Back in April, I wrote about attending an event for veterans-turned-authors where former Marine Cpl. Kacy Tellessen talked about his Iraq War book Freaks of a Feather: A Marine Grunt’s Memoir. Every service member, especially those who’ve served in war, has a book’s worth of stories. When I spoke with Tellessen, I immediately knew the book he wrote must be a good one.
As a teenager, Tellessen became fascinated by the military and Marines in particular, reading Homer’s The Iliad, World War II books, and books about Marines in Vietnam. In 2005, at age 17, he enlisted. “You don’t join the Marine infantry unless you want to fight, especially in a time of war,” Tellessen said.
By 2006, Tellessen got his wish and was shipped to Iraq. There, his unit’s leadership became convinced of the presence of a large enemy weapons cache in a green area near the Euphrates River they called Palm Groves.
Tellessen’s commanding officer ordered his squad to form a line side by side and spread across a wide area, sweeping forward on foot in one line, searching for the weapons, finding none. Unable to accept the possibility that there was no weapons cache in Palm Groves, the commander ordered this patrol three or four times in one week.
Tellessen’s unit’s officers were ostensibly trained in military tactics, yet even the most inexperienced enlisted Marines knew patrolling the same route many times invited attack. But the commander was determined that his unit conduct the most patrols in the battalion, perhaps to win a medal for the actions and sacrifices of his men. A week later, the Marines were ordered to sweep Palm Groves again.
Tellessen moved forward, carrying his weapon, sweating under his helmet and heavy armor through the punishing heat. One hundred yards ahead, another Marine company’s Humvees were parked where they’d parked before, providing forward security. Next to his Humvee, a Marine smoked a cigarette. Tellessen glanced at his feet. He looked up. The Humvee exploded. IED! A hard shockwave knocked through Tellessen.
There was a rule against rushing to assist IED casualties for fear of enemy secondary IEDs, but Tellessen and his Marines ran to help. The Humvee had parked directly over a cluster of concealed 155-millimeter artillery shells, each packing 10-15 pounds of TNT. The Humvee was gone, as were the Marines who’d been nearby.
“The trees were painted with human,” Tellessen said. The earlier lighthearted tone in our conversation was replaced by a cold pain in his voice. “It’s not like the movies. You don’t get to cut away to a better time. You have to stay and clean up.”
Human remains were everywhere. The armor vests kept torsos largely intact, but other than that there were arms, hands, and other less identifiable remains. Tellessen and his fellow Marines placed the pieces in ponchos, trying to get them as whole as possible before sending them home to their families.
After the gruesome detail, they had to wait for the wrecker to come pick up the shredded Humvee. The wreckers, busy hauling destroyed vehicles all day, took forever. Tellessen’s squad was there 10 hours after the explosion, wishing all the while that the cowardly enemy would return to give them a stand-up fight.
Sorrow for the Marines lost, anger toward the officers who ordered repeated patrols along the exact same route, and the horror over what he saw that day bothered Tellessen through his second Iraq deployment in 2008 and for years after.
I asked why he wrote Freaks of a Feather.
“I was in a real dark place before I started writing,” he said. “Writing helped me process things. There’s a whole generation of us [Iraq] veterans out there. We have to keep these stories alive.”
I’m inspired by the example of Tellessen who, struggling to recount these painful stories, maintains the memory and honor of our brave fallen warriors.
Trent Reedy, author of several books including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
*Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.
