The Bremer Detail (11 page)

Almost everybody on the team was happy I would not be leaving. My wife and kids were not as happy as the team. Thirty days had now been extended to an undetermined time period. In a weird way I was extremely excited to be seeing this through to the end. The ambassador had paid me a huge compliment and had given me a huge endorsement. I felt good that apparently all the stuff I had been juggling and dealing with was really worth the time and effort. Blackwater, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as happy as they made out to be on the phone with the ambassador’s staff. I got a call from Blackwater HQ later that day and was basically accused of leveraging my relationship with the ambassador so I could stay in the country and make more money. Of course, the ambassador had nothing to do with this decision, as I had apparently brainwashed him and it was not that we were doing an excellent job. We hadn’t just survived a fairly sophisticated assassination attempt, had we? Once again, Blackwater HQ was out of touch with the ground truth, and was trying to run the show from the safety of their office trailer in Moyock.

At this time I learned that the majority of my e-mail communication was not being passed along to everyone who should be seeing it at Blackwater HQ. Apparently a few members of the division had been kept in the dark about some of my concerns and did not know that the ambassador had expressed concern about the rotations and other issues. From this point forward I copied everyone on the e-mails. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. And magically a lot of my problems disappeared. Imagine that.

A couple of days later we headed to Bahrain with the ambassador so he could watch the Iraqi national soccer team continue in their quest to compete in the 2004 Olympic Games. My advance team, which had departed two days earlier, met us at the airport. We went to the hotel to check in. I could tell by their smiling faces that my guys had done their work, then had an evening or two of relaxation. We went to the game, then to a dinner, and finally back to the hotel. Ski had arranged for a couple of the advance team guys to watch the ambassador while Ski took me out to dinner and for a drink. He was always looking out for my mental health. We arrived at an establishment that had been scouted out the night before by the advance team guys.

Festus and a few of the other guys were already there. They were relaxing and admiring the menu, which seemed to consist primarily of young Thai ladies. Festus was a former SEAL who was one of the funniest guys I have ever met. He was a great shooter and could always be relied upon for moments of hilarity. This particular evening I witnessed something I had never seen before. Festus ordered a shot of some liquor. A few young lovelies had been trying to win his heart for the evening. He was fighting them off as best he could. Out of the blue he stood up, dropped his pants, dunked the head of his dick into the shot glass, then grabbed his lighter and lit his dick on fire. Had I not seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it. Then he downed the shot and pulled his pants back up. Needless to say, he got quite an ovation from the other patrons. And because it was funny once, it became a recurring performance throughout the rest of his tour with us. Boys will be boys.

The word spread quickly through the team I would not be leaving and morale really picked up. It seemed as though rumors of my departure and the speculation on my replacement had made a lot of the guys nervous. They had seen the attempts at controlling the show and the Monday morning quarterbacking from North Carolina. And they feared that the wheels would come off the machine that we had created together. If you were not working with the team, you truly could not have any idea of the stress, or the hoops we constantly jumped through. The guys knew I was protecting both them and the ambassador. The Marine Corps adage—accomplish the mission and look out for the welfare of your men—rang true with me every day we were there. The guys knew I could be stern, but I always tried to be fair.

Ken rotated out and handed the Ops/support responsibilities to his assistant. Apparently Ken had overestimated his sidekick’s grasp of how things were done. We rotated three more guys out and for some reason they were sent to Kuwait instead of Amman. The new Ops/support guy did not realize (read: failed to do his homework) that the guys would need visas before arrival into Kuwait as opposed to simply buying them at the customs counter upon arrival as we were able to do in Jordan. The three guys were quickly placed under house arrest while I attempted to sort the fiasco out. I did not get much sympathy from the Air Force colonel who was in charge of flights. He was beyond pissed off that we had screwed this up. His counterpart in Kuwait was threatening to send the guys back to Baghdad. And, of course, it was entirely my fault.

Further compounding the problem was that one of the guys was a Swiss citizen traveling on a Swiss passport. We called him Hillbilly because he was anything but: he was a former French Foreign Legion guy who spoke five languages and could fly a helicopter in addition to having extensive protection experience. He had a great skill set and was a good man. I’d met him ten years earlier at a school we both had attended.

However, the U.S. embassy in Kuwait could not do much to help him. Once again I had to go hat in hand to Ambassador Kennedy and ask for help in a situation that was embarrassing as hell and, in my mind, made us look stupid. He arranged visas for the two Americans, but said Hillbilly was going to be a little bit more difficult. The Americans finally left three days later, but Hillbilly ended up doing seven days under house arrest before he was allowed to leave. I knew that if Hillbilly ever ran into this Ops/support guy again that he would have killed him. Fortunately, they never crossed paths, as I made the decision that Ken’s assistant would never come back. Hillbilly did come back after his scheduled home leave rotation.

The new arrivals were actually better than some of the original team members. By now Blackwater had had more time to recruit and train. These new guys quickly became the backbone of the team for the rest of the mission. The other good thing was that nearly 75 percent of them continued to extend so they were never replaced. Jimmy Dog, Mongo, Q, Travis T, HB, Carmine, Drew B, Sax, G-Money, Jadicus, Matt B, Jeremy W, Riceman, Billy C, Russ T, Gino N, and a few others had become the guys on whom I could always rely. Blackwater balked a few times at letting them stay past their rotation dates, but finally stopped fighting me about it. Most times, if they wanted to stay, they did. Things were looking up.

The next week, five guys arrived in-country. Among them were B-Town, one former Marine, two more former SEALs, and the guy designated as my replacement. Unbeknownst to me these guys had all been promised leadership slots to run the show after I left. They got settled in, and I sensed there were some problems bubbling beneath the surface. B-Town tracked me down and explained what had happened. Apparently none of these guys had been told I was not leaving. I had already slotted B-Town to take over the advance team, as he had previously run it for two months when he worked with the CID guys back in the beginning. Unfortunately one of the other former SEALs thought this was going to be his job.

I had a meeting with each of the guys and told them they were welcome to stay, but they would start at the entry-level positions and learn the job just like everybody else. There was no way I was going to put the ambassador in jeopardy, nor the team, while these guys tried to learn where the chow hall was, let alone Sadr City. It was ridiculous for anybody to think you could put a guy in a leadership role before he knew the job.

B-Town was instrumental in helping me navigate through and around the fragile egos. The former Marine said that he was fine with it, and he actually agreed with me. The two SEALs went along grudgingly only because they knew B-Town would kick their asses if they did not. One of the SEALs had shown up with a full-grown “Johnny Taliban” beard. When I told him that he would have to shave it or go home, he gave me some shit. He even went as far as asking me if the ambassador knew that beards were revered in Arab culture. He stated that all the DEVGRU guys had them. I explained that we were not kicking in doors and we were not trying to blend in with the locals, we were protecting “The Man.” Beards were not acceptable. B-Town told him I was serious as a heart attack and if it was not gone the next morning that I already had a seat on a plane home for him. It was gone the next morning.

My replacement? Yeah, not so fine with the circumstances. Several times he tried to insist I introduce him to the ambassador as my replacement. When he finally realized I was not going anywhere, he then decided he wanted to be the shift leader. He tried to lobby the guys to his side. He called Blackwater. God only knows who else he tried to get help from. In all actuality he was a good guy with a very solid background. If the circumstances had been different, he might have done a good job. He had been misled by Blackwater, not by any of us on the detail. It was just a very bad situation for all of us to be in. Unfortunately, he was becoming a distraction and a morale killer to the team. Mongo, the shift leader at the time, volunteered to step aside if it would make my life easier. I told him: “No. Fuck no! That ain’t never going to happen.” He remained the shift leader. End of discussion.

Blackwater called me to try and press me to replace Mongo. They went as far as to question his ability to do the job. I pointed out that he had been in-country with us and The Dirty 30 for months and had been on Karzai’s detail in Afghanistan. He’d also been the shift leader for almost three weeks at this point and had done an excellent job. He knew the job inside and out. There was no way I was going to weaken the team by putting an inexperienced guy in a position to make the tactical decisions before he knew the lay of the land. There was too much at stake to take chances. I refused to budge. Blackwater was not getting the intel reports I was getting every day, and, quite honestly, they had zero idea what was going on. Why they thought they knew more than the guys on the ground was a mystery to me then and remains one even today. They did not know what they did not know.

13 December 2003

Brian Mac called me about 0200 and told me the boss needed to get to the office ASAP. I called Mongo. We got the guys up, headed over to the villa, picked Bremer up and brought him back. The ambassador went straight to his office to use his secure phone line. Brian came out and told me that there would be a press conference later that day at the convention center. At the press conference the ambassador announced that U.S. forces had captured Saddam. It was a great day for the coalition and the Iraqi people.

We got back to the palace and Brian came out saying we need to get to LZ Washington immediately. I asked where, and he said the airport. I told Brian I had no assets available for a proper advance and would need thirty minutes to prep. He said not to worry about it as the army would be picking us up. I grabbed the first four guys I saw, and we went to the LZ. We flew to BIAP in Blackhawk helos, got picked up by the military, and were quickly driven by U.S. military Humvees about ten minutes to Camp Cropper (a holding facility for “high value” security detainees). There were quite a few of the highest-ranking Iraqi diplomats standing there waiting for us, and I thought things are going to get interesting. And they did … very interesting.

We drove to a nondescript building being guarded by MPs. The ambassador and other diplomats went in. I trailed a few steps behind. I told my guys to stay outside. We walked down a hallway, and I could see what appeared to be cells. We walked into one, and there was Saddam. Not six feet away from me. He had been cleaned up, shaved, and was wearing the typical white Arab man dress with sandals on his feet. The Iraqis and Saddam seemed to be exchanging unpleasantries in Arabic, which I did not understand, but it was very stirring to be this close to the man who was a big part of the reason why I was in Iraq in the first place. Ambassador Bremer stood there, not saying a word, while the new leaders of Iraq confronted the former dictator. Saddam was quite full of himself and seemed angry that men he considered of lower status were even speaking with him. I went outside and let the other three guys, one at a time, take my place so they too could take a look at the tyrant. We were beyond excited.

Celebratory gunfire that evening rivaled any Fourth of July celebration. It felt as if we were under attack as tracer rounds and AK-47 fire filled the air. Fortunately, none of us were hit by the gunfire. None of the guys spent much time outside that evening, but when they did, they were hauling ass to their destination.

The ambassador was going to take a well-deserved break over Christmas and asked me if I wanted to go home for a few days. I immediately said yes. The guys would get a few days off to relax, and I would get to see the wife and kids. Win-win all around.

We had another rotation of guys planned for the following week. Sax, Ski, Doc Jones, Tony T, JD, the Chief, and a couple of the other remaining original guys were going to take off. Fortunately, so was the lead pilot. I was quite pleased because Hacksaw would now take over that job. With the original lead pilot departing, the big boy rules were now in full effect for all aspects of the detail. The pilots and ground crew could now actually sit down and eat chow with us and talk to us at the gym. Lines were no longer drawn between ground and air. Hacksaw allowed the ground and air guys to bond into a more combat-effective and cohesive team. After Hacksaw took the helm, he instituted joint weapons training, joint route recon planning, and the final standard operating procedures (SOPs) that we used for the duration of the mission. The days of the lead pilot whining about everything had finally ended. I will never understand why that guy could never get with the program. He wanted to make sure there was a clear division between the pilots and the ground guys—but why? Hacksaw, on the other hand, made sure that we were one team, and I knew he would sacrifice everything to make sure we did not fail in any way, shape, or form. He knew that keeping Ambassador Bremer alive was our sole overriding priority. I was ecstatic.

Hacksaw and Carl Magee (another Night Stalker vet) began calling the pilots and aircrews “the Ass Monkeys.” Hacksaw even came up with a sign that proudly declared:
welcome to camp ass monkey.
This sign was posted at the entrance to the pilots’ trailers at LZ Washington. Printed beneath the first line it said, “Fuck you. We have enough friends.” It became our mantra. We found it hysterical.

Then, fortunately for me and my dwindling sanity, Ken rotated back in after a thirty-day home leave. I was extremely pleased. I now had one less headache to worry about. With Ken back handling the Ops/support, I no longer had to even think about it.

Doc Jones, a former Special Forces medic, took no shit from anybody. He was a gifted medic who constantly warned the married guys about PCOD (pussy cutoff date). Sexually transmitted diseases were not something you wanted to take home to your wife or girlfriend if you could avoid it. Doc gave his speech about every two weeks, warning married guys and those with significant others that they should refrain from intimate relations for a minimum of five days prior to returning home. This would give him a chance to “cure” the problem. He was a very funny guy, a team player willing to do anything to support his guys. During his stint he managed to “acquire” a ton of medical supplies from his Special Forces connections to treat our guys who got hurt or sick. Just before he rotated out he had had enough of my designated replacement’s nonsense, and he offered to head outside with him and permanently shut his mouth. Fortunately, others in the office prevented a potentially ugly altercation.

Jadicus arrived right around this time and took over as my lead medic. We were supposed to always have two, but Jadicus was the main man and alone for several weeks. He had been a navy SEAL medic and was a stud. He was also one of the funniest guys on the team. Nothing and no one escaped his wit and sarcasm. He was very self-deprecating, and as often as he targeted someone else he also targeted himself. Having grown up with his Libyan family in Texas, Jadicus spoke fluent Arabic; and being a former frogman, he called himself “The Amphibian Libyan.” He became my undercover eavesdropper. I would ask him to listen in on the conversations that the Iraqis were having around us, and to not let them know that he spoke the language. It worked like a charm. He would report to us what the locals were saying. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it was not so good. Jadicus never rotated out, and I was damn glad. Once he arrived he stayed with us until the ambassador left. He was a great asset and friend to me.

Jadicus also had the distinction of being the man who watched the Iraqi barbers when they came to cut the ambassador’s hair. Jad would meet them at the barbershop, remove their razors and anything else that could potentially be used to kill Bremer, then graphically explain in Arabic how he hoped they would do something stupid so he could kill them. In their own language it made the threats even more real. Jad stared at these barbers as they worked, one hand on his Glock. He said nothing, but his look and demeanor said everything. The barbers always did an excellent job.

We made a trip down to Nasiriyah, a town about 230 miles southeast of Baghdad. I had sent four advance guys down the night before in the Little Birds so they could arrange security for the trip. It was going to be a quick in and out thing. The ambassador would be speaking at a town-hall-type event. We arrived at the LZ via Blackhawk, and one of B-Town’s guys met us. The drive to the location took ten minutes. When we arrived, we saw a huge crowd milling about outside and coalition military forces attempting to establish control.

B-Town was inside the gate using his ASP baton to beat the fingers of the Iraqis who were attempting to scale the fence and get inside. He looked at me and just shook his head. This had all the warning signs of a bad day. We had already reduced the size of the detail team to accommodate “extra” members of the press on the security-designated Blackhawk. Apparently someone had given out more press passes than was the norm. To accommodate all the members of the press I was asked to take
all
security guys off the helo. I refused, but I did give up two seats. We got the ambassador inside and saw that the dais had been set up at the far end of the hall. We would have to walk through the crowd to enter and depart. Again I looked at B-Town. He quietly explained that this was not how he had told the organizers to set it up the day before. Now we were in it, and we would have to play it out as best we could. None of us was comfortable.

The crowd was mostly former Saddam military officers who had lost their jobs when Ambassador Bremer ordered Saddam’s military disbanded. They were not a happy bunch. At one point a man stood up to speak and asked all the women in the room to leave. This was not good. Another guy stood up and began to sing.

Jadicus was listening to the Arabic when I radioed him and asked him what was going on. He said the audience was getting restless. So were we. I only had four advance guys and six detail members due to the limited seats on the helos. As the ambassador left the dais people started reaching for him. We formed a scrumlike formation around him and fought our way down along one wall. Our body armor and stout presence made it very difficult and impossible for them to reach through us and grab the ambassador. We finally made it out. It was the last time I ever gave up security seats on the helos to the press.

The day before I was heading home, I asked B-Town to take control of the team while I was gone, and he grudgingly agreed he would try. Welcome to my world I told him. I also instructed him to fire another misfit Ops/support guy who had somehow arrived in-country. It seems that Ken’s replacement had somehow vouched for a good friend to come over and become part of the rotation. He knew that Ken did 99 percent of the work and his friend could just sit back and collect a check. B-Town just smiled and said he could handle it.

Brian B had come to Baghdad from Blackwater headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina, and I spent some quality time with him before I left. We discussed what was happening in Moyock and what was happening in Baghdad. We both agreed there was a huge disconnect between ground truth reality and what was being reported in North Carolina. He had a meeting with the ambassador where Bremer gave us high marks. Brian addressed the team and reiterated that I was staying and the issue between me and the program manager was just another case of two hardheaded Marines butting heads. The guys were happy and so was I. Truth be told, I half expected he was coming over to fire me.

On the day we left, our motorcade arrived at BIAP and there were eighteen wrestlers from the WWE waiting in the VIP lounge for the same C-17 to transport them back to the United States. They had been there doing a USO show for the troops. Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Big Show, and all the wrestlers were extremely good guys. They asked us to pose for pictures with them. It was pretty funny seeing these guys treating
us
like celebrities. When we landed in Germany, we boarded a small jet back to Andrews Air Force base. As Bremer and I left, I saw the guys from my team and the wrestlers at an airport bar. It was clear a good time would be had by all while they waited for their transport back to the United States.

We flew to the States on the small jet. I tried to sleep, but I was worried about what was happening with the guys back in Iraq. I was anxious to see Kim and the kids, and to be “normal” for a few days, but there was a nagging worry that the guys, without a focused job to do, might cause issues.

Back in the sandbox, B-Town quickly learned that sheep-dogging forty-six guys was no easy task. One of the new SEALs got drunk and destroyed the office. He was fired. Another SEAL missed a training mission with the Little Birds. He was given a verbal warning. A third former SEAL picked up a lady, headed over to the villa in the limo to show off, and managed to have a negligent discharge. (His M-4 rifle, not his dick.) This was kept from me until after he left. He never returned. All this in five days. Of course compounding the issue for B-Town were the other “leadership elements” who had arrived with him. While they were trying to undermine me in my absence, they were also gunning for him. Apparently the program manager (PM) back in North Carolina was severely ass hurt that his plans and promises to “his” guys had not borne fruit. It became quite real, about this time, that there were Frank-guys and the PM’s guys. Unfortunately for B-Town, he was pegged as a Frank-guy. The reality was that B-Town had experience in the theater, the PM did not; B-Town knew what kept our guys and the ambassador alive, the PM did not. Fun times. B-Town was counting the days till I returned.

When I landed Kim met me at LGA and we went home. Being home was strange, very strange. No rocket or mortar fire. No helos flying overhead. It was scary quiet. I saw my mother, my brother Jim and his wife, Jen, and my niece Emma. And I got to spend some quality time with my daughters, Kelli and Katherine. Knowing that I was heading back and had no firm return date made it tough to relax. Kim was happy to see me, but I was not the same person. My innards twisted, and I constantly worried about what was happening to my guys. Kim tried hard, but I was still mentally trapped in Baghdad. I never could relax. It could have, and should have, been better than it was. I was unable to put Iraq on the back burner. It occupied my thought process at all times. Blackwater called and we talked for about two hours about many things. I felt that the air had been cleared. I was wrong.

The break ended abruptly. World events are tough to control. A massive truck bomb exploded at the gate into the Green Zone that we called “Baby Assassin’s Gate.” Brian Mac phoned, told me to get my ass back to D.C. ASAP.

We returned to the sandbox on New Year’s Eve. The ambassador went to his villa; I returned to the madness. There were parties everywhere. I headed over to Blackwater Boulevard to see the guys and was met with a hero’s welcome. It felt good to be back. Adult beverages flowed like water, and even the “new leadership” guys were partaking. It was weird to me and some of the others that they were partying hard with the same guys they had been reporting back to Blackwater for disobeying the rules. Two of them even managed to find female companionship. Truly a strange change of attitude. I guess, after they had been there a couple of weeks, they had decided my way of doing things was okay. Funny how it works sometimes.