Car bombs soon became the terror weapon of choice. A quartet of bombings in June killed 62 people and injured another 220. Western analysts and news media speculated that the increase in violence was due to the pending turnover of authority from the United States to the new Iraqi government. According to that theory, the attacks would wind down once the elections were held. It was a nice theory, but facts didn’t back it up; the attacks continued.
Most of these were isolated, affecting only a few people. I don’t remember most of them, and what I do recall are mostly snatches of things here and there, attacks where the MPs responded and I went along.
In the fall, two American army engineers went to a police station to handle some business. As they arrived, a man in a white SUV nearby detonated the explosives in his vehicle, killing one of the Americans as well as himself.
I was with the MPs at their airport base when the call came in. We loaded into the Humvees and drove over. I jumped out as soon as we pulled up, and began gathering information. There was a crowd already, and newspeople seemingly everywhere—I ended up being in one of the video reports of the incident.
Looking at the bodies of the dead men—both the American and the insurgent—I had a terrible sense that much worse was to come. The new Iraqi government had done little to clamp down on the violence; it was impotent, and that impotence would encourage even greater violence. On top of that, there was plenty of desperation and corruption, the twin enablers of the insurgency. Not every policeman in the city we worked with would take money to look the other way or tell al-Qaeda about our plans, but there were certainly plenty who would do both. Many government officials were even worse. And people who weren’t corrupt were fearful, afraid for their lives. Just doing their jobs put them in danger. The fact that the police did nothing after the IED attack was hardly surprising.
Americans tended to look at the violence in terms of the attacks on their soldiers and other citizens, which was understandable. But many more Iraqis were targeted and killed than Americans as the insurgency continued. What happened to Mosul in 2004 was shocking. The previous fall, the city was peaceful, with most people living more or less as they had before the war—Sunni and Shia side by side. Even during winter, insurgents elsewhere labeled the city a “white chicken”—a place of cowards—because things were relatively calm and religious animosity almost nonexistent.
By the summer, all of that was over. If you were to make a comparison involving a chicken when talking about Mosul, it was to one that had had its head cut off.
The new government and the police that supported them were targets not just because they were allied with the Americans, but because the central government was seen as being dominated by Shiites. Al-Qaeda deliberately targeted Shiites to “purify” the religion. Adding to the chaos was a power struggle between al-Qaeda, former Ba’ath Party members, and the remnants of the Fedayeen, all trying to assert their will.
Desperation fed desperation, which in turn fed violence. There were few jobs and food was often scarce. Even winter clothes were hard to get that year; when you could find them, the prices were too much for many to afford. People lived in very bad conditions; most were depressed or angry, or both. I’d returned home to a hero’s welcome when I got my job with the Americans. Now that was a sure way to invite trouble, if not death.
Stubbornly, I refused to recognize the danger I was in. I didn’t think anything could happen to my family or myself. Partly this was because the people around me had no desire to join the mujahideen. Nor did they have any trouble with me. They knew I was a fair and honest man; no one, I thought, would hurt such a person, let alone his family.
One of my cousins had given me a colorful jacket woven in India as a gift. It was unique and I liked it a lot. I wore it on my rounds with the MPs—Soheila recognized it immediately when we saw the news video from the car bomb.
It was a bright marker, something that made me stand out. But for some reason, though I saw what was happening to my country, I didn’t yet understand that standing out made you a target for all the evil around you.
SHORTLY AFTER THE SUV bombing, the MPs loaned me to another American unit working with the Iraqi police. With American help and prodding, the police had launched an undercover investigation aimed at closing a black-market operation selling guns out of a coffee shop. The investigation had reached the point where they were ready to make an arrest.
Once again I was a translator and a liaison for the Americans. I went inside with the Iraqi police, who made the actual arrest. As I was watching what they were doing, I noticed a customer stuffing a pistol under his belt. I grabbed it from him—it was a Browning semiautomatic, a nice one with wooden furniture—and turned him over to the cops. They continued going about their business, questioning the suspect and a few men who’d been dealing with him before herding them all out of the shop.
We were still a good distance from the Hummers when we were ambushed by two or three men with AKs who were across the way, crouched on a hill nearby. At that point, I wasn’t authorized to carry a weapon—another thing Americans were very sticky about. I’d given the Browning to the police and was therefore unarmed.
Instinctively, I grabbed a rifle from the cop next to me and started firing. The men with the guns, probably black marketeers angry about getting their favorite shopping spot busted, ran off. Whether I hit any or not I’m not sure, but I definitely did my best to get them.
In my mind’s eye, I see blood spurting everywhere when I look back. I know logically that they were too far and it was too dark for me to see, but emotionally I want to have gotten my revenge for their attack.
The Hummers raced up and I jumped in with the Iraqi cops. I still had a few bullets in the gun, and I kept it ready. I was alone with the police in the truck, and, not knowing them, it suddenly occurred to me that one or more might shoot me. I didn’t know any of them, since I’d never worked with them before, and while it may seem paranoid now, at the time it felt like a very rational fear. The short encounter had changed me dramatically. I’d gone from having no fear at all for my life to being suspicious of everything and everyone around me.
Back at the base, the MPs’ commander announced loudly that one of the Iraqi policemen had done an excellent job and should be commended. Then he asked that the man who had provided the covering fire step forward.
It took me a few seconds to realize he was talking about me. I was the only Iraqi who had fired back.
I stepped forward, a bit shy—I didn’t 100 percent trust that I was going to be commended rather than bawled out.
The commander was surprised that the interpreter, not the police, had been the one taking the fight to the insurgents. But he praised me nonetheless.
Sergeant Byrd and the MPs who knew me said they weren’t surprised at all. They’d already seen me change from a man of words to a man who was fighting as hard as they were.
After that fight, I realized I was fighting for Iraq, or at least my vision of what it could be: a safe place for family, a country with a future.
It sounds almost grandiose, like I came to a major conclusion and decision. But I didn’t. It just naturally happened. To that point, the job was about making money for my family. Now it was something more.
It didn’t have to be. I could have quit. Or I could have stayed back and still done my job. Most interpreters did just that.
Yet it wouldn’t have felt right: I would have felt not like a quitter but a coward. Staying back as a translator in the shadows, behind others, just doing the letter of my job: that would have been even worse. That would have made me a ghost, skittering along at the edges of life. It would have been just as cowardly as running away.
Don’t misunderstand. I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t look for a fight. I wouldn’t take on a tank or go “Rambo” against hordes of better-armed insurgents. But I wouldn’t let myself be pushed around. I gravitated toward the action, and once there, I did what I had to do. A kind of primitive animal
instinct took over:
Motherfucker, you want to take my life? Well, fuck you, I will take yours.
That was the sensation I felt at the moment. And after the adrenaline faded, after things calmed down, it was joined by another, deeper feeling:
Motherfucker, you aren’t going to take my country away. You aren’t going to win.
Fuck you. This is my country. This is my Iraq.
ONE MORNING IN the fall of 2004, I reported to work as usual. When I came in, an American sergeant—I’ll call him Sergeant East—greeted me and motioned me into a room for a private conversation. He asked if I’d be willing to change jobs and work with a different group of Americans. He didn’t give many details, but he hinted that the work would be very important, and probably more exciting than what I was doing now. It would also pay more—two and a half times more, as a matter of fact.
The money alone made it worthwhile. I was a little surprised, though, that I had been asked. From his description, the job entailed a lot of missions, something the Americans generally preferred to leave to younger men. And not only was I the oldest of the interpreters at forty, but I had the worst English language skills among them.
Admittedly, interpreting on a mission was often easier than interpreting on a routine police patrol. The vocabulary was much more limited, and you could get through most of what had to be done without speaking English at all, at least until you were needed to talk to a subject or target. But youth was a real asset during an operation. Even the ones I’d been on with the MPs required the ability to move quickly, climb, jump, and simply stay working for a long period of time.
Forty doesn’t seem that old now, and I suspect fifty won’t seem very old in a few years either. But to be honest, my body was showing all the signs you’d expect it to show as it aged. It had been quite a long time since I’d wowed Mosul on the basketball court or represented the region in the high jump. Truthfully, there were plenty of times I felt like an old man.
Still, I was flattered to be asked, and I could tell from the way Sergeant East spoke that he thought the new job would be an honor, or at least something of a promotion.
“So who are these guys?” I asked.
“SEALs.”
“Okay.” I nodded, but in truth I had no idea what SEALs meant, let alone who these guys were or what they did. The sergeant clearly held them in high esteem, but beyond that, they were a mystery.
SEALs? Seals? Aquatic animals?
It’s a good thing that my English wasn’t any better, because then I would have been truly confused. As it was, I just decided to do as I was told and see what happened.
Sergeant East sent me over to a compound on the air base to talk to the SEALs. As soon as I walked into their common room and saw their gear setup, I realized these guys meant serious business. These weren’t just warriors, they were first-class warriors. They had much better equipment than the MPs. They were all in excellent shape, real athletes. And they had a certain way of talking and walking that seemed commanding and very professional.
I was interviewed by one of the chief petty officers, Neal. He asked me a few questions about what I had done with the MPs and some other background things. The questions all seemed pretty easy. In fact, they felt too easy, as if I should be telling him more or have some sort of elaborate explanation. I went into detail about what I had done with the MPs and the Iraqi police, and still felt as if I wasn’t giving him enough information to impress him.
The interview didn’t take too long. When it was over, the chief got up to go.
“Do you think I have a chance to work with you?” I asked, sure I had done a terrible job in the interview.
“Definitely,” said Neal.
Definitely was a word I hadn’t heard before. It didn’t sound positive. But I was too embarrassed to ask what it meant, so I just nodded and left.
Back with the MPs, Sergeant East asked how I had done.
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Not well, I think.”
“No?” he was surprised.
“No. I asked if I had a chance.”
“Well, what did he say?”
“He said ‘definitely.’ ”
The sergeant laughed and began congratulating me. It was only then that I understood that definitely was a good thing.
I got the job and started a few days later.
I QUICKLY LEARNED that working with the SEALs was very different than working with the MPs, and not just because they weren’t training or working with the Iraqi police. While the MPs had gone on missions to pick up subjects, that had never been their main focus. The SEALs were all about apprehending insurgents, both suspected and confirmed.
Most of their assignments involved going to find a suspect and bringing him back for questioning by the authorities. These weren’t always arrests, but in most cases the people who were being picked up were pretty high-ranking insurgents suspected of serious terrorist activities. The SEALs always had to assume that the people they were going after—the “jackpot,” we called them—would put up a fight. They took many steps to minimize the risk, and in most cases there was no gunfire, but there was never a time on a mission that they could relax.
Because of that, they planned exhaustively for each mission. I wasn’t invited to these sessions at first; I probably wouldn’t have understood enough English to be useful anyway. Once the planning was done, they carefully briefed the different members of the unit, making sure everyone knew what he had to do. I was briefed on only my role at first; I’d have to win their trust before I was invited to make deeper contributions. Once an operation kicked off, the SEALs tended to follow their planning to the letter. They might excel at improvisation—I can attest that they did—but they did everything in their power to not have to improvise.
Because they operated almost exclusively at night—and probably because they didn’t completely trust me—the SEALs gave me a little trailer to stay in when not working. This was a major change; until now I’d been free to come and go after work as I pleased. But there was no sense in arguing, and in fact the arrangement was not only convenient but probably safer for me and my family. Plus, the trailer was spacious, though empty except for a bed and a few pieces of furniture. There was no TV, computer, or even radio.
The first day I reported for work, the chief introduced me to Percy, another translator. He was a short, chubby fellow, very friendly and full of advice. He invited me into his trailer, fixed up an impromptu meal, and gave me a long rundown on what to expect. He also told me about America—he was an American citizen—and he gave me a lecture about money. I should save as much as I could, he told me.
“You’ll work hard,” he said, “but you can save for the future. And you can have a good future.”
He was right about all of it, the money especially. I wasn’t getting rich, but by the standards I’d been used to before the war, I was suddenly doing very well. I’d been making two hundred dollars a month working for the MPs. The SEALs paid me five hundred. My first paycheck made me feel like I was a king. I bought my family presents, a TV, clothes. It was a heady feeling.
Others have pointed out that American citizens—like Percy—made considerably more than native Iraqis for the same kind of work—ten times as much, and in some cases even more. That was true for interpreters as well as just about everyone else. I don’t know what Percy was being paid, and I don’t begrudge him it either. I’m not even complaining about my pay. To me, it seemed a fortune.
The SEALs didn’t trust me yet. In fact, they kept a very close eye on me. If I wanted to go anywhere, I had to have an escort, even to the latrine, or “head,” as the navy people called it. The escort would be at the next stall while I did my business.
THE SEALs ARE organized differently than any other military unit I’d known. They are grouped in different “teams,” each of which generally has three troops, each with two platoons. Platoon size is around twenty men, sometimes a little less. There are West Coast teams and Eas
t Coast teams, a distinction that refers to where they are based in the United States. Odd-numbered teams are based on the West Coast, even numbers on the East. During the time I was working with them, the teams usually rotated platoons into Iraq for deployments that lasted several months—six, more or less, seemed to be the average. I started with Team 7 and ended up working with nearly all of the teams that came to Iraq. (The one exception was Team 6, which I was never assigned to.)
While the team structure forms a backbone for the administration of the units, SEALs are extremely flexible in practice. During my time with them, there were various task groups that worked with conventional soldiers and Marines for a variety of periods and missions. At different times, elements from different teams worked together as one.
The SEALs made no effort to explain their organization to me, and I don’t blame them. I’m sure part of the reason had to do with security; the less I knew about them, the less I could tell the enemy if I were captured. Besides, there was no real need for me to know whether the task group I was working with was composed of men from Team 1 or Team 5 or both. It made no difference to me whether the platoon I was helping was based in the eastern or western United States.
To a large extent, the distinctions that the SEALs observed between teams or even platoons were meaningless to me. While each man had his own personality, taken as a group the SEALs were remarkably similar in the way they did things and the way they were equipped. There were always individual wrinkles, but their overall approach never varied from one unit to another. It was always professional; it was always results oriented. To a man, they were the fiercest warriors I have ever known.
Like all military units, the SEAL teams were led by officers and answered to a “head shed” of senior commanders. My personal dealings were mostly with the senior enlisted men, usually chief petty officers, who were tasked to deal with interpreters. Most of them were a cross between a dad and the most demanding but fair sports coach you can imagine. These guys were usually my direct bosses; they took care of me, and I did my best for them.
Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs Page 9