Fun with the Big Shots

Now that they were here, I joined them and started doing some DAs. Intel would find an IED-maker or maybe a financer, give us the intel, and we’d go in and snag him. We’d hit them very early in the morning—blow his door down, rush inside, and take him before he even had a chance to get out of bed.

This went on for about a month. By now, DAs were pretty much an old routine; they were a hell of a lot less dangerous in Baghdad than in Fallujah.

We were living out near BIAP—Baghdad International Airport—and working from there. One day, my chief came over and gave me a chiefly grin.

“You’ve got to have some fun, Chris,” he told me. “You need to do a little PSD.”

He was using SEAL sarcasm. PSD stands for “personal security detail”—bodyguard duty. The platoon had been assigned to provide security for high-ranking Iraqi officials. The insurgents had started kidnapping them, trying to disrupt the government. It was a pretty thankless job. So far, I’d been able to avoid it, but it seemed my ninja smoke had run out. I left and went over to the other side of the city and the Green Zone. (The Green Zone was a section of central Baghdad that was created as a safe area for the allies and the new Iraqi government. It was physically cut off from the rest of the city by cement walls and barbed wire. There were only a few ways in and out, and these were under strict control. The U.S. and other allied embassies were located there, as were Iraqi government buildings.)

I lasted an entire week.

The Iraqi officials, so-called, were notorious for not telling their escorts what their schedules were or giving details on who was supposed to be traveling with them. Given the level of security in the Green Zone, that was a significant problem.

I acted as “advance.” That meant I would go ahead of an official convoy, make sure the route was safe, and then stand at the security checkpoint and ID the convoy vehicles as they came through. This way the Iraqi vehicles could move through the checkpoints quickly without becoming targets.

One day, I was advance for a convoy that included the Iraqi vice president. I’d already checked the route and arrived at a Marine checkpoint outside the airport.

Baghdad International was on the other side of the city from the Green Zone. While the grounds themselves were secure, the area around it and the highway leading to the gate still came under occasional fire. It was a prime terror target, since the insurgents could pretty much figure that anyone going in or out was related to the Americans or the new Iraqi government in some way.

I was on radio coms with one of my boys in the convoy. He gave me the details on who was in the group, how many vehicles we had, and the like. He also told me that we had an Army Hummer in the front and an Army Hummer in the back—simple markers I could pass along to the guards.

The convoy came flying up, Hummer in the lead. We counted off the vehicles and lo, there was the last Hummer taking up the rear.

All good.

All of a sudden, two more vehicles appeared behind them in hot pursuit.

The Marines looked at me.

“Those two are not mine,” I told them.

“What do you want us to do?”

“Pull your Hummer out and train that .50 on them,” I yelled, pulling up my M-4.

I jumped out in the roadway, gun raised, hoping that would get their attention.

They didn’t stop.

Behind me, the Hummer had pulled up, and the gunner was locked and loaded. Still unsure whether I was dealing with a kidnapping or just some stray vehicles, I fired a warning shot.

The cars veered off and hauled ass the other way.

Thwarted kidnapping? Suicide bombers who’d lost their nerve?

No. Come to find out, these were two friends of the vice president. He’d forgotten to tell us about them.

He wasn’t too pleased. My command wasn’t too pleased, either. I got fired from my PSD job, which wouldn’t have been all that bad except that I then had to spend the next week sitting in the Green Zone doing nothing.

My platoon leadership tried to get me back for some DAs. But the head shed had decided to stick it to me a bit, and kept me twiddling my thumbs. That is the worst possible torture for a SEAL—missing out on the action.

Luckily, they didn’t hang on to me for too long.

Haifa Street

In December 2005, Iraq geared up for national elections, its first since the fall of Saddam—and the first free and fair ones the country had ever held. The insurgency was doing everything it could to stop them. Election officials were being kidnapped left and right. Others were executed in the streets.

Talk about your negative campaigning.

Haifa Street in Baghdad was a particularly dangerous place. After three election officials were killed there, the Army put together a plan to protect officials in the area.

The strategy called for snipers to do overwatches.

I was a sniper. I was available. I didn’t even have to raise my hand.

I joined an Army unit from the Arkansas National Guard, a great bunch of good ol’ boys, warriors all.

People who are used to the traditional separation between the different military branches may think it’s unusual for a SEAL to be working with the Army, or even the Marines for that matter. But the forces were often well-integrated during my time in Iraq.

Any unit could put in an RFF (Request for Forces). That request would then get filled by whatever service was available. So if a unit needed snipers, as they did in this case, whatever branch had available snipers would ship them over.

There’s always back-and-forth between sailors, soldiers, and Marines. But I saw a lot of respect between the different branches, at least during the fighting. I certainly found most of the Marines and soldiers I worked with to be top-notch. You had your exceptions—but then you have your exceptions in the Navy, too.

The first day I reported for my new assignment, I thought I’d need an interpreter. Some people like to harass me about my Texas twang, but these hillbillies—holy shit. The important information came from the senior enlisted and the officers, who spoke regular English. But the privates and junior guys straight out of the backwoods could have been talking Chinese, for all I knew.

We started working on Haifa Street right near where the three election officials had been killed. The National Guard would secure an apartment building to use as a hide. Then I’d go in, pick out an apartment, and set up.

Haifa Street was not exactly Hollywood Boulevard, though it was the place to be if you were a bad guy. The street ran about two miles, from Assassin’s Gate at the end of the Green Zone and up to the northwest. It was the scene of numerous firefights and gun battles, all sorts of IED attacks, kidnappings, assassinations—you name it and it happened on Haifa. American soldiers dubbed it Purple Heart Boulevard.

The buildings we used for overwatches were fifteen to sixteen stories tall, and had a commanding view of the road. We moved around to the extent that we could, shifting locations to keep the insurgents off-balance. There were an untold number of hideouts in the squat buildings beyond the immediate highway, all up and down the street. The bad guys didn’t have much of a commute to get to work.

The insurgents here were a real mix; some were mujahedeen, former Baath or Iraqi Army guys. Others were loyal to al-Qaeda in Iraq or Sadr or some of the other whackadoos out there. At the start, they’d wear black or sometimes these green sashes, but once they realized that set them apart, they resorted to wearing regular civilian clothes just like everyone else. They wanted to mix with civilians to make it more difficult for us to figure out who they were. They were cowards, who not only would hide behind women and children, but probably hoped we’d kill the women and children, since in their minds it helped their cause by making us look bad.

One afternoon, I watched a young teenage kid waiting for the bus below me. When the bus pulled up, a group of older teenagers and young adults got off. All of a sudden, the kid I was watching turned and started walking very quickly in the opposite direction.

The group caught up quickly. One of them pulled out a pistol and put his arm around the kid’s neck.

As soon as he did that, I started shooting. The kid I was protecting took off. I got two or three of his would-be kidnappers; the others got away.

The sons of the election officials were a favorite target. The insurgents would use the families to put pressure on the officials to drop out. Or else they’d just kill the family members as a warning to others not to help the government hold the elections or even vote.

Date: 2016-01-03; view: 558