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in the battalion.
    “I have decided,” Morris wrote, “not to announce casualty information via the Battalion’s webpage, because I think it will be less mentally draining on families over time than announcing every casualty we sustain as soon as it happens.”
    He had a tough time composing that letter. He knew every family was poring over the daily news bulletins. Names of the fallen, however, were not released until a full day after the next of kin had been notified. Even then, in order not to provide intelligence to the enemy, the location of the incident was not revealed. This meant hundreds of families held their breath for two to three days, not knowing who was ringing the doorbell.
    The families stayed constantly in touch. Patty Schumacher, whose son Victor had been killed on the 13th, talked with Mark and Teresa Soto. Mark had been Victor’s high school football coach. Together, the three launched a Facebook page entitled “The Boys of 3/5.” A news story about each fallen Marine in 3/5 appeared on the page.
    “At the time,” Morris later told NPR, “I was wondering, what were we doing wrong?”

Chapter 3
WITH THE OLD BREED
    “We fight, bleed, lose buddies, and get shit done.”
    —JEREMY MORENO, CALIFORNIA
    What shocked 3rd Platoon was that it happened so fast. Ten percent of the unit was gone in one thunderous clap, blood and limbs strewn about. Big Country, their cheerful platoon commander, had left them. One day they were intact, and the next day they were leaderless, with holes blown in their ranks.
    “We lost so many so fast,” LCpl. Trevor Halcomb, twenty-two, said. “I wasn’t sure I’d get back to Texas to have a happy, healthy family and a house with a white picket fence.”
    Captain Nick Johnson knew 3rd Platoon’s morale had sunk. A student of history, Johnson had devoured Cpl. E. B. Sledge’s harrowing book,
With the Old Breed
. Sledge, who had served in KiloCompany during World War II, depicted battle as a pitiless monster. The “old breed” of Marines, expecting that many among them would die, bottled up their emotions and fought stoically. Kilo’s radio call sign was Sledgehammer. Knowing 3rd Platoon needed a man like Sledge, Captain Johnson reached for the hardest lieutenant he knew.
    Second Lt. Victor Garcia looked like a walking rock. If you saw him with a scowl on his face, you’d cross to the other side of the street. He spoke softly and with excellent diction. At thirty-six, he was the oldest lieutenant in the battalion. His parents had immigrated from Mexico to the Salinas farming community in California, where his father was a mechanic. His older brother had served in the Marines, and his two sisters were computer designers.
    In high school, Garcia was a champion heavyweight wrestler with mediocre grades. He had joined the Marines in response to a recruiter’s classic gambit that he couldn’t hack it. He liked being a grunt, and did three combat tours in Iraq, progressing from squad leader to platoon sergeant to company gunny. Officers, though, gave the orders, and he wanted to make his own decisions in battle. Selected to attend college as part of the officers program, he enrolled at San Diego State, where he weekly wore his uniform to class. He found the students to be friendly, if a bit intimidated by a Marine gunny. He graduated in two years with straight As, except for a B in Women’s Studies.
    Assigned to Kilo Company, he had hoped to command a platoon. But after five years of deployments, he knew how to control mortars, rockets, artillery, and air. That experience landed him at company headquarters as the Fire Support Officer. Now Johnson needed an experienced leader in the field.
    “Pack your gear,” he told Garcia, “and take over 3rd. Keep the platoon here at company until you get your feet wet.”
    That was it. No rah-rah speech, no pep talk.
    Day 4. 24,000 Steps
    Garcia called together 3rd Platoon for the first time. The numbed Marines knew he had