Dinner and a Show in Iraq

By Brennan Morton

After graduating from the University of New Hampshire, Brennan Morton joined the Marine Corps and went on to become a sniper, breacher, and team leader in a Reconnaissance Battalion. He deployed for two combat tours in Iraq before opening a gym in Northeastern Pennsylvania, where he currently lives with Christine and their daughter Pepper. Below is an excerpt from his 2025 book Valhalla Boys: Marine Recon Sniper in Iraq. A memoir that reads like a novel, Brennan began writing it at the suggestion of his VA therapist.

The predeployment briefings were quite clear: do not eat any of the local cuisine or imbibe any liquids not from a sealed bottle of known origin.

No exceptions.

It was an easy rule to follow at first. Everything about our surroundings assaulted our senses in such a way that made the stomach clench; any idea of hunger dissolved into a mild sense of nausea. The smell of burning rubber and rotting vegetables did little to whet our appetites for the first month.

I can remember the first time we were given an MRE in Basic. The future warriors oohed and ahhed as we ripped open the vault-like plastic casing and dumped our treasures in front of us. It was like Christmas morning. We were shown how to make pudding from the cocoa powder mix, a creamer packet, and a little water. We nearly lost our minds when we were shown how to use the heating pouch to warm our meal to a few degrees above room temperature. MREs seemed like manna from heaven and we looked forward to the day when we were allowed to take as many as we could hump out on mission.

After a month in the desert, the mere sight of the tan package made my stomach knot. I loathed everything about them, and dreaded whenever we had to pick out eight or ten from the cardboard box of assorted meals to pack for our next mission. It was always a choice of the lesser of 12 flavored evils.

There was no right choice. There were only choices that seemed less horrible than the next. The major decision was always a palatable main-meal pouch and no worthwhile sides, or a completely inedible main meal with some decent accoutrements. When the first perfect stranger offered us candy—in the form of fresh vegetables, hummus, and fresh baked flat bread—I took it without question.

Our platoon had taken over a house to hold out in for a day before moving out again after dark. Our host, if one was to call a pseudo-hostage such a thing, was most gracious. He told stories of how the insurgents had come into his village and threatened the heads of the families with great violence if they did not hide some of the insurgents by pretending they were visiting family. Some of the families had refused and the insurgents were swift and cruel in their punishment. The families retaliated, and suddenly the 75-square-mile area of farmland became a checkerboard of families who were either in bed with the insurgents or fought them tooth and nail.

To celebrate such an unexpected pleasure of helping the forces aligned against the insurgents, our host prepared a feast. The women of the house brought out trays the size of truck tires piled high with steaming bread, freshly picked vegetables, and thick spreads that resembled hummus but came in myriad different flavors and textures.

“Eat,” he said beaming, putting his hand to mouth in the universal sign.

“You first,” Sergeant Bronx replied, smiling. Poison was not outside the realm of possibility and Sergeant Bronx took no chances with the warriors in his charge. The interpreter translated and the host nodded his understanding. He sampled a bit of everything to show that none of it was tainted and then beamed again.

“Eat!”

“If you eat this, you all know there is a good chance of Montezuma’s revenge. So, eat at your own risk,” Sergeant Bronx said.

I did not hesitate. I grabbed a handful of warm, earthy bread and shoved it in my gaping maw without a second thought. I followed it with some vegetables slathered in various dips, quickly followed by more bread. There was a white, milky substance that tasted like sour cream, but in drink form, and I sloshed down even more bread with the liquid. Clark sat down beside me smiling and the rest of the platoon looked on as we made a significant dent in one of the enormous platters of food. We ate and ate, laughing quietly at the knowledge that in a day, perhaps less, our digestive tracts would in all probability be overwhelmed by bacteria foreign to our bodies, leading to an indiscriminate purge. The baby would be thrown out with the bathwater and there would be nothing to do but ride it out.

“Crazy idiots,” someone mumbled as he shook his head at our satiated faces and round, full bellies.

We thought we had been spared but, two days later, our bodies went into full revolt. Nothing could have prepared me for the utter lack of control.

A single gurgle and I had, at most, twenty seconds to find a “safe” place to squat down before my body simply let go. I spent an entire day within arm’s reach of a toilet on base. I would drop down with my flight suit at my ankles and sweat profusely, as all the water I had tried to replace in the previous three hours sprayed out of me like a showerhead in terrible spasms. Nothing stayed in my body for more than a few hours and, no matter what color it started out as, it all came out a stygian black that only had a chance of being considered “normal” in hospice facilities.

“You, Spears, and I are going on a mission tonight,” Ballas said with a grin. My stomach gurgled in reply and I bent forward. “Told you not to eat that shit.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s much better now,” I lied.

“Let’s hope so. I need you tonight. Sniper OP looking for a shithead that is suspected to be digging in an IED on a stretch of road we use occasionally.”

There was no better mission than a long-range ambush on an unsuspecting fiend. The risk was wonderfully low while the payoff was disproportionately high. The only problem was gambling on exactly which patch of road the insurgent might decide to take the shovel to rarely paid off. Still, the chance to watch Ballas put a round center-mass into an insurgent who never even saw us was worth whatever gastrointestinal hell awaited me. Whatever microbe was swimming around in my guts would run its course either way.

We snuck into a cement house under the cover of darkness and rounded up the family. We handed the father a clearly printed index card that read in Arabic: “We are U.S. military forces conducting an important mission. We need you to hand over all cell phones and weapons in the house. Please stay in the room we show you and do not come out until we tell you it is safe. Thank you for your cooperation.”

While Spears kept security from the rooftop, Ballas held security on the family while I looked for a room without windows in the house. Once found, I searched every possible hiding place, of which there were few. Once we were confident there were no weapons or means of communication hidden away, we corralled the family inside the sterile room. We put our fingers to our lips; they nodded in understanding. I stacked some empty tin cans against the door as an early warning device should the family open the door before we came to get them. We slipped up onto the roof and Ballas deployed his scoped rifle while we set up our security.

Two hours later, our unsuspecting digger had not arrived.

My stomach gurgled and I inhaled sharply. “Going down,” I whispered into my headset.

Ten seconds.

I scrambled across the roof and stumbled down into the stairwell.

Seven seconds.

I tore at my zipper as my stomach groaned loudly.

Five seconds.

I ripped down my flight suit and held open a wag-bag underneath my squatting body, one hand in front and one behind, on the landing of the stairwell.

One second.

There was a contraction in my torso that left me breathless and gnashing my teeth as I tried to keep from shaking so hard that I might tumble down the next flight of stairs to the ground floor. I heard someone stir in the family’s room.

Time’s up.

I could not breathe in between contractions; I gave up on holding the bag. I dropped it and gripped the handrail with one hand, while keeping my rifle clutched tightly into my shoulder, and trained on the door the family was hopefully sound asleep behind, with the other. Aiming for the wag bag had ceased to be a priority.

“Oh my God,” I moaned as the contractions brought thick beads of hot sweat to my red, strained face. “Fuck,” I whimpered as I felt my body kick repeatedly, my abs pulling so tight between breaths I thought my spine would snap.

Things could not get any worse, I thought.

The cans in front of the door toppled over with a shrill metal clatter. I threw the barrel of my rifle across my arm, straining to keep my body upright, and with a flick of my thumb a red holographic crosshair suddenly appeared, floating between my eye and the doorway. I steadied myself for the firefight that was about to ensue, as my body spasmed and evacuated black water into what I hoped was a plastic bag and not my flight suit.

We had placed a lamp beside the door and erected a small, hasty barricade in the stairwell to block the view of anyone standing in the doorway to the windowless room. It would take but a moment for their eyes to adjust and make out my silhouette, but a moment was all I would need.

The door swung open a foot and I pulled the rifle tight into my shoulder. Despite the well-built automatic rifle gripped in my hand, I had never felt so vulnerable in all of my life. I had always hoped I would not shit my pants after being shot, but I had never figured on being shot while in the middle of shitting my pants.

A little four-year-old boy with enormous brown eyes slipped through the doorway and toddled up to our hasty barricade.

I moved the crosshair back to the doorway as the boy stood silently at the foot of the stairs. My body, suddenly aware the boy was not a threat, released a terrible wave of contractions that made me shake violently.

“Ohgoddddddd,” I whimpered, my voice drowned out by the outrageous sounds coming from my shaking hips. “Ohmyfuckkkkkk.”

The boy continued to stare up at the barricade and suddenly opened his hands up to the sky and shrugged.

“Mistah,” he called out. “Okay, mistah?”

“Fuuuuckkkk,” I moaned as I shook and drooled from my clenched mouth.

“Mistah, okay?”

“Go away,” I moaned.

“Mistah,” the boy said, turning his head to the sound of my voice. “Okay, mistah?” He extended his hands forward, fingers splayed, in supplication.

“Go back to sleep,” I whispered and then grunted.

“Mistah?”

“Pleeeeeeease go back to bed,” I begged, tears running down from the sides of my cheeks. The boy stared at the dark shadow moaning from behind the crude, childish fort constructed out of sheet metal and blankets.

“Okay, mistah?”

“Yes,” I mewled. I tried to think of the Arabic word for yes and tossed out the two possibilities that popped in my mind. One of the words must have been right, because the boy cocked his head sideways in skepticism and then dropped his arms to his sides after a moment.

He stepped back away from the stairs and moved silently to the crack in the door. Before slipping through, he turned once more.

“Okay, mistah?”

“Yes, yes,” I whimpered and threw out the magic words again. He shrugged, slipped back inside the room, and pulled the door closed behind him.

I lowered my rifle and grasped the banister with both hands, laying my sweating forehead down across my forearms as I sobbed quietly.

And then as fast as it had come on, it was gone. My stomach was mercifully quiet and my chest slowed its heaving until my breath was steady and even again. I took a deep breath, wiped my brow, and then cleaned myself up with a wet nap. It was like cleaning up the Exxon oil spill with a bathroom handcloth.

More than anything in the world, I suddenly wanted a drink of water. I crawled back into my position on the roof underneath the beautiful stars and drank deep from my Nalgene.

“You okay?” Ballas said over our three-man net. I could hear his grin in the question.

“Think I just scared the shit outta some kid. I think he thought I was dying on his staircase. I kinda felt like it there for a minute.”

“Everything good?” He was not asking about my stomach.

“All asleep and contained.”

Excerpted from Valhalla Boys: Marine Recon Sniper in Iraq by Brennan Morton. Copyright 2025 © Brennan Morton. Reprinted with permission from Casemate Publishers. All rights reserved.

Valhalla Boys is a raw, reflective, and often poetic meditation on combat, brotherhood, and the darkness that war leaves behind. Drawing comparisons to Tim O’Brien, Morton invites readers into the mind of a Marine Recon sniper struggling to make sense of a war with no clear purpose. Valhalla Boys (Casemate Books) is available online at major booksellers.

View Brennan talking about his experiences on our VBC livestream at veteransbreakfastclub.org/valhalla-boys-marine-recon-sniper-in-iraq-brennan-morton/