Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs (10 page)

The interview didn’t take too long. When it was over, the chief got up to go.

“Do you think I have a chance to work with you?” I asked, sure I had done a terrible job in the interview.

“Definitely,” said Neal.

Definitely
was a word I hadn’t heard before. It didn’t sound positive. But I was too embarrassed to ask what it meant, so I just nodded and left.

Back with the MPs, Sergeant East asked how I had done.

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Not well, I think.”

“No?” he was surprised.

“No. I asked if I had a chance.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“He said ‘definitely.’ ”

The sergeant laughed and began congratulating me. It was only then that I understood that
definitely
was a good thing.

I got the job and started a few days later.

I QUICKLY LEARNED
that working with the SEALs was very different than working with the MPs, and not just because they weren’t training or working with the Iraqi police. While the MPs had gone on missions to pick up subjects, that had never been their main focus. The SEALs were all about apprehending insurgents, both suspected and confirmed.

Most of their assignments involved going to find a suspect and bringing him back for questioning by the authorities. These weren’t always arrests, but in most cases the people who were being picked up were pretty high-ranking insurgents suspected of serious terrorist activities. The SEALs always had to assume that the people they were going after—the “jackpot,” we called them—would put up a fight. They took many steps to minimize the risk, and in most cases there was no gunfire, but there was
never
a time on a mission that they could relax.

Because of that, they planned exhaustively for each mission. I wasn’t invited to these sessions at first; I probably wouldn’t have understood enough English to be useful anyway. Once the planning was done, they carefully briefed the different members of the unit, making sure everyone knew what he had to do. I was briefed on only my role at first; I’d have to win their trust before I was invited to make deeper contributions. Once an operation kicked off, the SEALs tended to follow their planning to the letter. They might excel at improvisation—I can attest that they did—but they did everything in their power to not have to improvise.

Because they operated almost exclusively at night—and probably because they didn’t completely trust me—the SEALs gave me a little trailer to stay in when not working. This was a major change; until now I’d been free to come and go after work as I pleased. But there was no sense in arguing, and in fact the arrangement was not only convenient but probably safer for me and my family. Plus, the trailer was spacious, though empty except for a bed and a few pieces of furniture. There was no TV, computer, or even radio.

The first day I reported for work, the chief introduced me to Percy, another translator. He was a short, chubby fellow, very friendly and full of advice. He invited me into his trailer, fixed up an impromptu meal, and gave me a long rundown on what to expect. He also told me about America—he was an American citizen—and he gave me a lecture about money. I should save as much as I could, he told me.

“You’ll work hard,” he said, “but you can save for the future. And you can have a good future.”

He was right about all of it, the money especially. I wasn’t getting rich, but by the standards I’d been used to before the war, I was suddenly doing very well. I’d been making two hundred dollars a month working for the MPs. The SEALs paid me five hundred. My first paycheck made me feel like I was a king. I bought my family presents, a TV, clothes. It was a heady feeling.

Others have pointed out that American citizens—like Percy—made considerably more than native Iraqis for the same kind of work—ten times as much, and in some cases even more. That was true for interpreters as well as just about everyone else. I don’t know what Percy was being paid, and I don’t begrudge him it either. I’m not even complaining about my pay. To me, it seemed a fortune.

The SEALs didn’t trust me yet. In fact, they kept a very close eye on me. If I wanted to go anywhere, I had to have an escort, even to the latrine, or “head,” as the navy people called it. The escort would be at the next stall while I did my business.

THE SEALs ARE
organized differently than any other military unit I’d known. They are grouped in different “teams,” each of which generally has three troops, each with two platoons. Platoon size is around twenty men, sometimes a little less. There are West Coast teams and East Coast teams, a distinction that refers to where they are based in the United States. Odd-numbered teams are based on the West Coast, even numbers on the East. During the time I was working with them, the teams usually rotated platoons into Iraq for deployments that lasted several months—six, more or less, seemed to be the average. I started with Team 7 and ended up working with nearly all of the teams that came to Iraq. (The one exception was Team 6, which I was never assigned to.)

While the team structure forms a backbone for the administration of the units, SEALs are extremely flexible in practice. During my time with them, there were various task groups that worked with conventional soldiers and Marines for a variety of periods and missions. At different times, elements from different teams worked together as one.

The SEALs made no effort to explain their organization to me, and I don’t blame them. I’m sure part of the reason had to do with security; the less I knew about them, the less I could tell the enemy if I were captured. Besides, there was no real need for me to know whether the task group I was working with was composed of men from Team 1 or Team 5 or both. It made no difference to me whether the platoon I was helping was based in the eastern or western United States.

To a large extent, the distinctions that the SEALs observed between teams or even platoons were meaningless to me. While each man had his own personality, taken as a group the SEALs were remarkably similar in the way they did things and the way they were equipped. There were always individual wrinkles, but their overall approach never varied from one unit to another. It was always professional; it was always results oriented. To a man, they were the fiercest warriors I have ever known.

Like all military units, the SEAL teams were led by officers and answered to a “head shed” of senior commanders. My personal dealings were mostly with the senior enlisted men, usually chief petty officers, who were tasked to deal with interpreters. Most of them were a cross between a dad and the most demanding but fair sports coach you can imagine. These guys were usually my direct bosses; they took care of me, and I did my best for them.

THE MISSIONS WITH
the SEALs would soon blur together, but I remember my first one vividly. I went in with them to the room they used to gear up, watching them don their combat gear and ready their weapons. Night vision, machine guns—everything was different, everything was bigger, everything was better, than I had seen with the military police.

Holy crap, I thought. These guys are serious. What have I gotten myself into?

I wasn’t allowed in on the brief, but when we were ready to leave, one of the SEALs gave me the name of the jackpot—our target—and told me that we were going to apprehend him.

Then he tried to give me some body armor.

“No, thank you,” I told him. “I don’t want to die in your clothes.”

“No, no, it’s for your protection,” said the SEAL, who later became a good friend.

“If I am going to die, I want to die in my clothes. And I am not going to die.”

We went back and forth for a bit. Finally, Neal came over and told me in no uncertain terms that I was gearing up. The platoon chief told me I had no option—they were keeping me safe, and they were making all the judgments. So I put on a vest and a helmet.

The SEALs didn’t know what to expect from me. It wasn’t solely a matter of trust. I’m sure the MPs had vouched for me, and the SEALs had certainly done their own checking. But you never know how someone is going to act under stress until they are actually
under stress.
Combat stress and its consequences are unpredictable.

I’d already seen that and knew that interpreters in Iraq were a mixed lot. Looking back, I can say pretty definitively that everyone the SEALs had already worked with preferred to stay way back and out of danger, something that wasn’t always possible.

Neal and the others didn’t yet have a good feel for how I would react. Even so, I have to say they were way overprotective. Not only did they have me bundled up in armor, they had one of their members stay with me at all times, governing my every move:
stay down, go here, down, up, get down.
I don’t think a baby could have been better protected.

It made me a little crazy.

Just before we were going to leave, I asked the SEAL who’d been assigned as my escort—minder would be a better word—if I could bring a gun along for protection.

The SEAL—I’ll call him Wolf—told me in no uncertain terms that I could not.

“You’re an Iraqi,” said Wolf. “You’re not getting a gun.”

“I need protection.”

“We’ll protect you.”

There were probably some four-letter words thrown in as well to emphasize the point.

So I didn’t bring a gun. But I wasn’t about to go on an operation unarmed. I went back to my trailer and got the longest knife I had, a twelve-inch combat knife that some of the SEALs said later looked like a machete or a small sword. They’d told me I couldn’t bring a gun; they said nothing about a knife.

We drove in the direction of the target house, stopping far enough away that the Hummers wouldn’t tip off any lookouts or the people in the house. The military vehicles were very loud, especially at night when nothing else was going on, and any lookout with half a brain would know we were coming from a few blocks away. Out of the trucks, we formed up in a loose line and began walking in the direction of the target. The streets were dark and deserted. At this point, my job was to keep up and keep quiet.

I stayed next to Wolf as we walked to a spot a short distance from the jackpot’s house. Suddenly, he motioned for me to crouch.

Unsure what was going on, I obeyed.

Light flashed.

Ba-boom!

The explosion shook the ground. My first reaction, my instinct, was to get the hell out of there. I was scared beyond belief. I probably would have run off if it hadn’t been for the SEAL next to me.

“This is how we open doors,” Wolf said, calmly rising and nudging me to my feet. “Come on.”

We got up and ran to the house. The assaulters had blown open the door and secured the building by the time we got there. I went in and found the SEALs standing with a man who was looking pretty bewildered.

I’m not sure that my expression wasn’t exactly the same.

My babysitter and the other SEALs looked at me expectantly.

“What is your name?” I asked the man, who’d been sleeping when the door blew open.

I forget the answer now, but whatever it was, it matched the name of the man we were looking for. I turned and nodded at Neal. He’d already heard the name and motioned to the others. They took the suspect away.

In the meantime, a search of the house turned up some bomb-making equipment. The gear was taken away with him, to be handed over to the authorities.

And that was the night. Except for panicking and nearly running away, it had been a breeze.

I SHOULD POINT OUT
that using explosives on doors was unusual. The SEALs had various ways of getting into the houses—among them was a nifty pneumatic tool that opened them as easily as popping the lid on a can of tuna—but often they simply turned the knob. You’d be surprised how many doors weren’t locked. Those that were generally gave way with a firm nudge. On many other missions, they’d simply knock.

That’s not to say that missions against high-level and risky targets didn’t involve force, or that SEALs never used the devices you see in movies like flash-bang grenades to surprise armed defenders. It depended on what the situation called for. But much of the showy drama captured in movies or other works of fiction was the exception. The only thing that was constant was the knowledge that a gun or an explosive might be behind the door, or in the next room. Danger was always present; it just wasn’t flashy about it.

The majority of the missions I did with the SEALs, not only with this unit but over the course of several teams and nearly a half-dozen years, were similar and simple in outline:

We were given the name of a suspect to apprehend, along with the details on where he lived and some way of identifying him. We would go to the house or the apartment—it was almost always a residential building of some type—usually arriving very late at night when everyone was asleep. We’d go in, find him, take him back to the base, and turn him over to whatever agency was looking for him.

The trick for me was figuring whether we got the right person or not. Only occasionally—maybe two or three times in total, as I look back—did we get photographs before the start of the mission. So making a positive identification was often tricky—not only did we have to worry about whether the person was telling the truth, but there was often a question about whether the intel we had was correct or not.

I say
we
because as time went on the SEALs relied on me more and more to do that part of the job. And as time went on, I learned different ways of finding out the true identity of the person we were questioning.

Naturally, things like bomb-making gear in the attic or heavy machine guns under the bed were pretty much a tipoff; even if the guy wasn’t the suspect, he would be taken in. But in a lot of cases, that sort of obvious evidence was missing.

Less people than you would think resisted, and even less resisted effectively. Maybe you might get resistance two times out of ten, or four out of ten later in the war—but in most cases suspects quickly realized they were surrounded by well-armed men and that physically resisting was pointless. Firefights were the exception rather than the rule.