by Peter Mercer
In the Marines I was involved in three tours of Northern Ireland and the First Gulf War, but I don’t think it is comparable to what today’s troops are going into. No disrespect to the ground troops who did go in during the First Gulf War, but our lads are now having to fight for their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s a different war these days, in my opinion. It goes back to the hardcore fighting like in the Falklands period, when troops were carrying 120 pounds of equipment and fighting for hours on end – a very tough job. And now warfare has to be conducted at very close quarters, sometimes with fixed bayonets.
Although I was here as a civilian, not fighting as such but still staring death in the face every day, we were basically working as a private army. The Americans called us mercenaries, but because we weren’t officially going on combat missions we couldn’t be classed as such. However, there is a loophole: if we came across American troops under effective enemy fire we could ‘assist’ – i.e. help them out, go on the offensive, call it whatever you will. We would fight alongside them. Sometimes we even took charge of situations. They were quite well aware of our backgrounds and knew that most of us were far more highly trained than they were. Our calmness under fire often showed this.
Does this breach the boundaries of contractor or mercenary? You make your own mind up.
If you were to ask any of the lads working up in the north or in Baghdad, I bet you would get the same answer through and through. We operated with political indifference. You don’t give a shit what you are actually doing – you are just there for the money and you’re doing a job that you’re trained to do. Our one-hundred-man elite unit was made up of Poles, Americans, Brits, French, Irish, South Africans, Zimbabweans, Fijians and Gurkhas (Nepalese). Most companies in Iraq and Afghanistan hire Western expat soldiers as team leaders/patrol commanders; PSD (personal security detachment) teams are 90 per cent expats. Then for the troops they hire ex-Gurkhas, Fijians or Peruvians. Wages in Iraq today are not what they used to be but there is still good cash to be made. South African companies are flooding the market and wages have gone down, as low as £140 per day for an expat; the Gurkha and Fijian base rate was $50 per day and Peruvians’ rate was as low as $33 per day.
A major reason a lot of these PMCs are used is that, essentially, we are civilians and civilian or company casualties don’t have to be reported. If the US used their soldiers to do all of the work, (a) they would have to commit more troops and (b) more of them would die or be permanently maimed. The American government were using us as tools of war and also so that US citizens could avoid being drafted because, obviously, if this was to happen the government would become extremely unpopular, probably losing votes. No government wants this, as it could quite possibly be political suicide.
We would have a good laugh with the other companies around camp. At the end of the day, we were all in the same boat. We were there for the same thing: the rush and the money. Anyone who says different is, in my opinion, kidding themselves. I know guys who were formerly elite solders in fantastic jobs in civvy street with great money, wives and kids – a nice life – who went back to Iraq as contractors and took a wage cut to do it just for the buzz. Once a soldier, always a soldier. We’d sometimes have a drink together, moan about wages (as I said, some of the South Africans were on £4,000 a month – £140 a day – while we were on £14,000 a month), moan about the companies we were working for – just like being in the forces again but with more dosh. And, of course, it was all friendly banter.
All the expats were issued with an M9 Beretta pistol. In body-guarding situations these pistols are essential, but in this job we were doing they were pretty useless. Most of us just carried an AK-47 and put it in the footwell of the vehicle as a backup weapon, but the pistols came in handy when you were running around or walking around camp. We used to joke that this was in case we were about to be captured. If I was in a situation where I needed to use my pistol and our situation was beyond repair we would most certainly be fucked. I would shoot our team then me. Ex-forces guys reading this book will probably say ‘Bullshit, what a wanker!’ But once you actually see what the insurgents are capable of (and I’ve already given you a taste of that) you’d consider it – we had all made a pact to do just that.
I gave my pistol to my driver – his M16 was too unwieldy inside the confined space, and I always carried a spare. If there was no way out and we were certainly fucked, we would do it. You stood a lot bigger chance of getting caught or killed up here than in Baghdad. If you don’t take these things into account, you shouldn’t be doing the job we were doing. It was my job to make sure nothing like this would ever happen – period. However, the pistol would always remain a joke, but we all seriously knew it wasn’t.
Please don’t get me wrong. I think the bravest man in the world is the man who has to look after his family. But, although a lot of the lads I worked with were family men, most of these guys craved, or even needed, the adrenalin rush (and obviously the money).
For your wife or girlfriend back home, it is a daily drama of not knowing how you are or where you are; if you are going to be killed, or if you’ve already been killed; or what the hell is actually happening to you. Ask any partner what they would prefer. You at home on £500 a week or getting your arse shot off for £2,500 a week? I think that most partners would rather have you ‘safe’ at home and in one piece. This was a predicament I didn’t have to face. A lot of these guys were here just to get themselves out of debt and some, as I said, were here for the buzz.
As we woke to a beautiful, crisp morning, I decided to take our brat of a dog, Kasper, for a run along the perimeter. I put my pistol in my hip holster, which I used to put on my arse because Berettas are big pistols and trying to run with one on your hip is a nightmare. The Iraqi civilians on camp and some of the troops were always trying to kill the wild dogs that used to hang around, so we sprayed the back of our dog green so that they knew she was one of ours and would not kill her. Kasper didn’t mind that we’d sprayed her green, but she was still a feral little bastard.
So there I was happily jogging along with our green-arsed dog when I heard a familiar sound: the whistle of an incoming mortar. I grabbed the dog and then dived for cover; the dog then tried to bite me. We dived onto the ground, as I didn’t have any cover nearby. Boom! I couldn’t tell where the mortar landed but it sounded close. Then there was another. All the time that this was going on the fucking dog, which I was trying to protect, was biting the crap out of me, the little sod!
The Fijians and the Gurkhas were fond (I must admit, I was as well) of this mad little pooch so I resisted letting her go, and I put up with the nipping. It must have looked pretty hysterical. There was I, appearing to be wrestling this little yappy dog, and, though it may have looked as if I were trying to strangle her, far from it: I was doing my best to save our beloved pet. Following the third mortar strike the Americans started opening up, firing at the mortar position.
The US military have this special detection equipment set up to find the direction of incoming fire from mortars. It turned out that it was coming from a huge hotel that was situated around 200 metres from the perimeter of the camp. All of a sudden the mortaring stopped, so our green-arsed, nasty, feral but lovely puppy dog and I carried on with our run. That dog loved running, funnily enough, but the fucker kept trying to trip me up by weaving around me or cutting me up. I had to keep her on a bit of rope, which could be entertaining.
After getting laughed at for a good thirty minutes on our run because of Kasper, I arrived back at the accommodation, showered and sat down on my small throne. We’d all been permitted at some time, or maybe not, to take some furniture out of Saddam’s palaces, so some of us even had chaises longues while some of the other guys had acquired gold-leaf chairs. I sat and relaxed for a little while, put on some chill-out music and fell asleep.
I woke and remembered that this morning we were doing weapons training. The minor problem we had with this was that, while the Fiji
ans had been trained in the M16 American assault rifle, the Gurkhas, being of different origin and having been Pakistan- or British-trained, had not been. This meant everyone was used to a different weapon and, therefore, had to be trained with the M16 (because it was only the expats who got a choice of weapon – everyone else had to have an M16). At the range, therefore, we didn’t really have to concentrate on the Fijians’ training, just the Gurkhas’. The Fijians just had to do the range and zero, test and adjust their sights. It wasn’t that the Gurkhas couldn’t shoot – they certainly could – just that some things were different for them with the M16.
The safety procedures employed on the range were very strict because it was on the outer edge of the helipad. If a chopper was coming in you had to stop firing immediately, unload and generally just be very careful – chopper pilots get very nervous around guns for hire because professionalism varies quite a lot through the different companies. If you accidentally hit a chopper, you and the company you’re working for would be in deep shit, really deep shit. I’m not saying that you’d purposely do it, but there was always the chance of a ricochet on ranges. We always had to post a sentry who had a radio link with the American headquarters, and would inform us of any incoming aircraft.
Following the range practice that day – which went really well apart from a few minor mishaps – the standards were all pretty good. We then had to let the Fijians get some grub. The CIA had booked the range for the rest of the morning, anyway, so we had to get off. PMCs always came second in anything concerned with the US military, or US civilian intelligence agencies. We had also heard a rumour that an important VIP was coming in today, but we weren’t told who. As it turned out the rest of the day was uneventful – just a bit of gym and a bit of bumming around. Pretty chilled out and no more mortars, thank fuck!
Around teatime I was coming out of the canteen, after a nice steak, when I saw two Apache attack helicopters and a Black Hawk transport helicopter coming in. I guessed this could be the VIP, as it was not normal for two Apaches to be escorting a Black Hawk – normally they fly independently of each other. The Black Hawks are also pretty well armed, so wouldn’t usually need Apaches to escort or protect them. So I sat on the wall outside the citadel and waited to see who it could possibly be.
Following a short wait, a load of Triple Canopy guys came up to the building escorting ex-President Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton recognised me as a contractor because of my civilian clothes and pistol. He came up, shook my hand and said what a great job we were doing. He asked which company I was working for and I told him. He said he was hearing great stuff about us and that we had a good reputation back in Washington, DC. I didn’t really give a toss, but it was kind of cool to shake the hand of an ex-president of the United States! After my brief meeting I headed back to my quarters. I was pretty knackered and soon dropped off to sleep after watching yet another crap copied DVD.
The next morning was uneventful, apart from the one game of touch rugby we had on the helipad with the Fijians – always a laugh if not knackering. Later that morning – after getting stuffed at touch rugby – my mate Malcolm came down to see me. Malcolm was CIA and his job was computers – monitoring them (basically computer spying) to see what the insurgents were up to and generally keeping an eye on things. He told me that things were hotting up and movements of the insurgents were increasing.
These CIA guys were the eyes and ears on the ground, but, to be frank, even if the information they gave us was accurate and correct, it wouldn’t do us much good, because the insurgents could and did move around so efficiently and effectively. We were in a no-win situation anyway and it was purely down to us to sort ourselves out. After chatting over a coffee with Malcolm I was quite interested to know that the CIA used civilian contractors as well. They were actually permitted to recruit whomever they wanted. It was always interesting talking to him, but I’m sure he came down only for the decent coffee and cold beer we had. He was a nice guy, though.
After tea we all had a couple of beers. It was always nice to relax. It was essential to be able to let off a bit of steam. We all had a pretty early night and were settling into a nice peaceful sleep when all hell broke loose. The sound of gunfire that awoke us was immense – as if it were right outside our own doors. The noise and rate of fire was tremendous. I dived out of my bed, grabbed my M16, banged a magazine on it and legged it out of the door, still in my boxers. We’d all been given ‘stand-to’ positions (this was basically emergency positions in the unlikely event that the camp came under attack or was overrun).
As I came running out of my door, I came face to face with Phillipe, who had the hooch next door to mine. He didn’t even have his underwear on, but was stark bollock naked. All he had was his gun. This was truly a bizarre sight and if the situation wasn’t so serious I would have laughed! We said we’d cover each other while we got some sort of clothes on and chucked some body armour on. Once we’d composed ourselves from our rude awakening we got into our fire positions, which were about 10 metres from our accommodation. It sounded like a shit storm was happening just outside the perimeter wall, and, because we had no comms with the Americans, we didn’t know what was going on out there. All we could see were tracer rounds going just over our heads and we could hear one hell of a racket; it was pretty scary shit.
Now we were sorted in our fire positions, Phillipe and I started laughing at what we’d just experienced – running around in the bollocky buff and boxer shorts, respectively, and armed to the teeth. But now we were prepared and in good fire positions, so if anyone came in we’d fuck ’em up good and proper. I popped a 40mm grenade into the breach of my M203 and prayed I’d maybe hit something. There was now even more firepower going down and ricocheting everywhere and the whole of our squad were legging it around in a bit of a confused state trying to establish where the best place to form a defence would be.
The next moment amazed me. All the shooting and noise stopped and a deathly quiet descended. We all, rather apprehensively, got up and gathered round for a chat. What the fuck had just happened? No one knew, so we sent one of our American guys up to the citadel (because he could get access) in the hope of finding out what had just gone down. When he came back he informed us that, as an American patrol had come out of the gate, they had driven straight into an insurgent ambush. They had encountered heavy-calibre machine-gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades, the lot. The insurgents really had it in for them. In return, the Yanks had opened up with everything they had and the noise was truly incredible! No wonder it sounded like World War Three! Pretty much all the insurgents bought it; the ones who had survived were wounded and so were arrested. No Americans were hurt or killed.
I found it quite moving sometimes watching the faces of these young American troops after they had been involved in a bad contact where they had maybe lost a mate or a lot of friends. You could practically see them age overnight, and over time their composure changed and a lot of them looked sad and homesick. As mercenaries from different parts of the world and widely differing backgrounds, we could sometimes find it difficult to understand where each of us was coming from, but we all managed to gel eventually and we formed a great team. To this day I have fond memories of the guys I served with. There were some really great characters – most good, some bad.
Green-arsed Kasper had now become a bit of a pain in the butt. The little fucker had, when I was out, left me a nice stinking message in the middle of my floor for when I came back from the shower. It was hard to be angry with her, though, but to make matters worse for me she had been going into one of the stagnant ponds that were scattered around the base to cool down in and do a bit of swimming! She now stank to high heaven and would insist on sleeping in my room most nights. Even though the little fucker often used to nip me, we were all fond of her. It was kind of a love–hate relationship. She was, after all, a wild dog. When the green paint wore off, though, she’d always get a respray for her own protection.
Life around ca
mp was never dull. There was always something going on. We’d now had a day or two off and managed to get some time to patch up some of the vehicles (which we had to do quite often) when a US Major came over for a chat – he was a commander in charge of the Stryker armoured personnel carriers. We all got chatting about missions that we’d been on and he started asking about Tikrit, which we used to travel through every now and then, and Tal Afar. I told him about our wheel-changing fiasco, which made him chuckle a little. I said to him that when he took his guys through there he should watch his arse, and he gave me a sly smile in return – as if saying to me, ‘Don’t patronise us, we’re the US military, we know what we’re doing.’ I left it at that. If he didn’t want advice on an unfamiliar hostile area so be it – more fool him. In my book any free advice is good advice. We went our separate ways and I carried on helping to fix our ravaged, bullet-riddled trucks.
Later in the day I saw the same major. I had to laugh, because he’d been shot in the arm and had it in a cast. I know that this sounds a bit cruel, but apparently, knowing best (of course!), he’d stuck his head out of the Stryker to have a look and observe a few places in this most dangerous of towns and he’d been taken out by a sniper. Poetic justice I would call it, and I have to admit to feeling a little smug about it all. Of course, it would have been no laughing matter if he had been killed, but he’d got off lightly considering his audacity, and the sniper had only winged him. He’d be OK and maybe a little wiser.
It was some of the Yank forces’ tactics to try to bribe local tribal leaders with dollars in order to get some insurance, we hoped, that we wouldn’t get hit or caught with an IED going through trouble spots. This was extremely cost-effective for us – if it worked – for a couple of reasons: (a) you didn’t have to get a new vehicle if you were taken out and (b), more importantly, you’d have safe passage through that area. For a few bucks you could save the lives of your guys. We had good heads on our shoulders and we knew what we were doing. As always, our aim was getting from A to B in one piece.