and we could hear her vomiting. The woman comes running into the kitchen in tears. She’s pregnant. The marine on the roof had decided to relieve himself. He pissed all over this guy’s pregnant wife.”
    â€œWinning the hearts and minds, right?”
    The marine shrugged. “Yeah, we apologized,” he said.
    At a traffic intersection known as the Lolly Pop because of a large white circular sign, Khalid asked me if I had ever seen a flashbang. A flashbang is a grenade that just makes a really loud noise. “WHAWHOOM,” he said. “Watch this.” He threw the flashbang in front of an eighteen-wheeler. It went off. The Iraqis standing in the street flinched and looked startled. The eighteen-wheeler slammed on its brakes. “That’s the flashbang,” Khalid said and smiled.
    That afternoon, I went out on a second foot patrol. This time we walked down the main street, a passage cramped with market stalls, shops, people, and cars. Most of the traffic stopped when the drivers saw the marines on foot, except for a yellow car that kept inching forward. A marine fired his rifle at the ground in front of the car, two quick shots. Pop, pop. The car slammed on its brakes. The marine approached the car. When he got to the window, an Iraqi man sitting in the backseat vomited. “Probably because he’s scared,” the marine told me. Toward the end of the patrol, we heard a loud explosion about three kilometers away. The radio came to life: Another platoon had been hit. Four casualties. A gray plume of smoke appeared on the horizon. “That’s