The Bremer Detail (6 page)

No one at the palace really knew what to make of us. They knew why we were there, but Blackwater at this time meant little­ or nothing to most people. We were the quiet professionals­ struggling­ to find our place in the grand scheme of palace politics­ and palace life. We were trying to keep the ambassador alive while he kept a schedule we were convinced was designed to kill us. We were there when most people arrived for work in the morning, and we were still there long after they left for the evening. If they showed up for the midnight meal we were still there. Despite gruff, intimidating appearances most of the guys were charming and polite to everyone who approached, and they were always ready with a smile and a self-deprecating sense of humor. It did not take long to become well liked and a true part of the Coalition­ Provisional Authority (CPA) community. The guys were soon embraced not as knuckle-dragging Neanderthal­ morons but as serious professionals doing a serious job and having­ a good time while they were doing it.

We began to get invited to the pool parties that were held every Thursday evening. We rarely got there when they started, but the guys would eventually show up and friendships were formed with many from the different groups—U.S. and foreign military types, U.S. and foreign politicians, career government workers, and some remarkable civilians who had volunteered to be part of this massive undertaking—the rebuilding of Iraq.

Coordinating with other groups that were to attend a function with Ambassador Bremer was one of the toughest parts of my job. It involved talking to other security teams, the press, military leaders, and anyone else who was attending. As the team protecting the highest-ranking man in the country, we always had final say on all security arrangements that would affect our ability to make the event as safe as possible for the ambassador. There was always a good bit of give-and-take on all sides. As a result people began to trust us. They realized we were only looking out for the ambassador and not trying (intentionally) to make anyone’s job more difficult. We recognized as well that they had a job to do. By working together we could all do our jobs better.

And many of the people we had to liaise with were attractive females.

The ratio of men to women was roughly forty to one. Each woman there probably had in the vicinity of a hundred or so guys trying to woo her heart. My guys were no exception. But they were experienced hunters who knew how to charm. With their past lives as special operations ass kickers and the aura they currently had as Blackwater PSD team members, they did not lack the confidence to try to claim a sizable share of the attention of the limited supply of the fair gender.

Realizing quickly that this could pose some problems, we had to establish ground rules to keep guys from fighting over the same lady. The rules were pretty easy to understand and eventually became ingrained in how we dealt with relationships. All women were considered fair game until a member of the team slept with her. After that she was off-limits to all other Blackwater guys. A gentleman’s agreement if you will. And it worked. There were very few fights or arguments over women. We all knew and obeyed the rules. The woman chose the guy she wanted; we respected her decision, and the other wolves left her alone.

About a week or so after we took over the PSD duties, the ambassador was called back to Washington. This gave us a chance to finally test fire and zero our weapons, work on our formations and evac drills, and to unwind and get to know one another. Bird and I decided to throw a party. We really knew nothing about the guys on the team, and I did not want anything stupid to happen this early in the game, so we had it at the Al Rasheed pool not at the palace. We grabbed six guys, grabbed our weapons, put on our body armor, and headed to downtown Baghdad to buy some adult beverages. In downtown Baghdad there were a few stores that sold liquor, and somehow Bird knew where they were and what types of beverages were available at each. It was always the same routine. Drive up, jump out, establish a security perimeter around the vehicles, dash in, quickly order what we wanted, and dash back to the vehicles. Total time on station was usually less than five minutes. Then we’d race back to the Green Zone. Of course, we always made sure that if anyone outside our team wanted something we would also get it for them. Eventually we became the go-to guys for many Green Zone workers who had no access to vehicles or a way to get outside. We were a full-service, happy, and friendly bunch.

We returned and talked the guys at the chow hall into giving us some ice, which was always in extremely short supply. Then we headed over to the Al Rasheed. As luck would have it quite a few people accepted our invitation. All told there were probably twenty-five of our guys, an additional twenty from other groups, and a handful of women. As the party reached its zenith everyone eventually wound up in the pool. The shirts came off, then the shorts. The ladies present got a lot of attention.

Type A personalities in a war zone are driven by many things. One is survival. I knew these guys would fight to the death if they needed to. They were tough, in top shape, and had great skill sets honed over the course of impressive careers. The other overwhelming drive they had was driven by testosterone. They were men, and men like women. Some guys were married, some divorced, most had kids, but all wanted female companionship. They were very intelligent and had the “A” game that emboldened them to say and do most anything in the pursuit of a woman. Interestingly, many times they were not the hunters but the prey. The war zone equally drew type A ladies.

Nudity in our world is not a big deal. Special operations guys have few or no hang-ups about their bodies. Guys get naked at the drop of a hat. Sometimes in somewhat awkward situations—because they think it might be funny, or they just feel like it, or someone dares them—next thing you know there’s a naked dude sitting right next to you. We just laugh because it’s a pretty normal thing for us. For others, it can be a real turnoff. Fortunately, the women who joined us for our get-togethers had no issues with it. The next thing I knew they were down to bras and thongs.

The party shaped up nicely, but I was very apprehensive about it getting out of hand. As the sun went down I suggested we retreat to Blackwater Boulevard. We loaded up the remaining beer and liquor and as many of the guys we could find, and back to the palace grounds we went.

Because Bird and I had moved in before there was even a thought of Blackwater taking over the PSD duties, our trailer was directly behind the palace and about five hundred yards from the Boulevard. I cruised over to my trailer, put on some dry clothes, and headed back to the guys. When I arrived, the party had grown from just us to more than seventy-five people. The music was blasting and the laughter was even louder. Everyone was getting along fine. Bonding with the team and relaxing had been a good idea. Everyone got to know each other a little better, and I was hopeful that this was harbinger of good things to come.

In most groups there is a 10 percent factor that does not belong or cannot get along with the other 90 percent. This will always remain a mystery to me. The day after the party the bullshit started. We had a guy assigned to the team who had apparently not done well during the selection process but was sent over anyway because he could speak Arabic. I was told he was to be used strictly as an interpreter, and I assigned him to Scotty H, who was in charge of the advance team. Scotty was a retired, no-nonsense SEAL I truly respected. He is one of the best men I have worked with anywhere in the world. He ran a tight ship and did an excellent job despite the short run-up to going operational.

We had certain rules that everyone had to follow. We all had to wear collared shirts whenever we were out on a mission. No thigh holsters, no ball caps, no full beards. I wanted us to present a professional appearance in keeping with Ambassador Bremer’s status as the presidential envoy. There were a lot of other PSD teams running around looking like an advertisement for
Soldier of Fortune
magazine. That was not going to be us. There was even a guy who walked around the palace wearing a three-quarter-length leather duster with a sword strapped to his back. He was not with us or part of us.

The interpreter—my first problem child of many to follow—approached me one afternoon after he had an argument with Ski (a former SEAL now running the operational side for me) and stated that he had “more combat experience than anyone else” on the team and wanted to be a shooter assigned to the detail. I laughed and told him it would never happen. He said he was going to call Blackwater and complain. I told him to be my guest, and offered him my phone. I then told him if he could not get with the program he would soon have one of two choices—an aisle or window seat back to the United States. He stormed off muttering.

The very next mission we ran this guy showed up in a black T-shirt and with a ball cap on his head. As luck would have it the ambassador spotted him immediately and gruffly asked me if he was one of mine. FUCK ME! I got Scotty on the radio and told him to have the guy disappear, and that we’d deal with it when we got back to the palace. We got back and I told Ken H (my chief Ops/support guy) to start the process to get rid of him.

Firing a man in the war zone presented some unique obstacles. One: There were no commercial flights, so getting someone out of the country took about three days to arrange while we coordinated with the Air Force to find a seat available for the screwup. And believe me, the Air Force was busy as hell transporting people who were far more important to the war effort, as well as wounded people and soldiers. Dealing with a Blackwater headache was not high priority. Two: These guys had access to weapons, and we were never sure how one would react to being fired.

Ken looked at me and we both laughed as we really had no idea on how to make this happen. But Ken was an extremely smart guy. He never took no for an answer, and always killed everybody with kindness. And he always got what we needed when we needed it. To this day, I will never know how he accomplished all that he did. He was a trusted ally and an invaluable member of the team.

Ken went to work on the issue, and said he had secured a seat on an Air Force C-130 for the guy to Amman in three days. I called Blackwater and told them they needed to get this guy a plane ticket to his home of record from Amman and they said they would. The program manager back in Moyock was not happy with me over his firing. This would be the beginning of many attempts by this guy sitting back stateside to question my decisions, or to interfere with running the detail, even though he had no idea what was the in-country ground truth.

Now I had to figure out what to do with this renegade for three days. I did not want a disgruntled employee wandering around with weapons, and I certainly did not want him embarrassing me again. The decision was made to let him continue working until the departure date. I held my breath and my tongue each day. I was embarrassed and disgusted at the same time.

On the day he left I sent three guys over to his trailer at 0600 to collect his weapons, and to tell him he had one hour to pack before we took him directly to the airport. He complied meekly and off he went. This was the way I ended up firing any of the guys who got sent home. They had no time to stew or get angry, and by the time the shock wore off they were on a plane home. It worked for me—and for the team.

About this time I got a call from Blackwater asking if I would extend for another thirty days. The pay would go up to $675 a day, and as I had not yet been killed I figured,
What the hell!
I called Kim and told her, and she agreed that another thirty days was not such a big deal. Of course, by this time I had been on TV, in the newspapers, and in magazines in pictures with the ambassador and did not realize the toll it was taking on the family. Katherine had it the hardest as she was in high school and had to deal with the antiwar liberals who saw me every morning on the news channels. But she stood up to them and told them that both her dad and her uncle John (US Army, Special Forces—Afghanistan) were away fighting for the country. I was, and am, very proud of her.

I talked to Bird. “Blackwater called and asked me to extend. They want you to extend also.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Good luck with that. I took another gig for 1K a day [$1,000 per day]!”

“Damn! Any way I can talk you out of it?”

“Zero chances of that happening. Good luck. You know you’re going to get killed, don’t you?”

“I hope the fuck not.”

“Look at some of these guys they sent over. I can get you on the same gig with me.”

“Thanks, but I told them I’d stay.”

“You’ve lost your damn mind.”

“Only time will tell.”

He had accepted a gig with another company doing security work in the sandbox. To say I was bummed would be a gross understatement. I was losing a good friend and my shift leader at the same time. And now I had to find someone who was as good as he was. That person was not there at this time. It was a scary proposition.

Bird left five days later. With the loss of the guy I fired and Bird, my thirty-six-man team was now a thirty-four-man team.

The operational tempo continued at breakneck speed. We had four or five missions every day. Up at 0530, done around midnight. We were running the roads in Baghdad as safely as we could but traffic was a bitch, and the intel reports came in every day about our pending demise. We would jump the median and drive against oncoming traffic before we would ever allow ourselves to be stopped for more than a few seconds. The MP CAT team would speed ahead of us and block intersections so we rarely if ever stopped. Arrivals and departures were rehearsed until we could get in and out of the open area as quickly as possible. The guys were finally all in tune with one another and had learned to fill and flow. If a guy was out of position, someone would automatically move to the vacated spot. I was pleased.

Lydia K, a member of the Governance Team, was working closely with the local Iraqis and the ambassador. She came to me one day and told me that the local population was becoming angry about the way our guys were pointing weapons at everyone on the street as the motorcade moved through town. The lead and follow cars were not armored vehicles and the new shift leader thought it was a good idea to have the guys hold their weapons through the open windows so “they could react more quickly.” Quite honestly I had never thought of the reaction of the locals, but Lydia was very in touch with the locals and I trusted her. If she said something might become a problem, I knew she was right and it would eventually become a problem. I went to the new shift leader and told him that from now on all weapons would be kept inside the vehicles and the windows would be rolled up. To say he was not happy would be an understatement. I pointed out that Bird had always kept the weapons below the closed windows. He still wanted to argue about it. Oh well, I said, it is my call and if you do not agree do you want a window seat or an aisle seat? The weapons stayed in the cars with the windows up from that point forward.