Location: 12 Miles from Safwan Hill, Iraq Date: 20MAR03 Time: 1725L I hated the desert. I despised its emptiness. The complete lack of contrast, the heat, the unpredictable weather, and the sand. It seemed as if a ghost lived in every desert. A ghost that devoured aircraft and snatched the lives of their crews. The Ghost had found us. I felt her presence. If I looked long enough and hard enough into the darkness, I could see her faint silhouette. I pretended not to notice her on my flight from the ship into Joe Foss Field in the Kuwaiti desert. I pretended to not see her earlier on the endless nighttime training missions in the Persian Gulf. Yet I knew she was here. I could smell her. She knew whenever we flew, where we flew, and why we flew. This wasn't any ghost but rather a very specific Ghost--the Arabian Desert. She survived by her motto: haunt the living. She's always excelled at her job and was always ready to ply her trade. That day was no different. Other Ghosts had names and countless victims. I had already met Sahara, Artic, Mojave, Sonora, Puntland, and now Arabian. I had formally met the Ghost ten years earlier. She'd revealed herself while I chased warlords through the vast Somali desert. She'd come with her full force and wrath just a few miles from Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Somehow, some way, and by some chance of fate, I had escaped her. Or maybe she had purposefully spared me and my crew--a perverted game of cat and mouse. I knew then she felt cheated. She would not miss another chance to exact her brand of vengeance. This Ghost operated differently from the others. She didn't whisper a cold and unintelligible message into my ear. She didn't signal her presence with a shrill cry into the darkness. She wouldn't drag her chains across the floor or captain her haunted ship through an endless sea. Instead, she had real skills. She appeared subtle but simultaneously ruthless. A sister of the wind and a cousin of the sands. She could, and had, literally changed the weather. She would obliterate light, kill the sun, and strangle the moon. That night, she'd perform at an elite level, using every tool in her deviant kit. She represented exactly what the desert night had long become to me--a merciless, cunning, laugh-in-your-face, no-quarter-given jackal--and tonight, she seemed determined to win. I knew the Ghost followed me, looking for any chance to win. Winning creates so much friction and so many contradictions. The Ghost and I both worked in the business of winning. Perhaps, more accurately, we both worked in the vendetta business. She desired to settle a score for my unspecified crimes. I was here to fix a problem. No one calls for Marine attack helicopters when things are going well. The Marine Corps and the president had tasked me with this mission. Maybe we were there to right a wrong, like a fixer That mission implied simpler tasks like to fly, to fight, and to protect our brothers and sisters preparing to cross into the unknown. Foremost, I considered myself a servant, a loyal servant. Maybe a fixer was too cordial. Maybe I was less a fixer and more like a debt collector. Regardless of how I classified myself, that mission required prototypical Marine expeditionary operations. The nation called, and we responded. I simply needed to execute the same way I had for the last fifteen years. The Ghost presented just another target. Just another obstacle, right? Excerpted from Ghosts of Baghdad: Marine Corps Gunships on the Opening Days of the Iraq War by Eric Buer All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
