Paul’s second team—Sierra Bravo—had been providing security for the German engineer in Fallujah and Ramadi. Protective detail work was different from airport escort duty. In that situation, a ShieldCorp team worked what was called a “diamond” around a VIP. In case of attack, the team’s primary responsibility was getting the protectee “off the X” and to safety. The team could return fire defensively, but its main mission was to avoid escalating contact.
During its first six weeks of duty, beginning in February 2004, Sierra Bravo’s coverage of the engineer had gone smoothly. There’d been a couple of incidents with thrown rocks and bottles, but the team had evacuated its VIP in seconds with no shots fired and no casualties. However, the general situation in Central Iraq had begun deteriorating. That same month, disgruntled veterans from Iraq’s disbanded army had ignited a nationwide insurgency. On February 12, in Fallujah, they launched an RPG and machine-gun attack on U.S. commanding general John Abizaid and Eighty-Second Airborne general Charles Swannack. Eleven days later, they simultaneously attacked three Iraqi police stations and freed close to ninety insurgent prisoners. The situation was spinning out of control so rapidly that General Swannack placed al-Anbar Province under the direct authority of a Marine Expeditionary Force. On March 27 a U.S. special operations surveillance team was flushed out of hiding and had to fight its way out of Fallujah. Four days later, a massive roadside bomb killed five soldiers of the First Infantry Division as they worked to clear a supply road used by private contractors.
All this was only prelude to the March 31 ambush that wiped out the four Blackwater contractors. It was then that I arrived in-country. After my “initiation” riding with the airport convoys, Paul invited me to Ramadi to live with the Sierra Bravo protection team. Compared to the War Wagon gauntlet of the convoys, protective duty seemed almost soporific.
Until it didn’t.
On April 4 U.S. forces launched punitive surgical strikes into Fallujah. By the next morning, they’d surrounded the city, and tension across the country rose to an ominous pitch. The climate in Ramadi, which had seemed calm only days before, suddenly made us feel like a lone outpost on the edge of civilization. Ninety percent of the Iraqis who walked past the house Sierra Bravo used as its base scowled openly at us, and the two Iraqis employed by the team—an interpreter and a cook—got so nervous that they couldn’t sleep.
I wondered why we didn’t just evacuate until the battle for Fallujah ended, but Paul took his orders from the Pentagon, and that meant staying put. In a matter of hours, one-third of the population of Fallujah fled the city. The insurgents who remained were armed with RPGs, heavy machine guns, mortars, and antiaircraft cannons. Once American forces attacked Fallujah in earnest, all Central Iraq exploded into chaos. The Mahdi army declared itself and began attacking Coalition targets, and in Ramadi, a full-on Sunni rebellion sparked to fire. As chaos erupted around us, Paul moved the German engineer out of his private house and in with the protective team. Paul’s sources told him that many Iraqi national police officers had turned on the Coalition and he shouldn’t look to anyone in a police uniform for aid. With no other option, we hunkered down to wait out the fighting.
The Ramadi insurgents had a different idea. They’d known about the Sierra Bravo house for months, and they had no intention of giving us a pass. At two p.m. on April 8, a hundred Iraqi men gathered in the street in front of our house, and half of them carried either Kalashnikovs or American M4s donated by the Iraqi police. Inside the house, we had eight ShieldCorp contractors, two Iraqis (the cook and the interpreter, both males), the German VIP, and me—the embedded journalist. By Paul’s calculations, we had enough food and water to last three days and enough ammunition for about the same, depending on the intensity of any assault. If the insurgents brought up mortars or antiaircraft guns, of course, the equation would change radically.
Paul’s biggest regret was that our team’s Mamba had not been on site when the rebellion broke out. It was being serviced in Baghdad, which was two hours away on a good day. By the time Paul called Team Sierra Alpha to rescue us in the other Mamba, the insurgents had sealed off our section of Ramadi with roadblocks. A call to the Joint Task Force brought a similar answer and some free advice: Keep your heads down until we take Fallujah. Then we’ll escort you back to the Green Zone. The army didn’t seem to realize that regaining control of Fallujah might take more than a few days. (In the end it took six months.)
The first shots near our house went off around 4:00 p.m. It was sporadic fire, directed skyward, but it rattled the hell out of me. Paul ordered his men to hold fire. Ten minutes later, the first clips were emptied against the windows and front wall of our house. Concentrated bursts chipped away huge chunks of brick and stone and shredded the plywood that Paul’s men had used to barricade the windows. Paul was on the first floor with me. He shouted that everyone’s guns were “cleared hot,” but they should still hold their fire to the last possible moment. The ShieldCorp guys had cut gun ports in the plywood with a jigsaw, and they’d posted their three best snipers on the roof of the two-story house. But all obeyed Paul’s order and silently watched the insurgents blast the face of the building without letup. As the walls shuddered around me, I realized that unless a JSOC team dropped out of the sky in a couple of Black Hawks, this was the Alamo.
When Paul finally shouted the order to return fire, the Iraqis in the street began dropping three and four at a time. There’s nothing quite like watching the effect of automatic rifles in the hands of skilled soldiers with good fire discipline. Team Sierra Bravo cleared that street in less than two minutes. The problem—as we all knew—was that the Iraqis had virtually unlimited replacements in Ramadi, while we had none. We couldn’t even replenish our ammunition. I wasn’t firing, of course, but I was absolutely part of the group. We were going to live or die together.
After the street emptied out, Paul called a quick conference in the kitchen. So far as he knew, we had no hope of rescue. Sierra Alpha couldn’t reach us, and the army and the Marines were too hotly engaged elsewhere to bother with us. The German engineer asked about ShieldCorp’s Little Bird, which sounded like one of God’s angels at that moment. Surely, I thought, with enough covering fire, it could pluck us off the roof and whisk us to safety. Of course, with a crew of two, the helicopter could hold only six passengers, but I felt the logistics could be worked out. Maybe we could divide into two groups and escape in two runs. Paul explained that CENTCOM had grounded private aircraft in this zone, at least for the time being. Cobra gunships and low-altitude ScanEagle drones were swarming over the flat roofs of Fallujah, and the Joint Task Force didn’t want any confusion created by pilots not under its direct command. We were, Paul announced, going to have to hold out through the night.
Silence greeted this assertion. Then one contractor, an older Ranger named Eddie Curtz, said, “Just another day in paradise. Let’s go earn our money.”
Paul quickly outlined his defense plan, which included three-hour slots for pairs of men to sleep. He also issued weapons to the German, the cook, the interpreter, and me. To my surprise, the cook refused to arm himself. He was so afraid of what might happen to him in the hands of the insurgents that he was barely functioning. The interpreter accepted a 9 mm Glock pistol. Paul handed me an M4A1 rifle.
“It’s set on semi mode,” he said, showing me the selector switch. “But if they get within ten yards of the building, flip it to rock and roll.”
The weapon was heavier than I’d expected it to be.
“The second wave will be coming soon,” Paul told me. “About dusk, I imagine. I want you to stay with me on the ground floor.” As we walked into the room he’d been covering before, he leaned in and whispered, “You scared?”
“Shitless, buddy.”
He laughed. “It’s just like being on the kickoff team back in Bienville. Only with guns.”