0316342246 (N) by Simon Chase

Author:Simon Chase [Chase, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2016-01-11T22:00:00+00:00

Aegis ran its operation out of Camp Wolfe, named after navy commander Duane Wolfe, who had been killed by an IED outside Fallujah. Wolfe was the USACE’s mini-base, part of the massive coalition base called Camp Victory, which occupied ten square kilometers of territory near the Baghdad International Airport, west of the city. The Camp Victory complex included other smaller bases named Camp Liberty, Camp Striker, Camp Slayer, and the al-Faw Palace—Saddam Hussein’s sixty-nine-room former winter palace.

Camp Victory was a city unto itself, a male-dominated US suburb stuck in the seething shithole that was Baghdad and featuring all the comforts of home, including Pizza Hut, Subway, Cinnabon, Burger King, Taco Bell, and a whole range of other fast-food facilities. There were game rooms for playing Xbox, bowling alleys, basketball courts, fully equipped gyms, libraries, movie theaters, and five large DFACs with pastry bars, salad bars, a grill, deli, Mexican cantina, Chinese-food area, Ben & Jerry’s, and dessert counter, all open 24/7. Guys living at Camp Victory didn’t want for anything.

Since we were working under a DOD contract, we enjoyed full privileges at all US mil bases in Iraq. There were many of them strung throughout the country, run like smaller Camp Victorys and offering similar amenities.

This made for a weird dichotomy between the world inside the wire and the world outside, and between those individuals serving in Iraq who rarely ventured outside and operators like us who did so on a daily basis.

In order to defend ourselves, we carried Glocks, M4 assault rifles, SOG knives, radios, penknives, Mag-Lites, and lots of ammo. All of it was issued by the US Army and in top condition. The only thing we provided were our own plate carriers, which came in assorted colors—khaki, olive drab, black—and could be modified by the individual operator. Mine carried six extra M4 mags, three 9mm Glock mags, and a small med kit. On the utility belt I carried three more M4 mags and three more Glock mags. We dressed in khaki fire-retardant flight suits with Nomex linings and carried grab bags loaded with another fourteen to sixteen mags.

All of this amounted to a shitload of firepower, but we needed it, because we ran into IED attacks and ambushes all the time. When things got ugly, our objective was to put down so much firepower in such a small window of time that it would act like a wall of lead to push the insurgents back and allow us to peel away.

Some runs were hellacious. Others were surreal and funny. The first SET I served on provided security to the general who audited reconstruction funds. It was his job to secure $17 billion in cash that had been flown in and was stored in warehouses around Baghdad. Armed and ready, we’d roll up to a sad-looking sheet-metal structure with two Iraqis sleeping on deck chairs outside. As we stood guard, the general would open the rusty padlock to reveal a stiflingly hot room stuffed floor to ceiling with pallets of shrink-wrapped hundred-dollar bills.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.