Read Online Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs by Jim DeFelice, Johnny Walker - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jim DeFelice, Johnny Walker
Ads: Link
get past the nightmare we knew was coming.
And then, the war was upon us: not as the violent jolt we feared, but, instead, as a distant shriek in the night.
3
Up from the Depths
T HE START OF a war is a mysterious thing, an event simultaneously momentous and nebulous. If you are on the front line when the troops cross, or maybe beneath the targeting pipper of an aircraft, things are finite, clear, and terrible.
Absolutely horrible, but black and white, with great clarity and finality.
Farther away, nothing is clear. Miles from the front you hear explosions and see flashes. You feel rumbles. But if the fighting remains distant, you can close off your mind to these things and pretend there is no war, that nothing has happened.
Even if you don’t close your mind, you may not understand war until you actually see it. The conflict might not make sense to you, even if you have seen war before. A man can never fully imagine the reality of war, even if he’s lived it already.
For us, the war with America seemed far away for the first few days, very nebulous. We could see it on television, but that was as close as we got. American airplanes and missiles attacked first, hitting Saddam’s Baghdad palace and striking military targets near the southern border and Baghdad early on March 19, 2003. The next day, American troops came across the border, attacking in the south. Within days they stormed Nasiriya, then continued north toward Baghdad. In the meantime, they secured the southern oil fields and Basra, and hooked up with Kurdish rebels in Kurdistan, in the northern precincts.
Mosul, far from Baghdad, could almost have been in a different country. But a few nights after the start of the war, I was woken by the rumble of an explosion somewhere nearby. Even as the ground was still shaking, I rose and made sure my family was all right, then waited, sleeplessly, until dawn to find out what had happened.
As soon as it was light, a friend and I drove toward the center of the city. Eventually we found the source of the explosion: a Tomahawk missile had struck a building used as a telecommunications center. The facility had housed phone-switching equipment handling the local exchanges. The missile or missiles had struck in the exact center of the building, cratering it and obliterating phone service in the area.
It was an odd sight: The fence that bordered the property was intact, and most of the building’s walls were still standing. But the roof was gone, and from up close the structure looked like a scorched box filled with rubble. The dust from the explosion lingered in the air, scratching my eyes.
From that moment on, the war felt very real, even in Mosul. The city was spared destruction on a grand scale—the business areas were largely untouched by American bombs, as far as I can remember—but there was no longer any way to deny the reality of the war. We were going to lose, badly. It was just a matter of time before the Americans came.
There was no hope for Iraq, or Saddam. The Kuwait war had shown us that the dictator’s military might was a complete fiction. A dozen years had passed, and it was inconceivable to anyone that the military had gotten any better. Iraq itself had gotten worse.
But even if most of us wished Saddam were gone, it was still a depressing feeling to be caught in a country at war. We had grave doubts about the future.
And as much as I hated Saddam, I wasn’t a fan of the Americans. I wasn’t a hater of Americans; my attitude would be closer to neutral, I guess. I admired the culture, or what I’d seen of it—basketball, the movies. I knew the U.S.A. was a great military power. But I wasn’t looking forward to having Iraq ruled by Americans. Nor did I have any dreams or illusions about going to America or, even more extreme, turning Iraq into a Middle Eastern version of America.
Democracy? It was too lofty a concept to consider. What most of us thought about was simple: What things did we
And then, the war was upon us: not as the violent jolt we feared, but, instead, as a distant shriek in the night.
3
Up from the Depths
T HE START OF a war is a mysterious thing, an event simultaneously momentous and nebulous. If you are on the front line when the troops cross, or maybe beneath the targeting pipper of an aircraft, things are finite, clear, and terrible.
Absolutely horrible, but black and white, with great clarity and finality.
Farther away, nothing is clear. Miles from the front you hear explosions and see flashes. You feel rumbles. But if the fighting remains distant, you can close off your mind to these things and pretend there is no war, that nothing has happened.
Even if you don’t close your mind, you may not understand war until you actually see it. The conflict might not make sense to you, even if you have seen war before. A man can never fully imagine the reality of war, even if he’s lived it already.
For us, the war with America seemed far away for the first few days, very nebulous. We could see it on television, but that was as close as we got. American airplanes and missiles attacked first, hitting Saddam’s Baghdad palace and striking military targets near the southern border and Baghdad early on March 19, 2003. The next day, American troops came across the border, attacking in the south. Within days they stormed Nasiriya, then continued north toward Baghdad. In the meantime, they secured the southern oil fields and Basra, and hooked up with Kurdish rebels in Kurdistan, in the northern precincts.
Mosul, far from Baghdad, could almost have been in a different country. But a few nights after the start of the war, I was woken by the rumble of an explosion somewhere nearby. Even as the ground was still shaking, I rose and made sure my family was all right, then waited, sleeplessly, until dawn to find out what had happened.
As soon as it was light, a friend and I drove toward the center of the city. Eventually we found the source of the explosion: a Tomahawk missile had struck a building used as a telecommunications center. The facility had housed phone-switching equipment handling the local exchanges. The missile or missiles had struck in the exact center of the building, cratering it and obliterating phone service in the area.
It was an odd sight: The fence that bordered the property was intact, and most of the building’s walls were still standing. But the roof was gone, and from up close the structure looked like a scorched box filled with rubble. The dust from the explosion lingered in the air, scratching my eyes.
From that moment on, the war felt very real, even in Mosul. The city was spared destruction on a grand scale—the business areas were largely untouched by American bombs, as far as I can remember—but there was no longer any way to deny the reality of the war. We were going to lose, badly. It was just a matter of time before the Americans came.
There was no hope for Iraq, or Saddam. The Kuwait war had shown us that the dictator’s military might was a complete fiction. A dozen years had passed, and it was inconceivable to anyone that the military had gotten any better. Iraq itself had gotten worse.
But even if most of us wished Saddam were gone, it was still a depressing feeling to be caught in a country at war. We had grave doubts about the future.
And as much as I hated Saddam, I wasn’t a fan of the Americans. I wasn’t a hater of Americans; my attitude would be closer to neutral, I guess. I admired the culture, or what I’d seen of it—basketball, the movies. I knew the U.S.A. was a great military power. But I wasn’t looking forward to having Iraq ruled by Americans. Nor did I have any dreams or illusions about going to America or, even more extreme, turning Iraq into a Middle Eastern version of America.
Democracy? It was too lofty a concept to consider. What most of us thought about was simple: What things did we
Similar Books
