Paratus Protection

FIREFIGHT

It was hot. About 110 degrees. I won’t give you the line about dry heat vs. wet. Hot is hot especially when you’re carrying way more than 40 pounds of gear on you. We were on a mission to deliver much-needed workers and a re-supply of food and water to a distant outpost in the western desert known as Al Anbar.

For those of you who don’t recognize the name Al Anbar, Falluja, Ramadi, Habenia, Hit, and Haditha may ring a bell. This is still in active “war” territory where our Marines and Army are doing a tremendous job.

But the cities and villages are interspersed with miles and miles of desert. The monotony is broken only by the pocked scars left by road side bombs and the occasional burnt vehicle or bus.

Six-hundred kilometers is a long stretch, moving through – literally – the worst areas of Iraq, and it is in no way close to a Sunday stroll. But my opinion, and that of my men, is that we will do it gladly to get the men at our destination what they need.

Mission complete. Men and material delivered. We “rested.” Rested is defined as sleeping on top of our cars, wedged into gun boxes, opening medical stretchers and sleeping on the ground under the vehicles (for shade), or for the new guys, sleeping on the dirt. Since we are not on a government contract, these things (life-support as it is called) are not provided. But we don’t complain. We truly feel as if we are doing a small part in this effort. Though I must admit it is getting harder and harder, and it seems that some private security companies make it very difficult for smaller ones like us (we only have 150 men or so).

Early the following day we take the same route back. Only this time, once we passed a check point in Habaneya, one of the lorries (semi-trucks) called in that he was overheating. I decided to stop the convoy (22 vehicles strong) and wait for an assessment. At the same time this was occurring I received a report via my satellite phone that the Green Zone (or International Zone as they call it now) was closed due to several kidnappings.

With mechanical problems and no destination at the moment (we had been headed to the Green Zone), I decided to put a forward-perimeter defense around the vehicles, but set the vehicles off into the desert so they were off the immediate horizon. This would prevent suicide car bombers and drive-by shootings. It also would allow us to not close the highway (something we do, but would rather not as there are good people who are inconvenienced for hours sometimes).

Some arm chair QB’s may say that was a bad move (moving off the road). To that, I say I would rather defend a horizontal 360-degree battlefield than a horizontal AND vertical field of fire. But, second guess me if need be.

At any rate we were attacked. Not by a drive-by or a hit and run RPG attack. We were engaged in a fire fight that last longer than 30 minutes.

It went down something like this. I was walking around my vehicle when one of my machine gunners stated that he saw some men moving around a sand dune. I looked over and just glimpsed an unmistakable AK-47.

I grabbed my rifle, used my scope on the man and confirmed that he had a rifle. Just as I was about to call it in via radio, they began to attack. Several of them running down between the two dunes firing at our vehicles (mine included). Truth is…running and shooting from the hip is what we call “spray and pray” – rarely works…but when it does…the result is the same as a well-aimed shot.

So now my scope, and it’s large red triangle (the reticule), is firmly placed on a pudgy man wearing a brown dishdasda (the traditional long robe for men). Several shots later the attack moved to a flank about 1,000 meters to our left.

During this I had to coordinate response and ensure that my men (and the truck drivers) were safe. I also established communication that my translator handled.

Once they engaged from the left, I noticed plain-clothed men as well as light blue police shirts (similar to U.S. security guard uniform tops), and called to my men via radio to cease fire.
They did.

Then the terrorists, now roughly over a dozen that I could see, began the attack again. Again my red triangle found what it was looking for. Repeating this several times, and it was a magazine change and then back to it. Over and over again.

Finally, a police truck (white and blue) reinforced more “insurgents” even further out to our left flank but exactly 90 degrees to my position. This is when I felt like things were more serious than what we’d had so far. Until then, we had control and were pushing the enemy off.

I felt nervous because it was flat desert between him and me, and I thought he was a suicide car bomber. Only the good Lord could have guided my shots (and those of my men) to the exact spots they needed to go, and at the right time.

Now 30 minutes does not sound like a lot, but when you burn through all your sugars and are operating on pure adrenalin, 30 minutes can seem like a polka dance—never ending.

But dance we did, and these men, some in Iraqi Police uniforms, some in plain clothes, attacked us using AK-47’s and PKM belt-fed machine guns. Their flanks were reinforced by a police Ford F-250. Ironically, I had ordered six F-350’s and they were all stolen at the Iraqi border, but these guys got theirs and were fighting from them.

I won’t go into details of loss…suffice it to say we had no injuries and the other guys were not so lucky.

But when the “good” police came, the bad guys, way more than two dozen, “melted into the crowd,” saying they had been there to “help us.”

This is one aspect of the life of a security contractor; can’t trust anyone too much. As the saying goes…you’re not paranoid if someone IS trying to kill you.

I checked my men and then went to the truck drivers. They were still in a panic (as there was still sporadic gun fighting); some were wailing and throwing sand on their heads, some played dead, and others stared at me with fear…pure fear.

My men did a tremendous job collecting up the truck drivers and putting them into our own vehicles. We did this because the only way out was to take a road that led us no more than 100 meters from where the initial attack took place. We gathered up the men and laid down suppressive fire on those dunes until we were on the hard road. Again.

To their credit, the U.S. Army arrived in less than one hour from notification (travel time), and the site of Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles made our people feel like we’d won the lottery.

Is there fear in these situations? Yes. No doubt. No equivocations. No John Wayne’s. The only thing that overrides fear is training and the desire to keep the terrorists from getting any closer to the people and the material we’re pledged to protect.

On that day we did both; we took it on the chin, pushed back harder than they were prepared to endure, and all men and material made it home.

We came home to cold pizza and warm Pepsi. There are no bonuses. No plaques or ribbons. There is only the memory of a day when the bad guys hit us and we hit back. A memory that each man who participated with Paratus can look back on with pride.

As for the police: It is still unknown who was real and who was not. The general consensus in some areas of Iraq is they are police by day; terrorist by night. We do not furnish them with American weapons, but I wonder who pays for those weapons, Fords and uniforms? The irony is so thick you can build a government on it (or are we doing just that?)