Chapter 19
Most people don't deal too well with that. Chris certainly wasn't one of the exceptions.
I knew taking care of our son was all going to be on me for the next several months while he was away. More importantly, I knew that all the newness and magic was also going to be with me. I was nervous about how I would handle it, and sad that all the memories of our beautiful son would be mine alone as opposed to shared memories we could look back on together.
At the same time, I was angry he was leaving and terrified he wouldn't make it back. I also loved him like crazy.
NAV SCHOOL
Besides sniper school, I had been "volunteered" for nav school by my chief. I went reluctantly.
Navigating is an important skill in combat-without a navigator, you don't know how to get to the battle, let alone how to get away when you're done. In a DA (direct action) scenario, the navigator figures out the best way to the target, comes up with alternatives, and guides the fire team to safety when you're done.
The problem is, SEAL navigators often don't get a chance to actually fight in the DA they navigate to. The way we set things up, the navigator is usually a.s.signed to stay in the vehicle while the rest of the unit breaks into the house or whatever. That's so he can be ready in case we need to get out fast.
Sitting in the pa.s.senger seat plugging numbers into a computer was not exactly where I wanted to be. But my chief wanted someone he could count on planning the routes, and when your chief asks you to do something, you do it.
I spent the whole first week of nav school frowning at a desk in front of a Toughbook laptop computer, learning the computer's functions, how to hook up to a GPS and manipulate the satellite imagery and maps. I also learned how to take the images and paste them onto PowerPoint for briefings and the like.
Yes, even SEALs use PowerPoint.
The second week was a little more interesting. We drove around the city-we were in San Diego-plotting and following different routes. I'm not pretending it was cool, though-important, yes, but not very exciting.
As it happened, though, it was my skills as a navigator that got me to Iraq ahead of everyone else.
CHAPTER 6
Dealing Death
BACK TO WAR
Toward the end of our workup, we found out that they were standing up a new unit in Baghdad to do direct action raids on suspected terrorists and resistance leaders. The unit was being run by the GROM, the Polish special operations unit. While the Poles would handle most of the heavy lifting, they needed some supplements-namely, snipers and navigators. And so, in September 2004, I was pulled from my platoon and sent to Iraq to help the GROM as a navigator. The rest of the platoon was due to come overseas the following month; I'd meet them there.
I felt bad about leaving Taya. She was still healing from the birth. But at the same time, I felt my duty as a SEAL was more important. I wanted to get back into action. I wanted to go to war.
At that point, while I loved my son, I hadn't yet bonded with him. I was never one of those dads who liked to feel my wife's belly when the baby was kicking. I tend to need to know someone well, even kin, before that part of me grows.
That changed over time, but at that point I still hadn't experienced the real depth of what being a father is all about.
Generally, when SEALs go out for a deployment or come back, we do so very quietly-that's the nature of special operations. There are usually few people around except for our immediate families; sometimes not even them. In this case, because of when I was heading out, it happened that I pa.s.sed a small group of protesters
They were protesting the wrong people. We didn't vote in Congress; we didn't vote to go to war.
I signed up to protect this country. I do not choose the wars. It happens that I love to fight. But I do not choose which battles I go to. Y'all send me to them.
I had to wonder why these people weren't protesting at their congressional offices or in Was.h.i.+ngton. Protesting the people who were ordered to protect them-let's just say it put a bad taste in my mouth.
I realize not everybody felt that way. I did see signs on some homes supporting the troops, saying "We love you" and that sort of thing. And there were plenty of tearful and respectful sendoffs and homecomings, some even on TV. But it was the ignorant protesters I remembered, years and years later.
And, for the record, it doesn't bother me that SEALs don't have big sendoffs or fancy homecomings. We are the silent professionals; we're covert operators and inviting the media to the airport is not in the program.
Still, it's nice to be thanked every so often for doing our job.
IRAQ
A lot had happened in Iraq since I left in the spring of 2003. The country had been liberated from Saddam Hussein and his army with the fall of Baghdad on April 9 of that year. But a variety of terrorist forces either continued or began fighting after Saddam was deposed. They fought both other Iraqis and the U.S. forces who were trying to help the country regain stability. Some were former members of Saddam's army and members of the Ba'athist Party that Saddam had headed. There were Fedayeen, members of a paramilitary resistance group the dictator had organized before the war. There were small, poorly organized groups of Iraqi guerrillas, who were also called Fedayeen, though, technically, they weren't connected with Saddam's organization. Though nearly all were Muslim, nationalism rather than religion tended to be their primary motive and organizing principle.
Then there were the groups organized primarily around religious beliefs. These identified themselves as mujahedeen, which basically means "people on jihad"-or murderers in the name of G.o.d. They were dedicated to killing Americans and Muslims who didn't believe in the brand of Islam that they believed in.
There was also al-Qaeda in Iraq, a mostly foreign group that saw the war as an opportunity to kill Americans. They were radical Sunni Muslims with an allegiance to Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader who needs no introduction-and whom SEALs hunted down and gave a fitting sendoff in 2011.
There were also Iranians and their Republican Guard, who fought-sometimes directly, though usually through proxies-to both kill Americans and to gain power in Iraqi politics.
I'm sure there were a h.e.l.l of a lot of others in what came to be known to the media as "the insurgency." They were all the enemy.
I never worried too much about who exactly it was who was pointing a gun at me or planting an IED. The fact that they wanted to kill me was all I needed to know.
Saddam was captured in December of 2003.
In 2004, the U.S. formally turned over authority to the interim government, giving control of the country back to the Iraqis, at least in theory. But the insurgency grew tremendously that same year. A number of battles in the spring were as fierce as those waged during the initial invasion.
In Baghdad, a hard-line s.h.i.+te cleric named Muqtada al-Sadr organized an army of fanatical followers and urged them to attack Americans. Sadr was especially strong in a part of Baghdad known as Sadr City, a slum named after his father, Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, a grand ayatollah and an opponent of Saddam's regime during the 1990s. An extremely poor area even by Iraqi standards, Sadr City was packed with radical s.h.i.+tes. Said to be about half the size of Manhattan in area, Sadr City was located northeast of Baghdad's Green Zone, on the far side of Army Ca.n.a.l and Imam Ali Street.
A lot of the places where regular Iraqis live, even if they are considered middle-cla.s.s, look like slums to an American. Decades of Saddam's rule made what could have been a fairly rich country, due to its oil reserves, into a very poor one. Even in the better parts of the cities, a lot of the streets aren't paved and the buildings are pretty rundown.
Sadr City is truly a slum, even for Iraq. It began as a public housing area for the poor, and by the time of the war, it had become a refuge for s.h.i.+tes, who were discriminated against by Saddam's Sunni-dominated government. After the war started, even more s.h.i.+tes moved into the area. I've seen reports estimating that more than 2 million people lived within its roughly eight square miles.
Laid out in a grid pattern, the streets are fifty or one hundred yards long. Most areas have densely packed two- and three-story buildings. The workmans.h.i.+p on the buildings I saw was terrible; even on the fanciest buildings, the decorative lines didn't match up from one side to the other. Many of the streets are open sewers, with waste everywhere.
Muqtada al-Sadr launched an offensive against American forces in the spring of 2004. His force managed to kill a number of American troops and a far greater number of Iraqis before the fanatical cleric declared a cease-fire in June. In military terms, his offensive failed, but the insurgents remained strong in Sadr City.
Meanwhile, mostly Sunni insurgents took hold of al-Anbar province, a large sector of the country to the west of Baghdad. They were particularly strong in the cities there, including Ramadi and Fallujah.
That spring was the period when Americans were shocked by the images of four contractors, their bodies desecrated, hanging from a bridge in Fallujah. It was a sign of worse to come. The Marines moved into the city soon afterward, but their operations there were called off after heavy fighting. It's been estimated that at that point they controlled some 25 percent of the city.
As part of the pullout, an Iraqi force came into the city to take control. In theory, they were supposed to keep insurgents out. The reality was very different. By that fall, pretty much the only people who lived in Fallujah were insurgents. It was even more dangerous for Americans than it had been in the spring.
When I left for Iraq in September of 2004, my unit had begun training to join a new operation to secure Fallujah, once and for all. But I went to work with the Poles in Baghdad instead.
WITH THE GROM
"Kyle, you will come."
The Polish NCO doing the briefing stroked his bushy beard as he pointed at me. I didn't understand much Polish, and he didn't speak very good English, but what he was saying seemed pretty clear-they wanted me to go in the house with them during the operation.