Read Online The Bremer Detail by John M. Del Vecchio Frank Gallagher - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John M. Del Vecchio Frank Gallagher
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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
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
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