Middle East Adventure Travel - The Rough Guide to Iraq (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine July 2003

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The Rough Guide to Iraq (Cont.)

THERE WERE NO HOUSES and no landmarks; we were surrounded by flatness and sand and, above us, the sun. Every mile or so we passed Iraqi men or women who were doing one of three things: rubbing their stomachs, because they wanted food; tilting back their heads, because they were thirsty; or waving Iraqi bank notes that bore the image of Saddam Hussein. If pity was not enough to persuade us to part with our riches of food and water, perhaps a war souvenir would seal the deal.

We drove about 25 miles that day and stopped at a plateau where the Third Battalion, Fourth Marines, had pulled up for the evening. The battalion, which is based in Twentynine Palms, California, had deployed more than a thousand Marines and more than 75 armored fighting vehicles, including tanks. One of the reporters embedded with the unit told us that the commander, Lieutenant Colonel Bryan McCoy, was a friendly guy, and when we asked an officer if we could spend the night inside their perimeter, he agreed.

As dusk fell, McCoy came out of his command tent to meet us. A 40-year-old Oklahoman, he is linebacker-tall, with an authoritative bearing that suggests leadership without a word or gesture. McCoy is a combat veteran, having served as a company commander in the Gulf War. Kit was surfing the Web and let the colonel read the latest stories about the soldiers captured in Nasiriyah. McCoy clicked his way through the stories, saying nothing. Then he told us how he was going to make sure the same thing didn't happen to his boys.

"There are two kinds of people on this battlefield," he said. "Predators and prey. Don't be prey. Don't be an easy target. We'll do the ambushing; we'll do the killing; we'll take the fight to the enemy and not be passive about it. The best medicine is aggression and violent supremacy. After contact, they will fear us more than they hate us." McCoy was blunt as a howitzer.

McCoy mentioned that his men had spearheaded the attack on Basra's airport a few days earlier, and showed us an Iraqi flag he had taken as a souvenir. When Laurent offered him a cigar, his eyes sparkled. McCoy lit the Cohiba and invited us to join his march on Baghdad. The Third Battalion was the foothold we needed to survive.

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