Ten Minutes to Hell

Embedded with the Marines. Fallujah. November 2004.

My notebook’s a fucking mess, sweat-soaked, dirt-ground, my camera’s dented, lens scratched. I write quickly, snapping the shots, hands unsteady.

At the Firebase—our base camp—things go wrong fast. Deliveries quit. No water, no supplies. The local nationals, those who hauled for us, cooked for us, they vanished.

Then their heads come. In bags. Dropped at the gate like a dare.

“Holy shit,” I say to Martinez, hunkered near me, rifle slack. “How many heads you reckon?”

“Don’t know, man,” he says, eyes flat. “I’m just waiting for the mission. Wondering why the water truck’s AWOL, why I’m stuck with this scratch-off phone card, an hour and a half for the goddamn morale phone.”

He’s young, still floating in some dream. Me too, pen and paper, trying to see all of it.

Big things are moving—but I’m low-level, out of the loop. No briefing comes. The information doesn’t trickle down. It sits, heavy, untold.

What would they say anyhow? “Hey, boys, if you’re asking where the help went, their heads are chopped off, stacked at the front door.”

Days drag, then the shit gets real. November 7, the night before the push, the platoon commander strides in, face hard as concrete.

“Write your death letters,” he says.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, skin crawling as I recall those long-forgotten memories.

Martinez says, “You fucking kidding me?”

He’s got a girl back home, parents too. He writes: “I fought for my country, my team. I love you. I miss you.”

The same to his folks—motivated kid shit, 18 years old, all bravado. He hands the letters to the commander, folded tight.

I write my death letter, beginning with “Dear Mary.” That’s as far as I get before tucking it into my pants pocket.

“A writer, with nothing to say,” I chuckle.

November 8, 0200, 0300, we stage. Load the 7-tons, big diesel hulks, loud, clumsy. They smoke cigarettes, light discipline loose on base, the ashes falling in the dark.

Ten minutes from the DVD player, the shitty chow, the slab called a bed, into hell. Our drive’s dead quiet, pure black, JP-8 fuel thick in my nose.

The truck rumbles–it shakes my bones. You feel it, the silence, the bond with no words.

No category holds it. Only this does–this moment, these men.

We hit the Cloverleaf, the highway ramps twisting outside Fallujah. Streetlights burning yellow. Gunshots crack—our guys shoot them out. 5.56 takes more than one shot–not clean like the movies. Then black, still.

The team leader jogs up. “Overwatch and push,” he says.

Martinez, point man, head on a swivel, no destination, laying intel back—where’s the enemy, what’s alive, whose dangerous.

The battalion’s four companies strong. I’m with the main thrust, with other units on the edges funneling in.

We reach a building on the outskirts. We hold Overwatch.

Humvees roll in—Mark 19s, .50 cals, 240s bolted to Mercedes jeeps. They L-shape, covering the grunts bounding forward, place to place, trained tight. Clear the city, they say.

It’s 0700, 0800, day just cracked. Sun’s creeping up, air’s foreign, sharp, quiet. Too quiet. Beautiful, almost insane.

Then, a jeep vanishes. Blown up, right there, fire and metal gone. “Holy fuck,” I breathe.

No child’s timeout, no break. Gunshots sputter, random.

Ground elements hustle. No martial law, no stability—just fighting.

There are no plans that I can spot. Spaghetti at the wall–toss it, and see what sticks.

“Push, establish Overwatch,” they tell us again. We do.

I’m on a rooftop, close to rear security. Watching the narrow stairwell.

Shots ping—the wall splinters near my head. “Fuck,” I yell, dropping lower.

They’re firing, engaging armed shapes, doing the job. But I’m stuck near an open doorway on the ground floor as shots zip all around.

I duck again, relearning fast. My ancient training is like a shadow, yet still solid.

Cold War moves fail here—urban tangle, kill houses, tunnels, rat lines, loopholes bored through walls. They shoot and run while overhead never sees them.

Later, I find Martinez. He lights a cigarette, his face hollow, smoke curling. He never used to smoke, but now.

“Taco Bell,” he says. “Crunchwrap Supreme, first stop out.”

Brooks, blood crusting his cheek, snorts. “You’ll puke it up, kid.”

Laughter, as I write it up and snap a frame of the flare of his match.

Doc Hayes drags in a wounded Marine, face locked tight. I get that, shutter clicking.

I see it, smell it, feel it. Never shake it. Never will.

The Marines push, and my notebook full, camera scarred, telling it true as they clear this hell, house by house, soul by soul.