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H
AIFA
S
TREET
I
n December 2005, Iraq geared up for national elections, its first
since the fall of Saddam—and the first free and fair ones the country
had ever held. The insurgency was doing everything it could to stop
them. Election officials were being kidnapped left and right. Others
were executed in the streets.
Talk about your negative campaigning.
Haifa Street in Baghdad was a particularly dangerous place.
After three election officials were killed there, the Army put together
a plan to protect officials in the area.
The strategy called for snipers to do overwatches.
I was a sniper. I was available. I didn’t even have to raise my
hand.
I joined an Army unit from the Arkansas National Guard, a great
bunch of good ol’ boys, warriors all.
P
eople who are used to the traditional separation between the
different military branches may think it’s unusual for a SEAL to be
working with the Army, or even the Marines for that matter. But the
forces were often well-integrated during my time in Iraq.
Any unit could put in an RFF (Request for Forces). That request
would then get filled by whatever service was available. So if a unit
needed snipers, as they did in this case, whatever branch had
available snipers would ship them over.
There’s always back-and-forth between sailors, soldiers, and
Marines. But I saw a lot of respect between the different branches,
at least during the fighting. I certainly found most of the Marines and
soldiers I worked with to be top-notch. You had your exceptions—
but then you have your exceptions in the Navy, too.
T
he first day I reported for my new assignment, I thought I’d need
an interpreter. Some people like to harass me about my Texas
twang, but these hillbillies—holy shit. The important information
came from the senior enlisted and the officers, who spoke regular
English. But the privates and junior guys straight out of the
backwoods could have been talking Chinese, for all I knew.
We started working on Haifa Street right near where the three
election officials had been killed. The National Guard would secure
an apartment building to use as a hide. Then I’d go in, pick out an
apartment, and set up.
Haifa Street was not exactly Hollywood Boulevard, though it
was the place to be if you were a bad guy. The street ran about two
miles, from Assassin’s Gate at the end of the Green Zone and up to
the northwest. It was the scene of numerous firefights and gun
battles, all sorts of IED attacks, kidnappings, assassinations—you
name it and it happened on Haifa. American soldiers dubbed it
Purple Heart Boulevard.
The buildings we used for overwatches were fifteen to sixteen
stories tall, and had a commanding view of the road. We moved
around to the extent that we could, shifting locations to keep the
insurgents off-balance. There were an untold number of hideouts in
the squat buildings beyond the immediate highway, all up and down
the street. The bad guys didn’t have much of a commute to get to
work.
The insurgents here were a real mix; some were mujahedeen,
former Baath or Iraqi Army guys. Others were loyal to al-Qaeda in
Iraq or Sadr or some of the other whackadoos out there. At the
start, they’d wear black or sometimes these green sashes, but once
they realized that set them apart, they resorted to wearing regular
civilian clothes just like everyone else. They wanted to mix with
civilians to make it more difficult for us to figure out who they were.
They were cowards, who not only would hide behind women and
children, but probably hoped we’d kill the women and children,
since in their minds it helped their cause by making us look bad.
One afternoon, I watched a young teenage kid waiting for the
bus below me. When the bus pulled up, a group of older teenagers
and young adults got off. All of a sudden, the kid I was watching
turned and started walking very quickly in the opposite direction.
The group caught up quickly. One of them pulled out a pistol
and put his arm around the kid’s neck.
As soon as he did that, I started shooting. The kid I was
protecting took off. I got two or three of his would-be kidnappers;
the others got away.
The sons of the election officials were a favorite target. The
insurgents would use the families to put pressure on the officials to
drop out. Or else they’d just kill the family members as a warning to
others not to help the government hold the elections or even vote.
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