The Marine of the New Millennium

From Esquire

Originally published in the December 2001 issue.

Dragon Six is Oscar Mike, on the move to link up with Bandit.

Foot mobile along Axis Kim, he is leading a detachment of 10 U.S. Marines across a stretch of desert scrub in the notional, oil-rich nation of Blueland. He walks at a steady rate of three klicks per hour, three kilometers, muscle memory after 23 years of similar forced humps through the toolies, his small powerful body canted slightly forward, his ankles and knees a little sore, his dusty black Danner combat boots, size 8, crunching over branches and rocks and coarse sand.

His pale-blue eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep. His face is camouflaged with stripes and splotches of greasepaint-green, brown, and black to match his woodland-style utilities, $56 a set, worn in the field without skivvies underneath, a personal wardrobe preference known as going commando. Atop his Kevlar helmet rides a pair of goggles sheathed in an old sock. Around his neck hangs a heavy pair of rubberized binoculars. From his left hip dangles an olive-drab pouch. With every step, the pouch swings and hits his thigh, adding another faint, percussive thunk to the quiet symphony of his gear, the total weight of which is not taught and seldom discussed. Inside the pouch is a gas mask for NBC attacks-nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Following an attack, when field gauges show the air to be safe once again for breathing, regulations call for the senior marine to choose one man to remove his mask and hood. After 10 minutes, if the man shows no ill effects, the rest of the marines can begin removing theirs.

The temperature is 82 degrees. The air is thick and humid. Sounds of distant fire travel on the wan breeze: the boom and rumble of artillery, the pop and crackle of small arms. He is leading his men in a northwesterly direction, headed for an unimproved road designated Phase Line Rich. There, he will rendezvous with Bravo Company, radio call sign Bandit, one of five companies under his command, nearly 900 men, armed with weapons ranging from M16A2 rifles to Humvee-mounted TOW missile launchers. In his gloved right hand he carries a map case fashioned from cardboard and duct tape-the cardboard scavenged from a box of MREs, meals ready-to-eat, high-tech field rations that cook themselves when water is added. Clipped to the map case is a rainbow assortment of felt-tip pens, the colors oddly garish against the setting. His 9mm Beretta side arm is worn just beneath his right chest, high on his abdomen. The holster is secured onto his H harness, a pair of mesh suspenders anchored to the war belt around his waist-which itself holds magazine pouches with spare ammo and twin canteens. Altogether, this load-bearing apparatus is known as deuce gear, as in U S. Government Form No. 782, the receipt a marine was once required to sign upon issuance. These days, the corps is computerized.

Near his left clavicle, also secured to his H harness-which is worn atop his flak vest-is another small pouch. Inside he keeps his Leatherman utility tool, his government-issue New Testament, a bag of Skittles left over from an MRE, and a tin of Copenhagen snuff, a medium-sized dip of which is evident at this moment in the bulge of his bottom lip, oddly pink in contrast to his thick camo makeup, and in the bottom lips of most of the men in his detachment, a forward-command element known as the Jump. They march slue-footed in a double-file formation through California sage and coyote bush and fennel, the smell pungent and spicy, like something roasting in a gourmet oven, each man silent and serious, deliberate in movement, eyes tracking left and right, as trained, each man taking a moment now and then, without breaking stride, to purse his lips and spit a stream of brownish liquid onto the ground, the varied styles of their expectorations somehow befitting, a metaphor for each personality, a metaphor, seemingly, for the Marine Corps itself: a tribe of like minds in different bodies, a range of shapes and sizes and colors, all wearing the same haircut and uniform, all hewing to the same standards and customs, yet still a collection of individuals, each with his own particular style of spitting tobacco juice, each with his own particular life to give for his country.

In the center of his flak vest-hot and heavy, designed to stop shrapnel but not bullets or knives-is a metal pin about the size of a dime, his insignia of rank, a silver oak leaf. Ever since he was young, growing up on the outskirts of Seattle, the second of four sons born to a department-store manager and a missionary's daughter, Robert O. Sinclair always wanted to be a marine. Now, at age 40, he has reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. He has what many consider to be the ultimate job for an infantry officer in the corps, the command of his own battalion, in this case BN One-Four-the 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment. A proud unit with a distinguished history, the One-Four saw its first action in 1916, during the Banana Wars in the Dominican Republic. In the late '20s, the 4th Marines became known as the China Regiment when it was sent to Shanghai to protect American interests. During World War II, the One-Four was part of a larger force that surrendered to the Japanese at Corregidor. Its colors were burned; the survivors became POWs, forced to endure the infamous Bataan Death March. Re-formed two years later, the unit avenged itself in the first wave of landings on Guam. It has since fought in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Somalia.

Come January, Sinclair and the One-Four-expanded to include tanks, artillery, amphibious and light armored vehicles, engineers, and 350 additional troops-will ship out on three Navy amphibious assault vessels as the 13th MEU (SOC), Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), bound for the western Pacific and the Persian Gulf, ready for immediate action, fully equipped to wage combat for 15 days without resupply or reinforcement, a unit precisely suited to a war against terrorism. "We specialize in conducting raids," says Sinclair. "We're tailor-made for special ops. We're trained to get in, hit a target, kill the enemy, and friggin' pull back to our ships again. We can go by helo. We can infiltrate by land. We can go ashore conventionally. We can put together anything. We're ready to do whatever it takes."

At the moment, in marine lingo, it is twenty-four sixteen thirty uniform May zero one, 4:30 in the afternoon on May 24, 2001, well before the prospect of going to war suddenly became real and imminent this fall. It is the fourth day of something called the Battalion FEX-a field exercise, on-the-job training for Sinclair and his marines. Truth be told, this is the first chance Sinclair has ever had to take his entire battalion out for a spin. Eight months ago, he had a lower rank and a different job in another unit somewhere else. Eight months ago, 90 percent of the men in his battalion were somewhere else; a good percentage of them had only recently graduated from high school. All told, between the time he took the flag of the One-Four-a dragon wrapped around a dagger on a blue diamond; the motto: Whatever It Takes-and the day this January or sooner when he and his men and all their equipment steam out of San Diego Harbor-wives and families and a brass band left behind on the dock-Sinclair will have had only 18 months to build from scratch a crack fighting force, trained for every contingency from humanitarian aid to police action to strategic guerrilla raids to full-scale invasion. He has seven more months to get the bugs out. There is much to be done.

And so it is that Bob Sinclair is Oscar Mike across a stretch of desert scrub in the notional country of Blueland, which is actually in the state of California at Camp Pendleton, the largest amphibious training base in the world, spread across 125,000 rugged and breathtaking acres along the Pacific coastline. In ten mikes or so, ten minutes, over the next rise, Sinclair will link up with Bandit, the main effort in this five-phase operation. From there, Sinclair will lead his marines into the mountains, toward a BP, a battle position, high atop a steep, no-name hill. At zero four hundred hours, with the pop and arc of a white double-star-burst flare, the battle will commence: a nonsupported, nonilluminated night attack against the invading enemy forces of Orangeland, dug in at a critical crossroads, eyes on the Jesara oil fields.

Or that is the plan, anyway. Like the bubbas say: A plan is only good until the first shot is fired. Sometimes not even until then.

At Phase Line Rich, Sinclair and his men take cover in a stand of high weeds. The four young grunts who form his security element-a corporal and three privates, pimples showing through camo paint-employ along a tight circular perimeter. They assume prone positions on the deck, in the rocky sand, cheeks resting against the stocks of their weapons, three M16A2 rifles and an M249 SAW, Squad Automatic Weapon, a 5.56mm light machine gun with a removable bipod.

The ground is riddled with gopher mounds, busy with ants, bugs, and small lizards. Three types of rattlesnakes inhabit the area, along with scorpions, coyotes, roadrunners, and mountain lions. Overhead, against a backdrop of rugged mountains and gray sky, a red-tailed hawk backpedals its wings, suspended in flight, talons flexed, fixing a target far below.

Sinclair sits with his legs crossed Indian-style. A fly buzzes around his head; bees alight upon the intricate yellow flowers of the black mustard weeds. Filled to capacity, his assault pack and his ass pack form a backrest, a comfortable pillow on which to lounge. Inside the packs, among other items, he keeps a roll of toilet paper; extra socks; reserve tins of Copenhagen; map templates; his NVGs, night-vision goggles; his CamelBak, a one-gallon water reservoir with a long drinking tube attached; and his MOPP suit and booties, Mission Oriented Protective Posture, marine lingo for the overclothes worn with the gas mask in case of NBC attack.

Five feet six inches tall, Sinclair has a quick, high-pitched giggle and bulging biceps, a Marine Corps tattoo on each shoulder. He is, in the words of one of his officers, "a good human being who's able to be a taskmaster." He has a pretty wife, his second, and a baby son and partial custody of his 11-year-old stepson. They live among civilians on a cul-de-sac in a cookie-cutter subdivision about 30 minutes from the base, a black Isuzu Trooper and a black Volvo station wagon parked side by side in the driveway. He loves fishing, prays before eating his MREs in the field.

Though Sinclair was once lampooned in a skit as the Angry Little Man, he is known to his marines as a teacher and a father figure. Above all, he is known as a bubba, a fellow grunt. Unlike most marine officers, Sinclair joined the corps right out of high school. He spent the summer in boot camp in San Diego, then went off to Western Washington University. Following graduation (he majored in political science), upon completion of his basic officers' training, Sinclair was asked to list three career choices. He wrote infantry three times. He was chewed out by his CO for disobeying orders-if the Marine Corps says three choices, it damn well means three-but it was worth it to him to make the point.

At 22, as a lieutenant, Sinclair became a rifle platoon commander. At 29, as a captain, he was a company commander in an infantry battalion similar to the One-Four and saw action in Somalia and Rwanda. In his early 30s, as a major, he served time as both a key member of a general's staff and as the director of the Infantry Officer Course in Quantico, Virginia. Today, as CO of the One-Four, he is known for his attention to detail, his almost wonkish expertise in battlefield tactics and techniques. Important also is his reputation for pushing down power to the NCOs, for delegating authority to the noncommissioned officers, the sergeants and the corporals, an essential managerial concept in this bottom-heavy organization. The smallest of all the services-about 170,000 compared with the Army's 480,000 (800,000 including reserves)-the Marines also have the lowest officer-to-enlisted ratio, one-to-nine, compared with the Army's one-to-five. More than half of the corps is composed of the three lowest pay grades-lance corporals, Pfc.'s, and privates. Every year, more than 30 percent of the enlisted ranks muster out and return to civilian life. Discounting career officers and NCOs, that means a complete recycling of bodies about every three years.

Now, as Sinclair sits in the weeds near Phase Line Rich, dark clouds gather ominously over the mountains. "Guess we're in for a nice little hike," he says, flashing his trademark smile, toothy and overlarge.

"Yes, sir!" sings out Sergeant Major, sitting to his right. John Hamby, 40, is the ranking noncommissioned officer in the One-Four, the most senior of all the enlisted, though still junior to the greenest second lieutenant. A good of boy from Georgia with a booming gravel voice, he is always at Sinclair's side, offering advice and support, implementing orders, watchdogging the interests of his men. Asked about his favorite marine memories, he thinks a moment, names three: the day, at age 29, that he received his high school diploma, the 4.0 valedictorian of his class; the day his father pinned his sergeant major chevrons to his collar; the day, when he was stationed in Vienna as an embassy guard, that his son was born by emergency C-section.

"Those peaks behind Basilone Road are gonna be a ball buster," Sinclair says. "Holy Moses!"

"Been there many times," Sergeant Major says. He spits a stream of brownish liquid into the weeds. "Character builder, sir."

"It won't be as steep as yesterday, but it's a lot friggin' higher," Sinclair says, his flat northwestern accent flavored with a bit of southern drawl, affected to a greater or lesser extent by most marine officers, no matter what their regional origins-homage, perhaps, to the antebellum notion of the southern gentleman, upon whom the patriotic ideal of a young American military leader was modeled. He spits a stream of juice, then kicks some dirt over the wet spot on the ground, covering it up.

"You would think there'd be a limit as to how much character you can build, sir. But I ain't reached it yet."

"Oo-rah, Sergeant Major."

"Ain't that right, Colón?" Sergeant Major cuffs the shoulder of the nervous young radio operator sitting behind Sinclair, nearly knocking him over. Pfc. Mike Colón is 20 years old, a slight youth just this side of pretty: five feet four with long curly lashes. The 12-pound radio he's carrying-a one nineteen foxtrot SINCGARS, a single-channel ground-and-airborne radio system-fits with some difficulty into his assault pack. The 10-foot whip-style antenna makes balance difficult. Thirty minutes into the hump, he has already slapped Sinclair on the helmet several times with the thick rod of rubber-coated steel.

Born in Puerto Rico, raised in the ghetto of Holyoke, Massachusetts, Colón speaks English with the singsong rhythms of his home island. Both of his earlobes are pierced, a remnant of his days with the Latin Kings. Six months ago, Colón was breaking rocks with a 10-pound sledge in the CCU, the Correctional Custody Unit at Camp Pendleton, busted down to private for drinking in the barracks. It was his third offense; the Old Man could have run him out of the corps. But Sinclair prides himself on being able to judge his marines, to see into their souls. As he likes to say: "You can't friggin' command from behind a damn desk." In battle, you have to know what to expect from your men. That's the whole reason they practice everything so many times. That's the whole reason he's out here on the Jump rather than back in the rear, commanding from a camp chair in the relative comfort of the COC, the Combat Operations Center, a big black tent with a generator, lights, computers, and a banquet-sized coffee urn.

Sinclair saw something in Colón, and Colón responded: He was down but he never dropped his pack, as the bubbas say. Now he has found himself assigned as the Old Man's radio operator. He darts a look at Sergeant Major. Privilege in the Marine Corps is often a two-edged sword. Had he not been so honored by this assignment, he'd be back at the COC himself, pulling radio watch. He aims a stream of brownish juice toward the ground. A little bit dribbles down his chin, onto his flak vest. "A definite character builder, Sergeant Major."

Sinclair twists around, flashes Colón his smile. "There ya go, stud," he sings encouragingly.

"Here comes Bandit right now," announces the OpsO, the operations officer, indicating the lead element of Bravo Company, coming around a bend double file.

Major Minter Bailey Ralston IV-Uncle Minty to his friends-is Dragon Three to Sinclair's Dragon Six. He plans and coordinates all battalion movements in the field. Thirty-two years old, a strapping six feet two, he's a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. Since 1856, every Minter Bailey Ralston before him had been a pharmacist. Growing up in the tiny town of Westin, West Virginia, the only boy of four children, he set his sights early on the Marines. "John Wayne and comic books took me to the dark side at a very early age," he says.

Blond and blue-eyed, with circles under his eyes, Ralston was up all last night on the laptop computer in the COC, pecking out Battalion Frag Order zero one tach four, the detailed, six-page battle plan for tonight's movement. Grimacing, he pops two large pills without water. Three weeks ago, he underwent surgery on his right calf muscle. He is not yet cleared for exercise of any kind.

Sitting next to Major Ralston is the FSC, the fire-support coordinator, Major Randy Page. Six feet four with green eyes, 34years old, Page hails from Wagon Wheel, New Mexico, population 50. His job is coordinating artillery and other weapons fire to support the grunts on the ground. Married with no kids, a foreign-film buff, a self-professed computer geek, Page loves being in the field. His favorite marine moment is a snapshot: "You're in the rain, you're on a knee, and everyone's just miserable. And you just kinda look around and it feels like-you feel like crap because you're cold or hot or wet or whatever-but it just feels good."

Now Page hoists himself off the deck. He scans the horizon, taking a deep draft of the spicy air. "Looks like that fog is comin' in a little early, sir."

"Roger that, Major Page," Sinclair says, grunting a bit as he rises, as men of a certain age begin to do.

"On your feet, Marines," growls Sergeant Major. He kicks playfully at the boot of Lance Corporal Joseph Gray, the other radio operator on the Jump. Gray has been dragging lately. He's newly married to a very young Cuban girl. There are troubles at home, a baby on the way. Sergeant Major reaches down and offers Gray a helping hand. "Move it, Devil Dog," he barks.

After a long, steep climb-the last bit a 70-degree slope through sharp thistles-Dragon Jump and Bandit are in place on the summit of No Name Hill, looking down upon Battalion Objectives Four and Five. Huddled together in the pitch-dark, Sinclair and his men are totally assed out. They sit in rocky sand, on a firebreak cut across the topographical crest of the hill. A cloud bank has settled over them. Visibility is nil; their NVGs, which use ambient light, are inoperable. It is cold and wet and quiet, the silence broken only by the beep and crackle of the SINCGARS radios.

The time is zero one thirty hours. According to intelligence, there is a company-minus, about 150 men, of Orangeland forces dug in around the two key crossroads in the valley below, just to the northeast of No Name Hill, 1,500 meters away as the crow flies. Scout/sniper reports have the enemy armed with AK-47 rifles, light and medium machine guns, and 82mm mortars. Based upon documents taken from the body of a notionally dead officer (members of the One-Four's H&S company, headquarters and service, are playing the role of the enemy), there is reason to believe that the Orangeland forces, members of the dictator's elite Revolutionary Guard, will attempt to hold their positions at all costs.

Though the original frag order tasked Bravo Company as the main effort of the attack, it has become clear that the plan is no longer viable. Not apparent on the contour map was the fact that the northeast face of No Name Hill is a sheer cliff. There is no way Sinclair is going to order a company of green marines down the side without rappelling systems. Likewise, the firebreak is useless as an avenue of approach; cut by giant bulldozers, 100 feet wide, that piece of terrain is completely exposed-the face sloping down gradually onto the objective like a ski run.

Because they're here to learn how to think on the fly, Sinclair has ordered Ralston to recast the attack, a laborious process that began with Ralston-owing to the blackout conditions in effect-lying for a time beneath his rain poncho, his red-lensed flashlight in one hand, a pen in the other, writing up formal orders for the new attack, composing sentences such as: O/O ATK TO DESTROY EN VIC BN OBJ 4. Once completed, the orders were disseminated via radio down the chain of command. Upon receiving his orders, each marine made a few notes for himself in his olive-drab journal, part of his required gear.

The new play goes like this: Charlie Company, down in the valley, formerly the supporting effort, becomes the main effort in the attack. It will move across the desert floor, around the bottom of No Name Hill, then turn left in a bent-L formation. Upon seeing the signal flare-a green double star burst-it will attack the enemy's flank. Bravo Company will remain on No Name Hill in a support-by-fire position. In addition, Sinclair has called up the CAAT platoon, the Combined Anti-Armor Team, a motorized unit comprising Humvee-mounted .50-caliber machine guns and wire-guided TOW missile launchers.

While Charlie Company moves into its new position-difficult in the dark without NVGs, foot mobile at the excruciatingly slow rate of 500 meters an hour through the difficult terrain-Sinclair and his men hunker down on the firebreak atop No Name Hill, a dark circle of faceless shadows enveloped in a fine, cold mist.

Lounging against his assault pack, Sinclair's camies beneath his flak vest are sopping with sweat. He's cold and tired, and his knees ache. He's "dawggone friggin' miserable;" he's happy as he can be. This is what he signed up for. He's glad he chose to go out on the Jump tonight, down and dirty with the men, the more miserable the better, commanding with his eyes instead of a radio handset. There's a purity to being in the field. It helps you keep your edge. It helps you keep your sense of perspective. You learn not to take your lifestyle and your freedoms for granted. You learn not to care so much about what year the wine was bottled, what brand of clothing you wear, all that horseshit that people think is oh-so-civilized. Being out here, you learn to appreciate the simple things, like just how great it is to sit on a toilet to take a dump.

Over the years, Sinclair has endured conditions much worse than these. He's been in the desert in Kuwait, 130 degrees. He's looked into the eyes of starving infants in Somalia. He's rescued civilians from the American embassy in Rwanda. And he's seen men die; he's written impotent letters home to inconsolable mothers after a firefight with Somali thugs in pickup trucks. It's bad out here tonight on No Name Hill, but it's not so bad. In real-world time, he's a 30-minute drive from home. Come tomorrow evening, he'll be in his living room with Jessie for their fifth wedding anniversary-the first such celebration he's ever been able to attend.

"I read the other day that gas prices have gone up 149 percent in the last year," Sinclair says, trying to pass the time.

"The cost of living here has gotten to be more expensive than Hawaii," says Page, seated to Sinclair's left. His words come out a little slurry. He chides himself for not sleeping last night. He shakes his head, trying to rid the cobwebs.

"Guess there's no chance we're gettin' a raise anytime soon," Ralston says. Though no one can see it, he has his boot off, an instant ice pack on his badly swollen calf. He missed the last big exercise because of his surgery-if you can't do your job, the Marines will replace you. Someday Ralston would like to be in Sinclair's boots; this is too good a billet to let go because of a little pain. Or that's what he thought. Now the calf is throbbing. Could I be happy as a civilian? he asks himself, only half kidding.

"The president has already submitted his supplemental budget this year, so we're looking at zero three at the earliest for any kind of COLA," Sinclair says, meaning cost-of-living adjustment, his wonkish side still apparent through his own physical exhaustion. Oddly missing from his encyclopedia of knowledge is the exact amount of his salary. For that information, you must see Jessie. He draws $72,000 a year, plus an additional $1,700 a month for food and housing.

"That's just peachy," Sergeant Major says. He pulls down about $45,000 a year, plus $1,500 a month for food and housing. "Maybe I'll trade in my car and get a beat-up old Volkswagen. Put the wife on the street corner."

"We won't quote you on that, Sergeant Major," Sinclair says.

"Definitely not," says Page.

"Even I don't go that far," Sergeant Major says. His voice softens, grows sentimental, like a guy talking to the bartender late at night. "There ain't none like her. She's mine. We have our times, but it wouldn't be no fun if there wasn't a little challenge."

"Damn," says Ralston. "The wind's kickin' up."

"I'm kinda hoping that stink is you and not me," Sergeant Major drawls. "You know it's time to take a shower when you can smell your own ass."

"Jeez-Louise, Sergeant Major!" Sinclair says. "Thanks for sharin'."

At zero three fifty atop No Name Hill, the rain has subsided; the clouds remain.

Sinclair and his men are on their feet now, helmeted shadows milling between two Humvees. Parked on the firebreak, on the crest of the hill, each of the four-wheel-drive vehicles is fitted with a TOW missile launcher and an infrared sight. In a few minutes, when the liquid nitrogen in the mechanism reaches a temperature of -318 degrees, Sinclair will be able to look through a rubber-capped eyepiece and see the heat signatures of his otherwise-invisible foes, tiny red human forms in the valley far below. Mounted to turrets atop the roofs of the vehicles, the TOW sights emit a loudish ticking noise, a strangely familiar sound, like the timer on a heat lamp in a hotel bathroom.

"Spare a dip, Sergeant Major?"

"Sorry, Major Page, I'm plum out."

"What about you, OpsO?"

"I was just gonna ask you."

"Well, isn't this a fine damn thing," Sergeant Major says. He pauses a beat, thinking. A few days ago, back at Camp Horno-the One-Four's compound at Pendleton-Sergeant Major needed a sleeping bag for a reporter to take on the FEX. Informed by supply that the battalion was fresh out of sleeping bags, Sergeant Major ordered the lance corporal on the other end of the line to shit a sleeping bag posthaste. The bag was delivered in 10 minutes.

Now, five days into the FEX, 12 hours into this movement, what Sergeant Major needs-what they all need-is a good whack of nicotine. He turns to Sinclair. "What about you, sir?"

Sinclair pulls off his right glove with his teeth, reaches into the pouch secured over the left side of his chest. He takes out his tin of Copenhagen, opens it. "A few dregs," he says, disappointed. Then he brightens. "Criminy! Check my assault pack!"

Sinclair turns his back and Sergeant Major unzips him, rummages carefully through his gear. Though entirely offhand, it is an intimate act. He comes out with a fresh tin. "You ain't been holdin' out on us now, sir, have you?"

"Pass it around, by all means!"

"An officer and a gentleman," Sergeant Major declares.

"Anything for my marines," Sinclair says. He looks around the loose circle of his men, the faceless shadowy figures so distinctly recognizable, even in the murky gloom. In boot camp there are no walls between the shitters in the latrine-that's how close you get to the other guys. And when you have to lead them, when your word is literally their command, well... it's hard to find a way to express it. Eight months into his tenure as the CO of the One-Four, Sinclair finds himself stepping back every now and then and thinking, Dawggone, I still can't believe I have this authority! You go through the years, gaining experience, working hard, moving up. And then one day you're the Old Man. But you still feel like you; you're the same as always-a little bit afraid of fucking up. It makes you want to be careful. Not cautious, just more careful to consider things from every imaginable side. Bottom line is a most awesome fact: He has lives in his hands.

When he looks at one of his marines, Sinclair doesn't care what age or color he is, what MOS or billet he occupies. He doesn't care if he's a wrench turner down in the motor pool or one of his company commanders. If he didn't need that man in the One-Four, the Marine Corps wouldn't have assigned him. Every truck driver hauling water and chow to the grunts in the field; the comm guys running wire and maintaining the nets; the 18-year-old rifleman toting a 60mm mortar launcher over his shoulders, sucking on his water tube like a pacifier as he humps up a hill-they're all important to him as a commander. They all need to know that Sinclair's thinking, Hey, stud, I know that job may not seem fun or exciting, but I need your skills to make this whole thing work.

"So what do we do now?" asks Sergeant Major. He takes a pinch and passes it on. He's feeling better already.

"We could fight this little battle," says Ralston.

"I make it zero three fifty nine," says Page, taking the tin from Ralston.

"I know," Sinclair says. He rubs his hands together greedily. "Who can we meritoriously promote?"

"Excellent idea, sir!" Sergeant Major says.

"How about Rivers?" suggests Page.

"He's ready?" asks Sinclair.

"Definitely, sir."

"What do you think, Colón?"

"Definitely, sir," says the radio operator, taking a dip, passing the tin.

"All right, good to go," Sinclair says, inserting his own pinch of dip between lip and gum. He steps up onto the fat tire of the Humvee, swings himself into the turret. "We'll just take care of business here," he calls down from his perch, "and then-"

Now there comes the distinct explosive pop of a flare, and everyone turns to see. A green double star burst, lovely and bright and sparkling, it floats down toward earth on its invisible parachute, as languid as an autumn leaf falling from a tree, illuminating the target below in surreal shades of magnesium green.

Down in the valley, Charlie Company opens fire. There is the crackle of small arms shooting blank rounds, clusters of bright muzzle flashes against the dark, the loud cacophony of voices that accompanies a firefight-men on both sides shouting orders and epithets as the battle is waged at close quarters.

Atop No Name Hill, fore and aft of the vehicles, platoons from Bravo Company are set along different elevations of the firebreak. As this is only an exercise, the budget for the FEX is limited. The men of Bravo Company have been told not to expend their blank rounds. They have humped 10 difficult miles in the last 12 hours to get into position for this attack, through fields of cactus and thistles, up steep slopes and through ravines, weighted with myriad weapon systems and gear. They have shivered in their own sweat in the fine, cold rain, faces in the sand with the insects and the weeds, fighting boredom, dehydration, fatigue. They have done everything the Old Man has asked, and they have done it without question or excuse or complaint. On order, they open fire.

"Bang bang bang bang BANG!" they shout into the darkness, 200 strong, every shape and color, all wearing the same haircuts and uniforms, their voices echoing across the valley, a shitstorm of simulated plunging fire raining down death upon Orangeland's elite Revolutionary Guard: "Bang bang bang bang BANG!"

By zero seven thirty, the enemy has been vanquished.

Dragon Jump and Bandit have humped down the firebreak, consolidated with Charlie Company. Together, they occupy Battalion Objectives Four and Five.

It is cool and overcast. The two key crossroads are little more than dirt trails etched through the valley. Sinclair and his men mill about. No Name Hill looms above them, impossibly high from this vantage point, a scrubby, humpbacked ridge stippled with boulders, the firebreak running like a raw scar over the crest. Colón and Gray and the other enlisted are circled up, passing a rumpled menthol cigarette that Colón has found in his pack. Sinclair and Sergeant Major lean against a Humvee, shooting the shit with the battalion XO, the executive officer, Major Rich Weede. Thirty-seven years old, a graduate of VMI, Weede is Dragon Five to Sinclair's Dragon Six, responsible for many of the nuts-and-bolts issues of command. Since 1935, there has continuously been a Weede on active duty in the Marine Corps. His grandfather retired as a lieutenant general. His father retired as a colonel. His brother is a captain.

Sinclair has logged only about six hours of sleep over the last five days. His eyelids are sprung like window shades. His smile seems plastered onto his face. His knees feel disjointed, as if he's walking on eggshells. He feels thready and insubstantial, oddly gelatinous, a little queasy, as if he's treading water in a vitreous sea of adrenaline and dopamine, nicotine, and excess stomach acid. Now the drifting conversation has turned toward a mutual friend of Weede and Sinclair's, a retired officer.

"So he's got a beer distributorship?" Sinclair asks, his voice tight and forced.

"Every day he's gettin' invitations to fuckin' golf tournaments," Weede says, breaking out a couple of cheroot cigars.

"That's like the time I met this guy through my father-in-law," says Sergeant Major, accepting a cheroot, taking a bite. "He flies me down to Texas to play golf at his country club, and we played a round, and then he takes me over to his warehouse. He tells me how he's having problems with his employees, how he can't get them motivated. And then he says, 'Your father-in-law seems to think you're pretty good at that shit. You want a job? I'll make it well worth your while.'"

"I'da friggin' asked how well," Sinclair says, taking a bite of his cheroot, working it down to his gum.

"That's like Gunner Montoya," Weede says, blowing a smoke ring. "He said he told the guy, 'I'm a marine gunner, I don't know a friggin' thing about this business.' And the guy tells him, You're a marine, you can manage this shit, trust me.'"

"The salary kicks up to a hundred grand after a year," Sergeant Major says. "He put in his papers this month."

"I can't even fathom that kinda money," Sinclair says. He looks off toward No Name Hill, shaking his head.

OpsO Ralston limps over, and Weede offers him a cheroot. "Time to head back to the barn, sir," Ralston says to Sinclair. It's a three-hour hump back to Camp Horno.

"We goin' up Sheepshit Hill, sir?" asks Sergeant Major.

"Only the best for my Devil Dogs!" Sinclair sings.

"They'll be back by this afternoon and too tired to bitch," drawls Sergeant Major. "Then they'll get up tomorrow all sore and thinking, Fuuuuuuuck! But come Sunday, their tune'll change. It'll be: That wasn't shit!"

"Twenty-four hours from now they'll be bragging about how tough it was," Sinclair says. He spits a stream, kicks some dirt over the wet spot.

"You know," Sergeant Major says. "I didn't sign up for infantry. I was gonna be a mechanic."

"Well, I did. All I ever wanted to be was a grunt."

"Then I guess all your dreams have come true, sir."

"Oo-rah, Sergeant Major."

On a sunny Sunday afternoon a few weeks later, Sinclair is sitting beneath a striped umbrella on the patio behind his house. He is barefoot, dressed in a tank top and surfer shorts. His face and neck are deeply tanned; his shoulders and legs are milky white. Even on his day off, he sports a fresh shave. In his mind, he's never off duty; he's a marine every hour of every day. He doesn't even go to Home Depot without shaving first. He has his whitewall-style haircut trimmed weekly, $7 a pop.

Sinclair was up early today, ripping out the roots of a tree in the front yard that had begun to encroach upon the sidewalk. For a tool he used an old bolo knife he bought in the Philippines when he was a second lieutenant. A short machete made from dense steel, the thing hasn't been sharpened in twenty years and it's still the best dawggone piece of cuttin' gear he's got. Now that the tree roots have been vanquished, Sinclair needs to repipe the irrigation in that area. Not to mention all the other chores. His tidy two-story house, decorated in earth tones, is filled with projects not yet completed: a partially painted wall, a set of dining-room chairs only half reupholstered. An epic list maker, he has yellow Post-its everywhere at home and at work. He's got a lot to do before January.

At home, Jessie is the idea guy; the Old Man is the grunt. When he comes through the front door, he always says, "Just tell me what to do. I don't want to make any decisions." Jessie and Bob met on a blind date eight years ago. He was a captain then, a company commander; her sister was dating his radio operator. They went to a Japanese restaurant. When he returned home that night, Bob looked in the mirror and told himself he had found the woman he was going to marry. Two days after their date, Jessie came down with the flu. Bob drove an hour to bring her some medicine. "I could tell right then he was a keeper," she says.

Jessie sees Bob as being tough in his professional life, yet very tender in his personal life. He is honest and sincere, a mature man with a lot of integrity, very different from other men, a grownup in every way. When she was laid up in the hospital before their son, Seth, was born, he took off work and camped out in the room with her for an entire week. Five years into their marriage, he still refers to her as "my bride."

Soon after they began dating, Bob went off on a six-month deployment. Jessie sent him care packages filled with Gummi Bears and pistachio nuts. They wrote letters every day. She didn't know where he was, exactly. Somewhere out on a ship. Bob is an awesome letter writer. He would write about what he did that day and how he was feeling about stuff. And then there were the romantic parts. Those were her favorite.

One night when he was on the float, Jessie's phone rang. It was Bob. "I just wanted to tell you I love you," he said casually, and Jessie thought, Uh-oh, I don't like the sound of this. Before he hung up, he mentioned that she should watch CNN the next day. Sure enough, there were the Marines, evacuating civilians from the embassy in Rwanda.

Following his deployment, Bob was transferred to Quantico, Virginia, for three years. The couple maintained a long-distance relationship, getting married along the way, holding their reception at the Japanese restaurant where they'd had their first date. Though she doesn't want to say it in so many words, Jessie is not looking forward to this deployment. Bob's been home now for a long stretch. She's used to having him around. He's funny, he's good company, he has sexy arms and a nice smile. He doesn't mind doing the vacuuming. He thinks everything she cooks is delicious. And though he's not much into television-not even sports-he's happy to sit with her and watch her shows: Friends, Ed, The West Wing, ER, Malcolm in the Middle. When he goes away, it's always hardest in the beginning. Then she bucks up and gets in the groove; she just kind of goes about her business. In time, she even starts to enjoy being on her own-pretty much, anyway. It's funny, but having Bob gone so much has taught her just how secure a person she really is. In that way, the Marine Corps has been good for her as well.

This time the float will be a little different for the Sinclairs. They'll have e-mail. And because he's the battalion commander and she's the Key Volunteer Adviser-informally in charge of overseeing all the dependents-he'll be calling her by telephone weekly.

The biggest difference, of course, is Seth, 18 months old, a towhead like his mom. The first time Bob left for two weeks in the field, he came home and Seth wouldn't go to him. You could see it really crushed Bob. And now he'll be gone six months. He's seen kids hide from their dads when they return from a float; he's seen kids cower in fear. And Luke, her son by her first marriage, has grown close to Bob as well. Luke likes to tell the story of how Bob took him fishing for the first time. Luke caught a catfish that was this long. Actually, Bob helped. "But he told everyone I caught it myself," Luke says proudly.

With everyone out of the house for a while, Sinclair is taking some time to reflect, a little reluctantly, on his career. He rocks back and forth gently in his chair. "This is probably going to sound like propaganda," he says, taking the opportunity, in his family's absence, to indulge himself in a dip, "but my primary motivation for being a marine is that I love this country. I feel that being born in this country is a privilege. Right, wrong, or indifferent, this is still the greatest country in the world. All you have to do is travel to figure that one out. I thank the good Lord that we have a lot of great men and women in this country who feel the same way as I feel, who are willing to make that ultimate sacrifice for what they believe in. None of us wants to die. But we know if we have to, it's for the greatest reasons.

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"I have to admit that becoming a dad, especially this late in life, has completely changed me. When you're younger, it was like, Okay, if you die, you can leave your parents behind, or your brothers. That would be sad, but you know, you can kind of accept that. Once you get married, you're kinda like, Hmmm. But you can justify that, too. The wife's an adult, she's intelligent, she's beautiful, she can get on with life. But then all of a sudden you've got that child. I never understood it until Seth was born and lying there in the hospital weighing two pounds, not knowing whether he was going to live or die. And I just looked at him and said, 'This is a life that we've created and that I'm responsible for.' His entire hand could grab around the knuckle of my little finger when he squeezed."

He rocks in his chair; he is a man who is seldom at rest, who wakes up at full speed and doesn't stop until he shuts his eyes, whereupon he falls instantly into a deep, untroubled sleep, as he did on the couch after the FEX, on the night of his anniversary. At least he made it through dinner.

Birds sing in the trees. A lawn mower drones, echoing through the cul-de-sac. The grass in his backyard is lush and green; the fence line is planted with riotous bougainvillea, rich shades of red and purple and pink. An old dog naps at his feet. A small fountain gurgles at the back corner of the lot. "I know this float is going to be tough," Sinclair says. "But it's like anything else. We'll get on that ship, we'll do what we have to do, and then we'll come back, and life will continue to move on. That'll be six months you can never make up, but what we do as marines is that important. Nobody wrenches your arm to sign that contract. These men do this on their own. They all know the risks. That's why leading them is just an honor beyond belief.

"I am loyal to the corps, but my family is more important to me. If you take it in order, I'd say it's God, country, family, and then way down at number four on the list is the Marine Corps. That's not insulting the corps; it's just that the bottom line is that someday the corps is gonna kick every one of us out. Even the commandant of the Marine Corps is gonna retire, and they're gonna say, 'Thank you very much for all your years of service, General, but it's time to move on.' They're gonna do the same to me. They always say we're here to train our own replacements. There will always be plenty of great people to take my place. But my family will always be there for me. I mean, I'll probably be up for colonel soon. But with our family situation-the fact that, you know, Jessie can't leave the state to share custody of Luke..." His voice trails off. "I'd hate to leave the corps, but I can't leave my family and become a geographical bachelor again."

He spits a stream of brownish juice onto the lawn. "The bottom line comes down to this: It's hard to put into words. It's more like a feeling. You feel it, and you know it's right. It's like trying to explain morals or religion or love. The Marine Corps exists to fight and win America's battles, to help keep our country free. It sounds corny, I suppose. But like they say, somebody's got to do it. I guess one of those somebodies is me."

September 2001: Sinclair is at his desk at Camp Horno. There is a heightened security aboard the base, but training continues as normal. Sinclair's deuce gear and his flak vest and his helmet lie in a heap in the corner of the small room. His M9 side arm, holstered, is atop his desk.

On September 11, upon waking to the horrific news from the East Coast, Sinclair called his XO, Major Weede, and told him he was going to stay put for a while and watch the events unfold on television. He felt a need to be home with his family. He also knew he didn't have to hurry to the base; it takes a long time to plan military action, Sinclair points out. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The first ground offensive by U. S. forces against the Japanese didn't occur until August 7, 1942, when the 1st Marine Division-the division that includes Sinclair's One-Four-invaded Guadalcanal.

Come January, however, or whenever Sinclair and his 13th MEU (SOC) steam out into the WestPac, things will probably be much different. The kind of campaign they're talking about is the kind the One-Four has been trained to undertake. With the threat of war, perhaps a sustained one, Bob and Jessie Sinclair must put their worries about career and future and geographical bachelorhood aside. There is no doubt about the order of his priorities at a time like this.

"It's one of those things where you train your whole life for something you hope you never actually have to execute. But I think there's something primal about each one of us marines. If we're at war, you want to be in the operating forces. You don't want to be sitting on the sidelines. This is what we do. This is what we're trained for.

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"The initial thing I felt, seeing that plane fly into the tower, seeing the pictures of the Pentagon, was absolute anger. You realize that your country has been attacked. That is a deep, deep wound, a sharp slap to the face. You wanna strike back. But at the same time you have to keep your head. You know that you've got this whole system in place. There are politicians and diplomats. In a way, you're angry deep down inside your gut, but you're also in realization that, okay, there are people who are much smarter than me, and they are in charge, and I completely trust their leadership. As a member of the military, I'm here to support and implement whatever decision they make.

"Like the president said, 'Get ready.' Well, we are ready. This battalion is ready right now. We'll do what needs to be done."

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