Marvel: A Lazy-Ass Superman

Chapter 796: Chapter 796: Assault on the City

Iraq isn’t entirely made up of deserts covered in fine yellow sand, where the dunes themselves seem to move with the wind after enough time has passed.

There are also vast stretches of barren wasteland where not a blade of grass grows, and the ground is considerably harder. Given enough time, however, these places would eventually become deserts as well, if no one took measures to restore vegetation.

How the Middle East changed was none of Henry’s concern before he crossed over, and it was no more his concern after crossing over.

The people who lived here had their own system of order and their own way of keeping society functioning. Those who claimed they were here to bring civilization and progress should first cure themselves of their arrogance, then open their eyes and take a good look at the world.

But such matters were even less the concern of an ordinary soldier. Complaining about it a little under his breath and spitting on the ground was already the limit of what Henry could do.

Fortunately, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force initially advanced along Iraq’s Highway 1. Although the route was obvious, it was much easier for a large force to travel along.

Blair’s reconnaissance squad, however, still preferred the old paths through the ordinary sandy terrain—the routes used by the locals and camel caravans—rather than taking the conspicuous highway and turning themselves into targets for the enemy.

Since entering Iraq, they actually hadn’t encountered any serious fighting.

Most of the time, they would simply appear wearing U.S. military uniforms and carrying their equipment, fire off a few shots, and the regular troops on the other side would run away.

Situations where one squad chased an entire battalion weren’t just happening in the real world. Henry was witnessing them with his own eyes.

Blair Proudstar was conservative and cautious by nature, so he refused to pursue too deeply, lest they be lured into an ambush.

But Henry genuinely felt that the people on the other side had no will to fight at all, rather than that they were deliberately feigning defeat.

The bigger nuisance was the civilian guerrillas who weren’t wearing military uniforms. They could suddenly pop out of nowhere and take potshots at them.

With a bold and careful Apache like Blair in Henry’s squad, whose danger sense was especially keen, they hadn’t encountered any situations where they were caught off guard.

But Henry had heard that the units farther behind had already suffered quite a few casualties from such ambushes.

On the third day of the invasion, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force had just captured the Rumaila oil field and was preparing to continue north toward Nasiriyah.

The city was the capital of Dhi Qar Governorate and the fourth-largest city in Iraq. It was predominantly Shiite.

Its importance as a transportation hub, combined with its proximity to Tallil Air Base, gave it immense strategic value.

It was a position that had to be taken.

Perhaps because the mutant battalion was always given the dirty work while the ordinary human units received the credit, the task of attacking an Iraqi city—a supposedly easy target—was handed to the 2nd Marine Division.

Urban warfare was one of the toughest forms of combat even in modern warfare.

Troops became scattered among the streets and buildings, while concrete structures were practically fortresses in their own right.

Unless the military discovered that an enemy had occupied a particular building as a firing position and was attacking friendly forces from it, they couldn’t simply call in artillery and flatten the place first.

Avoiding harm to civilians was still a basic principle of the armed forces of every country, especially for the multinational forces under the banner of bringing justice through the United Nations.

But once the enemy fired the first shot and their presence in an area was confirmed, it was as though the restrictions on the military had been lifted, allowing them to launch a full-scale counterattack.

Especially when the Americans attempted to seize the two main bridges in the city, they encountered unexpectedly fierce resistance.

During street fighting against armed militants who weren’t part of the Iraqi regular army, three Marines were killed.

In fierce fighting with Iraqi soldiers at the Saddam Canal, another eighteen Marines lost their lives.

An A-10 attack aircraft accidentally struck friendly forces, destroying a U.S. amphibious assault vehicle and killing all six Marines aboard.

Two more armored vehicles came under heavy attack from Iraqi RPGs and small arms. By the end, most of the Marines inside the vehicles had been killed.

A Marine from the 28th Air Control Group carrying a radio was singled out and taken down by an enemy sniper.

Two Marine combat engineers drowned in the Saddam Canal.

Only after paying such a heavy price did the U.S. forces finally gain control of the bridges and defeat the enemy. They then established a security perimeter around the city.

Don’t think that nearly forty casualties were insignificant in a war.

By the time the entire Iraq War reached the occupation of Baghdad, the coalition had suffered only 139 U.S. military casualties and 33 British military casualties.

Those forty or so casualties already amounted to nearly a quarter of the total casualties suffered throughout the entire war up to that point.

Although Henry wanted to express some sense of grief, any general looking at casualty figures like these—especially in a war involving an army of more than 200,000 mobilized troops—would probably be smiling instead...

Sitting in the open bed of a truck, Henry was enjoying his first ride in a motorized vehicle since the war had begun three days ago.

It wasn’t that the U.S. military didn’t have troop carriers.

They simply didn’t have enough to transport supplies while also carrying an army of more than 200,000 troops around.

So only units that had been urgently redeployed had the privilege of riding in the extremely uncomfortable beds of these large trucks.

Large formations of marching troops stretched along both sides of the road.

Most people still had to rely on their own two feet, staring enviously at those sitting in the trucks.

”Blair, where are we going?” someone asked their squad leader from inside the same truck.

”According to what the platoon leader said, we’re preparing to capture Tallil Air Base southwest of Nasiriyah. Apparently, it’s already been abandoned and there aren’t any defenders there. Lieutenant Colonel Ray Schoonover managed to secure this assignment for us with considerable difficulty.”

”In other words, we don’t get any of the good jobs where we can actually fight and earn credit. But there’s never any shortage of errands and grunt work.”

Blair replaced the lightweight camouflage sun hat he normally wore on reconnaissance missions with a steel helmet.

”One thing I’ve learned from being in the military is not to put too much faith in things you hear described as ’apparently’ or ’possibly.’ If someone tells you there’s a reward you can pick up for free and you believe it really is free, don’t complain when you get screwed over.”

Hearing this, the others also began adjusting their equipment.

Like the others, Henry had the standard U.S. Marine Corps haircut—a bowl cut, with the hair on top clipped short and the sides shaved completely bald. It had quite a bit of a Shamate aesthetic to it.

Henry followed the crowd and put on a steel helmet as well.

With his invulnerable steel body, of course he wasn’t afraid of bullets hitting him in the face.

But the steel helmet came with goggles that could be attached to it, which was much better than the sun hat, which could at most accommodate a pair of sunglasses he’d bought himself.

In the desert, even if they didn’t encounter a sandstorm, the issued goggles were still very useful whenever the wind picked up.

As for his own hair...

To be honest, one of the biggest reasons Henry suspected that this wasn’t the real world was that he could now manage his beard and hair with an ordinary razor and pair of scissors.

Modern soldiers kept their hair as short as possible, while Qing subjects were forced to shave their heads and leave only a queue, and Japanese samurai wore the chonmage.

These hairstyles, all of which came close to being bald, were entirely motivated by practicality.

Less hair meant it was easier to secure a helmet.

And having a properly secured helmet was an extremely important safeguard for one’s life, whether in the age of cold weapons or firearms.

In any case, no longer having to deal with his long hair and large beard every day was much less troublesome for Henry.

What concerned him now was that the progress of the war was almost identical to what he knew from before he crossed over.

So once again, this armed march was little different from a field trip.

Would the war end once he entered Baghdad and they achieved victory?

But if that was the case, where would his opportunity to break out of this situation appear?

However, the sound of an explosion in the distance interrupted Henry’s thoughts, as well as the laughter and conversation in the truck.

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