CHAPTER 10

Leading Up and Down the Chain of Command

Leif Babin

CAMP MARC LEE, RAMADI, IRAQ: LEADING DOWN THE CHAIN OF COMMAND
The night sky suddenly lit up like a laser light show at a rock concert.
Some distance across the river, U.S. security positions in the heart of
Ramadi were under attack. Almost immediately, American sentries
returned fire with a massive barrage from heavy machine guns, sending
their own streaks of brilliant orange-red tracers back at enemy positions.
Seconds passed before the distant rattle and boom of machine gun fire
mixed with intermittent explosions reached us. As any military veteran
knew, tracers were generally placed every fifth round in belt-fed
machine guns, which meant there was a hell of a lot of hot lead flying
around in the darkness that we couldn’t see. The distant firefight
continued for sometime. As Jocko and I watched, flaming streaks from
the engines of an unseen U.S. attack aircraft (likely a Marine F/A-18
Hornet) appeared in the sky over the distant fight. Light flashed as a
missile ignited off the wing, streaked across the sky, and exploded in a
brilliant burst of light. Hopefully, they had smoked the enemy without
any American casualties. It was all quite a show. But here in Ramadi, it