October 24, 2004
The Killer Elite
The true story of bullets, bombs and a Marine platoon at war in Iraq
"Get some! is the unofficial Marine Corps cheer. It's shouted when a brother Marine is struggling to beat his personal best in a fitness run. It punctuates stories told at night about getting laid in whorehouses in Thailand and Australia. It's the cry of exhilaration after firing a burst from a .50-caliber machine gun. Get some! expresses in two simple words the excitement, fear, feelings of power and the erotic-tinged thrill that come from confronting the extreme physical and emotional challenges posed by death, which is, of course, what war is all about. Nearly every Marine I've met is hoping this war with Iraq will be his chance to get some."
[In March 2003, reporter Evan Wright was in central Iraq with a Marine special forces unit that was leading the charge toward Baghdad. The Marine First Reconnaissance Battalion's task was to go in "ahead of the main Marine invasion force, and... seek out enemy ambushes by driving into them."]
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~This story made me wonder what these soldiers would've been doing if America hadn't invaded Iraq. Whatever...it would never have been as intense. Their lives would've been diminished? They wouldn't be history. They'ld still be no one from no place doing nothing spectacular. Nothing like this. Nothing like war.
