For six years, soldiers and Marines deployed in Anbar were told to ask people there if they had heard anything about the missing American pilot.
The instructions finally paid off last July. A sheik told Marines of a Bedouin who remembered a burial 20 years earlier. The sheik couldn’t recall the exact location, but it was enough for the Marines. They returned to the old site that had frustrated the Red Cross searchers and with 100 men, bulldozers and back hoes, they turned over four football fields worth of desert, 4 feet deep.
The earth yielded another piece of a pilot’s flight suit and a jaw bone. The teeth matched the missing pilot’s dental records.
TODAY, WE ARE GOING ON A SIX MILE HUMP! THIS IS NOT A HIKE; WE WILL MOVE SWIFTLY THROUGH THESE WOODS! YOU ARE NOT TO RUN! YOU ARE TO WALK AS FAST AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT RUNNING! IF YOU RUN, THE MAN BEHIND YOU WILL HAVE TO RUN, AS WILL THE MAN BEHIND HIM! RUNNING HURTS THE MEN BEHIND YOU! UNDERSTAND?
YES SIR!!!
YOU ARE TO KEEP PACE WITH THE MAN IN FRONT OF YOU! THERE WILL BE NO GAPS GREATER THAN AN ARM’S LENGTH BETWEEN YOU AND THE MAN IN FRONT OF YOU! WHEN YOU HEAR ONE OF US SHOUT AT&T, YOU ARE TO SHOUT REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE, AND YOU ARE TO TOUCH THE PACK OF THE MAN IN FRONT OF YOU! UNDERSTAND?
YES SIR!!!
FINALLY GENTLEMEN, THIS IS A TEAM EVENT. NOBODY FINISHES UNTIL EVERYBODY FINISHES. GOOD TO GO?
YES SIR!!!
YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO PUT ON YOUR PACKS! TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN! …
I lift my pack and am, once again, astonished at how heavy thirty pounds feels. I close my eyes. I will. I will complete the full six miles.
… TWO! ONE! MOVE!
Immediately, I’m in trouble. I can’t keep up with the man in front of me without running. No one else seems to be having this problem. I run and start to lose my breath. We’ve gone less than a mile.
A Lieutenant appears and walks beside me. STOP RUNNING! SWING YOUR ARMS! LENGTHEN YOUR STRIDES! MATCH YOUR STRIDES TO THE MAN IN FRONT OF YOU!
I take long strides and exaggerate my arm swings. I fight to keep up, but cannot. The man in front grows further away. We start up hill.
AT&T!
REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE!!!
If I’m going to touch his pack, I have to run. I touch his pack and start walking again. He pulls away. I run after him and start gasping.
HEY, YOU IN THE RED SHIRT! A Gunnery Sergeant taps me on the shoulder. DRINK SOME WATER! NOW!
I can’t reach it.
TURN AROUND! I’LL GET IT FOR YOU! HERE! DRINK! QUICK! OK, NOW GIVE IT HERE; I’VE PUT IT BACK! GO!
The man in front is very far now. I try to match him step for step, but he gets even further. How is he able to walk so fast? I start to wheeze again.
Hey, Red. I look at the Marine next to me. You can do it man. Lean forward more. Look at the ground. Look at your feet. Swing those arms.
AT&T!
REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE!!!
He’s too far away, I have to run again. By the time I reach him, my heart feels as though it’s become dislodged. It’s working its way up my throat. My legs burn. They won’t move. We’ve gone 2.5 miles at most. I can’t make it.
AT&T!
REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE!!!
I look up from my boots and see the man disappearing in the distance. I see his pack bobbing up and down as he makes his easy way through the woods.
AT&T!
REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE!!!
I watch his pack, and I know that I’m supposed to touch it, but there’s no way. I’m done. It was a beautiful dream, but it’s over now. It’s time to quit.
Red! Grab on to my pack. Just grab on and run with me now. Hold on!
Surprisingly, holding onto his pack does help. I marvel at his strength. Somehow, he is able to pull himself, his pack, and me up the hill. He deposits me behind my man. Now, touch his pack! Good. Now keep going.
My man starts to pull away again. No. I’m not going to let him. That other Marine got me here, and I’m going to stay here. Long strides. Swing the arms. Walk faster walk faster. No good. He’s getting away. I’m going to have to run again. I start running and I’m still falling behind. Another Marine runs up to me.
Ok Red. Hold on to my pack. Just hold on.
I hold on to him for close to a mile. Then, another Marine comes and I hold on to him. Half a mile later, I start vomiting. I try to apologize and start vomiting again.
A Gunnery Sergeant runs up. WHO’S PUKING? WHO’S PUKING?
Me. It’s me.
GIVE ME YOUR PACK!
I hesitate. I cannot ask this man to take my pack.
GIVE ME YOUR PACK!
I turn around and he pulls it off me and loops it onto his chest. Now carrying sixty pounds, he marches to the front of the line.
More misery. More hills. The humiliation of being the only man without a pack. The feeling of intense guilt as I look up and see the Gunnery Sergeant carrying my burden, as well as his own.
IF THE MAN NEXT TO YOU IS STRUGGLING, HELP HIM!
Red, we’re almost there man. You’re going to make it. Whatever you do, don’t quit.
I try to drive home, but my legs are too sore to operate the pedals. I pull into a gas station and just sit there. I call her.
How’d it go?
Not well.
But you finished it, didn’t you?
I’m quitting.
No you’re not.
Yes I am.
Why?
Because I was the worst one. Other people suffered because of me. One guy even had to carry my pack.
He carried sixty pounds?
Yes.
Wow.
I want this. I’ve worked very hard, but I cannot be the person who cannot carry his own weight. I want to be a helper, not a liability.
But, you are a helper.
Not today, I wasn’t.
Today, on a forced march through the woods? No. But that’s not where you’re meant to help. You’re a lawyer. One day, that Marine who carried your pack may go off to Afghanistan and they might say he shot somebody when he wasn’t supposed to. And you will help him. You will face down a General, or the media, or anybody in the world for him. You will find him there struggling, and you will carry his pack, as he carried yours. That’s what it means to be a Marine.
