THE GRUNTS
moral transgressions are “part and
parcel” of combat. He weighed his
answer carefully before responding.
“A democracy is dependent on
having guys that will come forward
and put their right hand in the air
and volunteer and do things that
others decide to be done,” he said.
“You have to have a military that
will do things, regardless.”
BLOOD UNDER HIS FINGERNAILS
Outside of Marjah, Afghanistan,
January 2010. On a routine combat patrol, a platoon from 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, enters an
adobe compound in a farm village.
Walking point, at the head of the
column, is Lance Cpl. Zachary
Smith, from Hornell, N.Y. He is 19.
An IED suddenly erupts beneath
him, tearing off both his legs and
scything down other Marines with
shrapnel wounds. Cpl. Zachary
Auclair rushes to save him, frantically pulling out tourniquets and
bandages, and he is soon bathed
in Smitty’s blood. That’s when the
platoon’s sergeant, 28-year-old
Daniel M. Angus, steps on a second IED and the blast blows him
apart, killing him instantly. In the
chaos, Staff Sgt. Warren Repsher,
wounded in the face by shrapnel,
is on the radio calling for a mede-
HUFFINGTON
03.16-23.14
vac bird, and Smitty is dying in
Auclair’s arms.
Late that afternoon Darren Doss, a slim, black-haired
22-year-old, watched as his fellow
Marines zipped up the two body
bags, placed them tenderly on
stretchers and ran out to the waiting helicopter. Away it went with
the remains of Smitty and Angus,
and Doss with heavy heart turned
back into the tent.
“It was that kid that we got close to,
and to have that same kid turn around
and blow you up, it shatters your reality of what’s OK and what’s not OK.”
“And Auclair is sitting there
with, like, guts hanging off his
helmet and blood all over his
stuff. He is crying and he has baby
wipes out trying to clean under
his fingernails, but the baby wipes
are all dried up,” Doss recalled. “I
wanted to talk to him, maybe try
to cheer him up, but I didn’t know
what to say, so I, like, gave him a
pack of baby wipes I’d gotten in
the mail, and I just went outside.”
Doss fell silent. He was sitting with his arms on his knees,
head down, eyes wide and unseeing. Two of his former platoon-