Why Grunts Fight. What They See And What They Say.

Why Grunts Fight. What They See And What They Say.

Keith Nightingale

Examine this photo.  It tells an immense story if only carefully observed.  It depicts Marine Grunts, but the Army has the same experience.  It is about the Grunts going about their labors on a particularly bad day.  It is all about our human citizen soldiers doing what is required, when it is required.  As it is always.  Once engaged personally and organizationally, there is no free space.  Free within the mind of what happened and what will.  What will always be.

The image captures why uncommon valor is a common virtue amongst the brotherhood of blood. It shows why our Infantry carries all before it- united human beings in the midst of inhuman things. It shows bonding and a grim determination.  It also shows what cannot be seen: the inner images of the mind, retained always.

This is a street in Hue during Tet 1968.  It shows a moment in time of the remains of Delta Company, First of the Fifth Marines.  They have been ground from companies to platoons and platoon to squads.  Battalions have vanished for a city block or a building across a once tree-lined street.  It is a microcosm of combat all Infantry understand, accept and later repress in the individual internal continuous combats of the soul. Brady and O’Sullivan captured similar scenes in the Civil War as did Life in WW II and David Douglas Duncan at Khe Sanh.  It is the reality of war shown in a highly personal way-which war truly is.  A very personal affair.

Faces and forms show the resolve of the Infantry when part of a cohesive unit immersed in a dire situation. A resolve that carried our Nation through centuries of warfare from Bunker Hill to Gettysburg to San Juan Hill to Chateau Thierry to Tarawa, Omaha, Intramuros and Bastogne. From the Chosin to Hamburger and Khe Sanh.  From the Twin Towers to Falluja to Restropo.

This is an iron history of ordinary people raising themselves to do extraordinary things.  They can do no more than done because they could do no less.

Study the group-unposed and unrehearsed.  There is no rank other than the dominance of personalities and purpose. They are together to do what must be done and to accept the consequences as they have already seen. 

They show grief, shock, disbelief, wonderment, anger and determination.  They are simply people performing inhuman tasks but displaying the utter humanity of their core. All across the cities and fields of the country at this moment in time, the scene is and will be repeated.  All combat is small unit and this displays the effect at its best…..while at its worst.

Some are tending their wounded brothers as best their simple capabilities will allow.  The ministering is more personal than medical.  They were brothers moments ago in common cause.  Now some are reduced to the common detritus of the battlefield.  To be secured, comforted and removed for others.  The work must go on and both the casualties and the well understand that.

Gear is collected.  Combat can be neat with a moment’s pause.  More important in their mind, the material is removed from enemy use and available for their application.

A puzzled Grunt looks up.  What Hell have I seen?  What is next?  He is stationary, in near shock but he soon will recover and receive direction.  He will obey and return to his infantry core.  As will them all.

The direction may come from the informal leader on the left.  He grips a primal tool in the struggle and he grips it well.  He knows its subtleties and nuances and proper application. He displays a sense of satisfaction with his skills. The tenseness in his arm belies his focus and his welling impatience.  He wants to get on with the business at hand and wants the others to be with him in concert.  He is impatient to begin again.  A building awaits clearing.  A street must be crossed.  Our blood price will be paid.

There is work to be done, and we have to do it.  Refocus.  Regroup.  Move out.  This is what we do.  We can do no less.  We must do more. We are Infantry. This is what we do.

Soon the scene and personalities here will change to more administrative actions and nature.  The second echelons that follow and sweep the junk left behind.

Up ahead, the now smaller group will act as they must.  Sustain what casualties they will and repeat.  This will be their life and always has been.  The time, the enemy, the tools, will all change and in the larger sense be the same.  The camera caught one small microcosm of what Grunts do all the time, everywhere.

What they do is largely unstated to anyone at any other time other than to their very small brotherhood in future peaceful gatherings.

The families of these images will see the man returned and note his familiarity.  Then they will note his differences. These were born by what has just occurred, what is captured in the image and what we will not see but know with assurance as to what will occur.

We will not see the images of the mind, but we can appreciate how they got there.