Princes of War by Claude Schmid Read Free Book Online

U-shaped concrete duck-and-cover bunker designed for mortar and rocket protection. The base was alive with constant construction. A new Dining Facility—called a DFAC by the Army—was nearly complete. On the other side of the camp, a company had started a new detention center.
    Other than the Iraqi labor that came daily from town, more than 100 civilian laborers lived and worked on the FOB. Most were foreigners, Indians and Pakistanis and Filipinos, not Iraqis. These workers lived in a special camp on base. They’d been imported by KBR, the big multi-national services provider with the massive contract to support many bases.
    All the activity left the impression that America had come to stay.
     
    The Wolfhounds had arrived in the motor pool behind their block of living trailers. While the soldiers did post-operation checks on their equipment, Wynn met with his senior NCOs: Sergeants Cooke, Turnbeck, Pauls, and Singleton.
    Wynn knew he looked into the faces of men forged hard in war: men who had seen things that should not be seen, who had by now spent enough time around death to know it from the inside. Yet he saw a strange contentment, an acceptance of the task at hand, and no regrets. Every human being carries burdens and doubts—nevertheless, the men who stood before him were all can-do men: bold, ambitious, wanting to prove something. None of them wanted to be anywhere else than where they were right now.
    These NCOs were his platoon's leadership. And all good men. SFC Cooke was senior. Cooke never thought big picture, but possessed all-important street smarts. SSG Turnbeck kept to himself. You had to pry opinions out of him, but he had an unmatched sense for what was important in the field. SSG Pauls, who had been a high-school swimming champion, kept the tightest crew and truck in the platoon. SGT Singleton, reliable and unassuming, provided ballast to Wynn’s crew in D21. They were the gears in the motor. Without them, the platoon couldn’t function. Before speaking, Wynn paused a little longer than he should have, looking around carefully, locking for a second or two into the eyes of these three men, hoping to reinforce singularity of purpose. Their cooperation and support were crucial to his success.
    After Wynn spoke a few minutes, including telling them what he knew about CPT Baumann’s sniper report and the KIA, Cooke proceeded to talk the group through the next 24 hours. Wynn added occasional comments. He was glad for Cooke’s years of experience to help guide him. Because of his shared enlisted rank and experiences, Cooke was better than Wynn at getting the other NCOs to speak candidly. They would tell him what the soldiers were thinking and offer their interpretations. Just as senior leaders filter what junior leaders needed to know, Wynn knew that juniors filter for their seniors.
     
    Minutes later, SFC Cooke called the rest of the men together out in front of their trucks. Wynn repeated what he had said to the NCOs about the sniper attack. He asked for a moment of silence for the victim, and as each man reverted to himself, a chill of solemnity embraced the group.
    “When I get more details, I’ll put them out. Let’s not let the next one be one of us,” he concluded.
    Cooke spoke for a few minutes, reviewing the completed patrol, making both positive and negative comments about the platoon’s performance. Then he thanked them and encouraged them to talk further among themselves about anything that needed tightening up. Cooke closed by reminding the men to take care of their personal needs in the next 12 hours: laundry, haircuts, writing or calling home. He next told SSG Turnbeck to reiterate the guard duty schedule.

    The gym was full of sweaty male bodies and reeked of sweat and clothes that needed washing. The facility was an old Iraqi Air Force gymnasium, now filled with heavily used weightlifting equipment, both free weights and nautilus. All of it had been shipped in from the