Ruben Gallego - They Called Us Lucky: The Life and Afterlife of the Iraq Wars Hardest Hit Unit

DEDICATED TO

MICHAEL GRANT AND SYDNEY GALLEGO,

MY FAMILY,

JONATHAN GRANT,

AND

THE MEN OF LIMA 3/25

W e measure everything in war. The distance to the enemy. The distance to home.

Our clothes are measured. Our boots. We measure the time before we leave, the time of patrols, the time until we return.

We measure ourselves.

The one thing that we cannot measure is luck. But luck is the most important factor in war. All the other measurements can line up perfectly, and yet not guarantee success, or even survival.

Without luck in war, were all dead.

That I know in every inch of my body, in every moments pulse. I lived it as a Marine in Iraq, enduring some of the bloodiest fighting of the occupation. I escaped death eleven times by my count, all because of luck.

I wasnt the only one who was lucky. My whole unitLima Company3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Divisionwas lucky. I was in 1st Platoon during spring 2005, high tide of the war against America in Iraq. Any conceivable thing had been made into a weapon, and the vast stretches of western Iraq transformed into a triangle of death.

Lucky Lima the media called us. Weeks of combat and not one casualty. Leadership considered us the golden boys, up for anything.

Remarkable, considering we were civilian Marinesmembers of a Reserve unit who, after our early training, met for only a weekend a month and a few weeks a year. We were Marines, but we worked civilian jobs and had regular lives, unlike our brothers and sisters in the active-duty components of the Corps.

We were damn lucky. Good, yes, but also lucky.

That was before the measure of our luck ran out. Before my best friend, Jonathan Grant, was killed. Before Staff Sergeant Goodwin was killed in Hell House. Before the tortured snipers. Before the amphibious vehicle I was supposed to be sitting in was destroyed and its occupants burned alive. Before we knew that Luck ran inversely against Timethe longer you stayed in a place, the less luck you had.

Time, too, is a measure in war. Its passage teases and seduces, slowing for long stretches then roaring away when you need it most.

Time heals by making you forget, but war is impossible to forget. You wouldnt want it any other wayif you forgot war, youd forget the brothers who had your back when the bullets flew. You would forget the Bailons, or Taylor, or McKenzie. The living, as well as the dead.

Youd forget Grant, his encouragement, his easy laugh, his ability to see you through the precarious promise of luck.

Youd forget the candy and beef jerky he carried on patrol. Youd forget how he stole your music. How he helped make you the best Marine you could be.

Youd forget Goodwins American flag bandanna. Youd forget Andre Williamss easy smile.

So you dont forget.

You walk the distance from the U.S. Capitol in Washington to Arlington National Cemetery to remember what the war revealed about yourself. You spend every Memorial Day at church, the one day of the year when you can hear Gods voice, and He returns the favor. You help friends and strangers with PTSD, only to realize it took hold of you long ago.

I say you. I mean me. Your measure of luck may be entirely different from mine.

McKENZIE

SPRING 2007

PHOENIX, ARIZONA

Im working in a PR firm. Toward the end of the day, I get a call from my friend Jonithan McKenzie. I can tell right off from the tone in his voice that hes in trouble.

Life and death trouble.

Ruben, he asks, were we in combat?

Were we in combat?!

God, were we in combat. Barely two years before, McKenzie and I were Marine grunts in Lima Company, 3/25members of the 3rd Battalion of the 25th Regiment, a Reserve unit that was part of the 4th Marine Division, assigned to patrol northwestern Iraq. We were Lucky Lima, the unluckiest lucky company in the U.S. Marine Corps. In just under six months, we lost twenty-two Marines and one Navy corpsman killed in action. All told, our battalion lost forty-eight men, the most casualties of any Marine unit since the Beirut bombing in 1983, when two hundred twenty Marines died in their barracks.

That was a hell of a record for any unit in combat, let alone a Reserve unit.

Images flew into my head unbidden as McKenzie waited for an answer. Sniper bullets whipping by me in an open field. One of our amtrac vehicles overturned from a massive IED.

I saw my best friend, smiling because he was alive. The image morphed into a stuffed seabag sitting on an empty bunkhe wasnt so lucky two days later.

McKenzie, whats wrong? I asked, though I dreaded the answer.

In a shaky voice, he told me he was trying to get into a hospital for mental care. He was at the edgehe was sure he was going to kill himself, because he couldnt take Iraq anymore. Hed come home with me two years before, but in many ways he was still back in Mesopotamia with our dead brothers.

He knew he needed help. But the VA wasnt going to clear him, because his records said hed never been in combat. And if you werent in combat, you couldnt have PTSD. And if you didnt have PTSD, they couldnt help, even if the alternative was suicide.

Of course you were in combat, I told him. We were all in combat.

I thought so, he said.

He said a few other things that I dont remember. Whatever they were, they were more than enough to convince me he was in very deep trouble, very much in need of professional help.

Where are you? I asked.

At the VA. Are you sure we were in combat?

We were in fuckloads of combat. Where exactly are you?

Albuquerque.

The more we talked, the more desperate he seemed. He wasnt just close to the edge. He was dangling from it, suspended over the endless abyss by a fingertip.

Go home, I told him finally. Be there as soon as I can.

I left the office, got in my car, and started driving. He was four hundred miles away across the desert. He could have been on the moon, and I still would have gone.

PEOPLE HAVE THIS IMAGE OF MARINES AS ALMOST SUPERHUMAN. WE ARE A LOT of thingswell trained, highly disciplined, loyal to our country and fellow Marines. We have a proud history of courage and achievement. We value integrity, service, and sacrifice.

But were not superhumans, not close. Metal rips through our flesh as readily as through anyone elses. We may be a bit better at handling stress and trauma than the average non-Marine, but human biology has its limits, and not even the most rigorous training can get you beyond those.

We fight. We kill. We do what we have to do. Sometimes we cry when were done.

McKenzieSergeant Jonithan McKenziewas a lot closer to the ideal version of a Marine than I was. A Navajo, hed been in Recon, the Corps version of the Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces. Inserted into Lima Company with a bunch of us from New Mexico to fill out the roster, he was our platoons Guide, essentially the executive officer to the platoon sergeant. As the second-ranking NCO (noncommissioned officer) in the unit, McKenzie worked as a floating advisor on missions. Rather than directly leading the platoon or one of its squads, hed generally pop up where the action was, a source of experience and another set of eyes where needed.

McKenzie was the guy who had your back when you were in a bad place, and knew where you should plan on taking a left when everyone else thought you should go right or straight ahead. Hed get to you without a lot of talk, let alone hesitation.

Him calling now, and sounding the way he soundedbeyond desperatetouched off something in me. Part of it was instinct, I guessa natural reaction as a human being to help someone in trouble. And another part had been learned and earned in the Corps: you dont leave your combat buddy on the battlefield; and on the battlefield, every Marine is your combat buddy.