The Silence of War Read online

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  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  This book is an original publication of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Copyright © 2016 by Terrance Patrick McGowan

  Foreword copyright © 2016 by Bill O’Reilly

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: McGowan, Terrance Patrick, author.

  Title: The silence of war: an old Marine in a young Marine’s war/Terrance

  Patrick McGowan.

  Other titles: Old Marine in a young Marine’s war

  Description: New York : Berkley Caliber, [2016] | “Forward Operating Base Delaram.”

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016016219 (print) | LCCN 2016017536 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101988183 | ISBN 9781101988206 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: McGowan, Terrance Patrick. | Afghan War, 2001—Personal

  narratives, American. | Marines—United States—Biography. | Government

  contractors—United States—Biography. | United States. Marine Corps.

  Marine Regiment, 7th. Battalion, 2nd—Biography. | Afghan War,

  2001—Campaigns—Afghanistan—Faråah (Province) | Baby boom

  Generation—United States—Biography. | Middle-aged men—United

  States—Biography. | United States. Federal Bureau of

  Investigation—Officials and employees—Biography. | Iraq War,

  2003–2011—Personal narratives, American

  Classification: LCC DS371.413.M37 2016 (print) | LCC DS371.413 (ebook) | DDC 958.104/742 [B]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016016219

  First edition: August 2016

  Jacket design by Daniel Rembert.

  Jacket photographs of U.S. Marine Corps by Lance Cpl. Brian D. Jones.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the author nor the publisher is responsible for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Foreword by Bill O’Reilly

  Preamble

  Prologue

  1. The Long Road to War

  2. Iraq

  3. An End and a New Beginning

  4. Mojave Viper

  5. The Odyssey

  6. Kandahar Airfield

  7. On to Bastion

  8. Baqua

  9. Delaram

  10. The Alamo

  11. The Coming Storm

  12. The Attack

  13. The Outside World

  14. Counterinsurgency

  15. The Trap

  16. The Battle at Feyz al Bad

  17. From the Alamo to Fort Apache

  18. Struck Down by the Plague

  19. Disney World

  20. Return to Golestan

  21. Going Home

  22. A Terrible Beauty Is Born

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Photographs

  Appendix

  Foreword by Bill O’Reilly

  Marine captain Terrance McGowan is a unique individual. A warrior in a country that is relatively safe, McGowan sought out adventure in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan in his late fifties. Maybe unique isn’t the correct word. Perhaps crazy?

  Most human beings have no idea about what really happens in a war zone. McGowan does, and his storytelling ability brings remote conflict into sharp focus for the reader. He puts you on the scene whether it’s a Taliban assault or a heartbreaking injury to a U.S. serviceperson overseas.

  It was the fall of 1967 when I initially met Terry McGowan. He and I were freshmen at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The sons of working-class Irish parents, McGowan and I had something in common. But it soon became clear that I was the more conventional guy. McGowan consistently sought adventure. And if he couldn’t find any—he went to sleep. Boy, could that guy sleep!

  The Silence of War is a personal book. Written from the vantage point of a former Marine, FBI agent, and local police officer, it offers life lessons that most of us have never had. McGowan is a “no spin” guy. He tells the truth about what he saw up close in dangerous areas.

  It goes without saying that most Americans will never be tested in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. But good citizens, who want to make educated decisions about policy and who want to vote responsibly, should understand the world we all inhabit. It also goes without saying that it took a man of courage to write The Silence of War.

  Reading Terry McGowan’s book will help make all of us better citizens. I thank him for writing it.

  Bill O’Reilly

  New York City

  October 2015

  Preamble

  I started sending emails to people back home in the States when I was still in Afghanistan. I was trying to tell them what it was like—while we were all living it—in real time. I got replies such as “You made me cry,” “I felt like I was there,” and “You should write a book.” Well, I decided to do just that.

  In the midst of a bleak northeastern winter I sent my first draft to a fellow Marine whom I consider to be my “kid brother”—Zach Wolfe. Zach lost his best friend over there. His name was Andrew “Whit” Whitacre. They were “brothers from a different mother.” Whit was killed in action on June 19, 2008. I don’t need to look the date up. Whit was my friend too.

  I had written about Whit’s death, of course, but I had barely touched on it. I care about Zach and I was trying to spare him the pain of reading about and reliving that terrible day. I now realize that was a mistake. People need to know the price they’re asking our fine young men to pay when they are sent off to war—the silent price.

  Zach’s response to me after reading the draft was emotionally commanding. He told me he had only made it halfway through before he started to cry. His very young daughter—seeing her daddy’s distress—climbed up onto his lap and said, “That’s okay, Daddy. You can have my teddy bear.”

  Zach told me I had to write the book. He wanted his family to know what he had been through. I knew Zach could never find the words. He knew it too.

  When he and his wife had their next child, a boy, they named him Cooper Whitacre Wolfe. Whit had meant that much to Zach. He still does. Whit lives on in Zach’s heart. And though the pain dims it is never fully extinguished.

  The littlest Wolfe will have to grow up a bit before he learns about the “Uncle” Andrew he will never know. It will be at least a few years before he realizes why he has the middle name that he does. Possibly his dad will never be able to choke out the words that will enable him to understand. Possibly he will have to read this book someday—and in the process learn more about hi
s dad as well.

  Zach is blessed with a wonderful wife. I have no doubt that she understands him as well as anyone can. She will understand him even better after reading this book. So will the rest of Zach’s family. That’s why he wanted it written. That’s why I had to write it. Zach’s deepest scars can’t be seen.

  William Manchester in Goodbye, Darkness wrote a passage about the battle for Okinawa that stayed with me over the years since I first read the book. He wrote of how much he hated the war and wanted it to be over so he could go home. And how, when he was safe in an aid station being treated for wounds received in battle, he had to get out of the battlefield hospital and get back to his squad. They were more important to him than anything, including his own safety. By that time he wasn’t fighting for his country, or world peace, or Mom or apple pie. He was fighting for the guys in his squad.

  When Alex “Little Red” Allman was evacuated to the battalion aid station after being blown into a concussion by a couple of rocket-propelled grenades, all he could think about was getting back to the platoon. Life at battalion was good. Air-conditioned sleeping tents, great chow—and access to the Internet. Yet he chafed for what seemed to him to be an eternity until he could finally get back to his buddies.

  Sergeant Joe France and Lance Corporal Mike Michalak were pulled off the line permanently—after being blown to hell for the third time by an IED—an improvised explosive device. They were really lousy houseguests. They screamed bloody murder that they wanted to get back with their guys. Despite the fact that they made a real pain of themselves, the powers that be never allowed it. One more IED and they might have been permanently brain-damaged. They knew it, but didn’t care. They missed their guys.

  I got good and sick, presumably from eating the local food. I had to be evacuated two echelons to the rear to be treated. I couldn’t wait to get back. I had the terrible—no, horrible—feeling that something would happen to my guys while I was gone.

  That’s how it really is. There’s a line at the end of the movie Jarhead that goes, “All wars are different. And all wars are the same.” It’s true.

  The term “brotherhood” isn’t understood properly—deeply enough—by those who have never experienced it. And those who have just can’t find the words to explain it. One of the quick “tests” of an individual’s wartime experiences—to see if he was real or making it up—is whether he’s even willing to talk about them. Typically, someone who’s been to war will not—cannot—talk to anyone other than someone else who has been through the same living hell. It’s the silence of war.

  This book is about all Marines, not just in Golf Company or even the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. It’s about all the Marines who shared in the brotherhood of war—in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Vietnam, and Korea, and all the other wars that are all so different and yet somehow all the same.

  I had to write this book. I had to be the voice for so many who cannot talk about what they went through. There are a lot of “Whits” and “Zachs” in America’s wars.

  This book had to be written for all of them.

  Prologue

  We were out on the tip of the proverbial spear in the barren, scorching-hot western Afghanistan desert. It was August 20, 2008, and I was with a Marine platoon at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Golestan.

  It was my birthday. I had just turned fifty-nine years old.

  I had been recruited by a low-key organization comprised of former West Point officers. They had formed what they termed “an elite group of combat investigators.” The mission: to embed with the military and investigate the insurgency. To qualify one had to have been an experienced law enforcement officer who had been involved in complex investigations; routine patrol work wasn’t enough.

  The investigators brought skill sets to the table that the military lacked: an ability to read the “human terrain”—acquired after decades of training, street experience, and working tough investigations. The group was spread thinly throughout Army and Marine units in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  I qualified. I was a retired FBI agent as well as a former Marine officer. I kept pushing forward until I came to rest at Golestan. It was the end of the line.

  I was lucky. I was billeted with Bravo Squad inside a mud building that passed for home. It was noticeably cooler inside the hut—probably no more than 130 degrees—than it was under the olive drab canvas tenting that housed most of the platoon. I lay on a cot in a pool of my own sweat surrounded by bottles of water inside old socks, which had been carefully hung on nails hammered into the dirt walls. The socks were doused with water until dripping wet, and this cooled the bottles by evaporation. Lukewarm was as good as we could get. Still, it was better than drinking hot water.

  Looking out the glassless window—an irregular, somewhat rectangular hole in the wall—I could see cases of Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) stacked against the outer bulwark of our defenses—about four feet away. It wasn’t a real FOB; there hadn’t been time to build one. The platoon had taken over a couple of run-down buildings partially surrounded by an adobe outer wall and strengthened it as best as could be done with sandbags and razor wire. I stared at the thatch-and-mud roof of the “room” I was in, ignoring the occasional clump of dirt that would drop from the “ceiling” and dreamed of home, my M16 resting against my cot.

  —

  I had volunteered to go to Afghanistan with one of the first long-term Marine battalions deployed to that war-torn country since the initial invasion after 9/11. We were designated Task Force 2/7. Other Marine units followed in the next few years, ultimately putting thousands of Marines in the country, but 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines (2/7) was one of only two Marine battalions operating in Afghanistan at that time. The Army had been operating for years in eastern Afghanistan, and the Brits, the Canadians, and a hodgepodge of other nationalities had been active in the south, but 2/7 broke ground in the western desert.

  The Taliban attacked us during the night of July 2. Their purpose was to annihilate one of the newly arrived Marine units. They wanted to show their stuff right off the bat and demonstrate to the Marines who the tougher fighters were. Since there were only fifty-six Marines at Golestan and we were far from reinforcements, we must have looked vulnerable.

  I felt vulnerable. The adobe FOB reminded me of the Alamo.

  They began the fight at one o’clock in the morning, and didn’t break it off until the sky began to lighten. I was asleep when the first rocket-propelled grenades slammed into our walls. I manned a bunker on an elevated portion of the west wall with two young Marines, and for three hours, traded fire with the enemy.

  Then, when the sky began to lighten, I could dimly make out the outline of the Stars and Stripes. I got goose bumps as I thought, “O say can you see by the dawn’s early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?”

  The flag was still there. And “The Star-Spangled Banner” would never be the same for me.

  I began to write to folks on the “home front” about that experience. I tried to put into words what it was like. Waking up to the sound of grenades and rifle and machine-gun fire, manning my post barefoot with no shirt on, then seeing the outline of our flag, dimly at first, finally in blazing color—as it waved defiantly in the superheated breeze.

  I was a guy who, at my age, should have been at home chasing a little white ball around, not fighting Taliban on the other side of the world. But there’s a saying so ubiquitous among Marines that it almost seems trite. I say almost because it is so literally true. “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” I had earned the title “Marine,” and like all Marines who had acquired it, I became part of an anomaly from a bygone era: a warrior caste.

  Though technically I was a civilian, in my soul I was still a Marine. I will always be a Marine until the day I die.

  1

  The Long Road to War

  I could say it all started when the World Trade Center w
as attacked. In a way, it did. I had retired after more than twenty years in law enforcement and was in law school. I had been an active-duty Marine during the mid-seventies. On 9/11 I was fifty years old. I decided to do my part and rejoin the Marine Reserve. The officer on the other end of the phone nearly choked on his coffee when he heard my age. I got a polite rejection,

  “Don’t call us, we’ll call you . . . but only if aliens from outer space invade Los Angeles.”

  Really, though, it began long before that.

  Marines who were trapped at the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War by the Chinese Army became known as the “Frozen Chosen.” When the Chinese attacked, the division was surrounded and outnumbered about ten to one, as the bitter North Korean winter set in. In spite of it all, the Marines fought their way through to the sea. My uncle Bill was a “Frozen Chosen” Marine and my hero. Although he never talked about what went on in Korea, the family did. And it was plain to see that Uncle Bill was proud to be a Marine.

  After graduating from college, I became a cop. I pinned on a badge, strapped on a gun, and went out to work the 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. shift on Christmas night 1971. I was a police officer for about three and a half years before I finally joined the Marine Corps. I was in my midtwenties and pretty happy being a patrolman. But something was missing from my life. I had always intended to join the service; I just never quite got around to it. I decided I had better do it if I was ever going to, or I’d be too old.

  Once that decision was made, it was pretty straightforward as to which branch of service it was going to be. Uncle Bill was still my hero. Since I had a college degree in my pocket, I could apply to Officer Candidate School (OCS), which I did. I was twenty-six.

  In retrospect, being a cop was great training for a future officer of Marines. By the time I got to the Fleet Marine Force, I was already used to taking charge in an emergency, coming up with a plan, issuing orders, and being obeyed. I also had no qualms whatsoever about telling someone older than I was what to do. I’d been doing it for years. Most importantly, perhaps, I had learned to suppress emotion. Fear is an emotion. Like Commander Spock on Star Trek, I had developed the ability to think logically regardless of what was going on around me. The ability to think clearly in a crisis is a survival mechanism, I think. It’s a useful trait for a leader to have.