"Generation Kill's" Rudy Reyes, America's hottest Marine, explains the real world, with stern words for both President Bush and the rest of us

Sgt. Rudy Reyes, formerly of First Recon Battalion, the most elite unit of the Marines whose exploits have been essayed in the acclaimed HBO miniseries "Generation Kill," has many harrowing combat stories of his time in Iraq at the beginning of the war. But this one will have to suffice: the battle at Al Gharraf, which, despite its ferocity, yielded mercifully few American casualties.

"Oh my god, I felt the bullets going by me, my man!" says Reyes, a San Diego resident who served as a driver on First Recon's mission to push into Iraq ahead of all other units, with an incredulous laugh. (He's also the lone Marine to play himself in the miniseries.)

(Rudy, on the left, with his friend Eric Kocher, who also served in First Recon and was an advisor on "Generation Kill.")

"I thought I was going to be one of the casualties! I wasn't just scared; it was a different kind of fear. All of our vehicles were (susceptible to gunfire) except the lead vehicle. I was hunkered down" - he demonstrates by crouching and miming driving - "and all I could see was the space between the dashboard and the top of the steering wheel, and that's what I was looking at and bullets are going everywhere and my buddy is shooting right over my shoulder so one ear is gone because he was shooting so loud and the heavy gun up top is going. I'm like, 'Am I gonna make it?'"

A fellow Marine wasn't so lucky, taking a bullet to the leg, and Reyes was charged with driving him back to a triage center.

"It's the black of night, with laser beams flying in and out of us; three of my tires are blown out - my Humvee is bum-bump-bum-bump-bum-bump!" Reyes recalls during an interview over lunch.

His description is almost affectionate as he recalls his wounded colleague's mocking him during their evacuation: "He's like, 'Man, Rudy, you drive like s--t! You can't even stay on the road!' He's got his foot on the mirror, a tourniquet on his leg, he's still shooting; I'm thinking, 'Damn, I've got the best team in the world.'"

When the sun eventually rose, Reyes noticed a bullet hole in his windshield square in the driver's eyeline. Good thing he was crouching.

Reyes tells the story with awe and reverence and wit, the same qualities with which viewers have found "Generation Kill" itself imbued. Reyes is perhaps the most unique member of First Recon, a practicing Buddhist and top martial-arts fighter. He hardly comes off as a tough guy - while telling his stories, he touches my arm frequently and repeatedly calls me "brother."

In fact, Reyes is so unique that those working on "Generation Kill," from cast members to director Susanna White to Evan Wright, who wrote the book upon which the series is based and also contributed to the scripts, all insist no one else could have played him.

White, who affectionately calls Reyes "a sushi-eating Buddhist marine," recalls, "He was extraordinary. I said, 'I think Rudy should play himself.' It was very risky, but we would bring actors in and it became apparent no one could play Rudy other than Rudy. He is a unique creature."

Staff Sergeant Eric Kocher, who served with Reyes in First Recon and served as military advisor on "Generation Kill," adds, "I've been with him since the dawn of time; I was in Afghanistan with him, and he truly is one of a kind. You'll never find another Marine like him. ... Rudy won't fit in anywhere else but in the Recon community he fit in perfectly.

"In 10 years, he's never had bad day - he brings so much positive energy," Kocher continues. "He was training us in stretching exercises, stuff we wouldn't do if he wasn't there. He's a positive influence."

Stark Sands, who stars as Lt. Fick, recalls Reyes working out between takes, digging a boulder out of the ground and bench-pressing it. "He's uncastable," Sands says. "He has the physical form of a Greek statue. He almost always had perfectly coifed hair. He had product on his face. It's not what you'd expect from a cold-blooded killer. Nobody could do it like him. He's like a superhero."

Yes - in addition to his achieving a perfect balance between mind and body and his assignment, Reyes is also unmistakably Adonis-like. In both the book and the miniseries, a Marine insists, "It doesn't mean you're gay if you think Rudy's hot. We all think he's hot."

And yet, like many who served in Iraq, Reyes has come to question everything from the war plan to the way the Bush Administration has let the American people off the hook, to sort of conveniently overlook the fact that soldiers continue to put their lives on the line in the Middle East.

Even though he emerged from combat physically unscathed, Reyes says, "All of my gunshots are in my soul, not in my body. You still get injured, and you're still taking fire. Your naïveté is killed, and you see a part of a large piece of something - your guys, your enemy, the people caught in between - and that takes a toll on you.

"Very few people in this room would kill another person," he continues, referring to the other restaurant patrons. "To be trained and conditioned very hard to overcome the aversion to murder - it comes at a price. The good news is, because we know how to kill, we survive the battlefield. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is, it takes a toll on you." Reyes experienced that toll when his marriage dissolved when he returned home.

Reyes agrees with his former colleague Lt. Nathaniel Fick, who wrote a book criticizing the Pentagon's strategy, arguing that there weren't enough soldiers in Iraq to deal with the inevitable insurgency.

"That's true - we were put on the sideline after we had done what we were supposed to do from a marketing level, and it became our undoing," Reyes says. "And we're still paying for it now, and we'll probably be paying for it for another 10 years."

Reyes believes Americans should be able to see photos of the flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq with our soldiers.

"It will help us understand and embrace and maybe love those young men and young women even more and also be more involved with their government," he says. "If they saw these young men and women coming home (in flag-draped coffins), maybe they'd be mobilized and motivated about getting to the bottom of what we're doing over there. ... There's a giant elephant secret war in the room that nobody wants to speak about."

Instead, he senses a lot of civilian apathy. "And a lot of it comes from leadership from the top," he declares. "I'd love to talk to George Bush, and I have a feeling that he's not a bad guy, he just didn't listen to the right people around him and it got out of control. I'll bet you George Bush himself feels powerless. I'll bet you he doesn't want to look at the war, either. And his actions trickle down to the rest of the country - nobody wants to look at it. We rally behind some quasi-jingoistic anthems about patriotism and leave it at that.

"Marines don't feel connected to civilian Americans," Reyes adds. "We see ourselves as a breed apart, and that insulates us from their apathy." He pauses, considering his words, for a long time. His brother-in-arms Kocher may say that Reyes has never had a bad day, but clearly, this isn't a good moment.

"If we really thought about it, it would break our hearts, and I don't know that we would fight as well," Reyes concludes. "I don't know that we would survive."

*

This was the story I wrote for today's paper, which, given the Daily News' website, probably didn't run intact, if at all.

I first encountered Rudy at Coachella in April, and while we both enjoyed the music, I was fairly astounded both at his stories and how he exploded my preconceptions of military heroes (obviously, he changed lots of people's notions of Marines, as well). His soulfulness, thoughtfulness and insights underscored why he had been recruited as one of America's best of the best.

Here are a few items that didn't make its way into the story:

On how First Recon's mission differs from the usual regiment of military training:

"It is a dichotomy; it is left and right. In a way, we use that framework to our fullest. We learn to bend rules as much as possible, because on the outside, we must appear when necessary spit-and-polish. But on a mission, it's only you and four guys, no one else knows what it's like to spend four of five days with your eye almost burned out to the point of blindness behind a sniper scope. Mission reality is different from Marine Corps spit and polish."

On his last (secret) missions in Iraq: "This is typically what we would do - we were working some zones in Fallujah and Rimadi, which were hotbeds in 2004, the hottest areas. My platoon under cover of darkness would move in in Humvees to a checkpoint and conduct a checkpoint. My team would be spread low between each vehicle. Each of us would step out and then lay down in the reeds and the ditch and the vehicles would go away. We would have extra rockets, spike-strips, mines and the anti-materiel rifle. Control clandestine to a cut-off zone, so when the vehicles approaching the checkpoint slow down turn around and speed away instead of going to the checkpoint, we would interdict them with the spike strips and/or small arms and the rockets. This is a beautiful marriage of overt operations with covert operations. You can't beat it.

"We didn't wear helmets so our ears were more open. We were laden with assault gear, not body armor. We'd roll in civilian jalopies. We were doing all kinds of asymmetrical, bait-and-switch, counter-insurgency efforts up there."

On the fact that his unit went into situations expecting heavy fire from the enemy: "We didn't call it cannon fodder; we called it Recon by Fire."

On his squaring his Buddhist principals with First Recon's mission:

"We called our mentors Jedis, and in the 'Star Wars' culture, Jedis were space-born samurai who had ideals and honors and respects that exceeded the dynasties and day-to-day commerce. They had these ideals and code of honor. They were one with their light sabers. The nature of Recon work is attention to detail, and if you could boil down the practice of Buddhism to one word, it would be 'attention.' Attention to what you're holding onto, attention to what you must let go, attention to another human being's suffering and struggles. Attention's great, and Recon work is some ways is very very Buddhist - sniper work - everything is attention. Not good or bad, not positive or negative. But attention."

On Combat Dive, a facet of training (which costs Americans $1 million for each First Recon Marine, worth every penny given how assiduous their training is) in which trainees are taught how to be kept from being drowned, just as they're essentially being drowned):

"Combat Dive (is) the most difficult and arduous dive school of any of the special forces. ... It teaches you to be in an environment that's not conducive to human life, to be under an extreme amount of stress as (your instructors) attack you, choke you and then try to take your air away.

"You must hold on to your strap for as long as it takes - it may be up to a minute sub-surface of them attacking you and spinning you around and taking off your fins and weight belt and so on. And then they let go - you are only thinking pro-actively: What are my procedures to get my air back? And how do I do it in an environment with other Marines so that it's safe (for them)? So we don't just get our air back - first we look left, then we look right; this is after a minute of guys beating you up and choking you and smashing your head into the deck of the pool. Left, right, up, down - why?

"Because you're going to pull your air tanks over you - what if there's one of your dive buddies up there and you smash him in the face? Secure your air source, fix your problem, untie the knot (in the air hose), and if you keep your head together systematically, you can get back in the mission.

"It teaches mental fortitude and toughness and also mental checklist: You'll be all right, your buddy will be all right and your mission will be all right. ... When you go to combat dive, you're so confident that the course has set you up for success. The first time, I didn't last five seconds before I was (wildly gesticulates) and the instructor smashes a regulator in your mouth so you can breathe. I was so scared; it's so otherworldly, them taking all your stuff and you're panicking and you're burning up all that air you have in you. That night, I seriously wondered if I had what it takes. But I showed up the next day, as always. Shame is a motivator."

On how First Recon's mission differs from the usual regiment of military training:

"It is a dichotomy; it is left and right. In a way, we use that framework to our fullest. We learn to bend rules as much as possible, because on the outside, we must appear when necessary spit-and-polish. But on a mission, it's only you and four guys, no one else knows what it's like to spend four of five days with your eye almost burned out to the point of blindness behind a sniper scope. Mission reality is different from Marine Corps spit and polish."

On his last (secret) missions in Iraq: "This is typically what we would do - we were working some zones in Fallujah and Rimadi, which were hotbeds in 2004, the hottest areas. My platoon under cover of darkness would move in in Humvees to a checkpoint and conduct a checkpoint. My team would be spread low between each vehicle. Each of us would step out and then lay down in the reeds and the ditch and the vehicles would go away. We would have extra rockets, spike-strips, mines and the anti-materiel rifle. Control clandestine to a cut-off zone, so when the vehicles approaching the checkpoint slow down turn around and speed away instead of going to the checkpoint, we would interdict them with the spike strips and/or small arms and the rockets. This is a beautiful marriage of overt operations with covert operations. You can't beat it.

"We didn't wear helmets so our ears were more open. We were laden with assault gear, not body armor. We'd roll in civilian jalopies. We were doing all kinds of asymmetrical, bait-and-switch, counter-insurgency efforts up there."

On the fact that his unit went into situations expecting heavy fire from the enemy: "We didn't call it cannon fodder; we called it Recon by Fire."

On his squaring his Buddhist principals with First Recon's mission:

"We called our mentors Jedis, and in the 'Star Wars' culture, Jedis were space-born samurai who had ideals and honors and respects that exceeded the dynasties and day-to-day commerce. They had these ideals and code of honor. They were one with their light sabers. The nature of Recon work is attention to detail, and if you could boil down the practice of Buddhism to one word, it would be 'attention.' Attention to what you're holding onto, attention to what you must let go, attention to another human being's suffering and struggles. Attention's great, and Recon work is some ways is very very Buddhist - sniper work - everything is attention. Not good or bad, not positive or negative. But attention."

On his father, who fought in Vietnam:

"My father was a Vietnam veteran, a Marine, and he fought for two tours, and he never came back right. I didn't know him ever. I never saw him, and I've only now gotten to know his family. He died when I was in Afghanistan.

"On my search for myself when I came back from my last tour, because I was having such problems mentally and emotionally, I looked for him. I got to know my aunts and uncles. After Vietnam, he was never the same guy - he was sick all the time, he had some problems with Agent Orange. He was on psychological medication and died very young, at 51. He never told anyone about me, that he had a son. He always seemed sad, and was told he'd be prone to emotion. It's funny, it's a lot of the same things I still go through. Amazing - that was 30 years ago, and here I am, going through the same thing. But no - I'm experiencing the same things, but I'm changing my behavior and I'm looking to make a difference.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this, but what I mean is, not a lot has changed over the last couple of decades, the last couple of hundred years, the last couple of thousand years, in terms of what happens when people go away to fight and come home. We have this incredible ability for technology and communication now, yet Marines, soldiers, airmen, sailors are still struggling just as they were a millennium ago."

- "Generation Kill:" 9 tonight (and repeated a whole lot), HBO.