Summary

A group of insurgents is taken out by heavy artillery on a checkpoint ten kliks to the south. At the chow hall the Marines are giddy and still excited about the assault. Sanchez says that after two months it was about time they killed someone. They hadn’t needed the whole battery but it was fun. The men are guessing at how many they killed. Someone suggests as much as 40 or 6.6 people per gun. Divided by the nine Marines on the guns, each man killed .7 people – a torso and a head or a torso and a leg. Another battalion hit first and may have killed the insurgents. But some may have still been alive. Their artillery may have killed some who were dying.

Jewett says he doesn’t feel like he killed anyone. Sanchez and Voorstadt says it was good. They killed...