by Peter Mercer
We had the booze, the Gurkhas’ curry, music, barbecue and quite a few women from the American forces. I think the ladies found us a little bit more exciting than their male comrades and had made a real effort to befriend us mercenaries. Of course, the added bonus that probably won it for us was that we could get alcohol, which the American forces couldn’t.
We bombed into camp that evening, then went through our usual routine of unloading and going for the debrief. After the debrief I returned to my hooch and took my Father Christmas outfit off. Thank fuck for that! I was starting to feel a bit of a plonker and certainly looked like one, bombing around the most dangerous place in the world dressed as a kids’ character – truly remarkable. Truly fucking stupid, but what a laugh!
I woke up Christmas Day feeling really great and a little bit squiffy. The weather was now fucking freezing but we were going to have a good time. We had no missions on, as the Americans had given us all the time off we wanted – well, a day or two, anyway. After doing admin all day, we sort of started our Christmas party. The American general in charge of the camp and his entourage were coming, so we had to hide all the booze. The Fijians were going to sing Christmas carols for the general, who seemed genuinely to love those guys. The beer started flowing and, of course, the whisky for the Gurkhas. I was looking forward to the evening, which I expected to be great. The Gurkhas already had the curry on the go, which I was quite relieved about – at least I hadn’t had to witness the preparation, and that made the food more enjoyable to eat.
Party time came; the goat curry was smelling great; everything was good. We rigged up the sound system for a bit of music and all the American women and a few of our American mates turned up as well. The sound system kicked off and the whisky had been freely flowing all day, so the Gurkhas started dancing, which was funny as hell – though we probably should have taken their kukris off them before they started.
Just as we were getting into the swing of it, we heard the familiar noise of an incoming mortar. We all dived for cover in one of the concrete shelters. The mortar landed and embedded itself right next to one of our guys’ hooches. It was stuck in the sandbags we piled up outside our doors for protection. I think God was smiling on us that night, because it didn’t detonate. If it had gone off it would probably have taken most of us out and certainly would have ruined our party. We cleared the area for a while, as a precaution until we were fairly sure that the mortar wasn’t going to go off, and then we removed the mortar and carried it to the perimeter wall and threw it back over.
Once the mortar had been disposed of, we returned to the barbecue and carried on partying. The curry turned out to be awesome, but it was a little hard to eat, what with the bones and gristle. We had a great night, though, drinking, dancing, telling stories, and quite a few of the lads pulled American girls and, from accounts in the morning, we gathered that most of them got laid that night.
We all woke up on Boxing Day with banging heads and generally feeling rough. On the bright side, we all now had a couple of days off and, with nothing to do, we all just chilled. It made a nice change not to be getting shot at.
Although we were still supposed to be on lockdown, we were soon asked to go on another mission. This was to be a route recce and none of us were that keen to do it. We agreed to go out but broke our rules by deciding to take an easier route than the one that had been suggested to us. After all, we had quite a bit of local knowledge by now and we knew that some of these routes would almost guarantee your getting shit in some form or another. Sometimes, when your nerves were wearing thin, you just didn’t want to meet any trouble, and the route we picked seemed the far safer and better option. It was bad practice, but sometimes you do get tired of seeing comrades blown apart, so what the fuck! It was Christmas and we thought that changing the route slightly wouldn’t make all that much difference.
We left camp and did the ‘suicide run’, as we’d come to call it, and proceeded north towards Turkey. The route we were taking was up through the mountains, which made it safer because this was Kurdish territory and we would, therefore, have mostly safe passage. The mountains were also fascinating and very beautiful – you could easily imagine you were on holiday, sometimes. We looked at our maps and discovered we would be passing some kind of monastery, so we decided to go and have a look, as we felt we were safe enough.
It was truly an incredible, stunning place. It stood probably 600 feet up the side of one of these magnificent mountains. There was only one road up to the monastery, which was a tightly curved switchback. We posted a sentry – who wasn’t that bothered about seeing the place himself – over the lookout position and went up to have a look at this holy place. It was very beautiful and very peaceful. We all removed our body armour and major weapons, but we kept our pistols. We didn’t really expect any trouble as we were almost at the Turkish border, so we all felt pretty safe. This was, after all, Kurdistan. It still felt disrespectful and wrong to be carrying weapons of death into such an obviously holy place but, while it’s not nice, we had to be realistic and it was essential to remain to some extent armed. However, from here we could have seen anyone approaching from miles away. There was no possibility that anyone could approach from above: it was just too steep and there was absolutely no access that we could see.
I did wonder how the hell they had built this place. It beggared belief, perched as it was on the side of a steep mountain. Once inside the monastery we found that there were tunnels everywhere. They penetrated into the cliff itself, going in many different directions. It must have taken a lifetime to construct, and I thought it was pretty amazing. I really wanted to explore these tunnels but we didn’t have the time. This beauty and the tranquillity of the place seemed like a safe haven to us, far better than facing the bombs and bullets back down in Mosul. It was very peaceful and calming. I remember thinking that maybe one day I would come back and explore properly, but, even as I thought this, I knew that I wouldn’t.
We made our way out of the monastery and mounted up. A few of the guys had even managed to have a little kip. Everyone was feeling pretty chilled and we locked and loaded. As we were about to head off down the hill, we came across, unbelievably, a group of tourists: a couple and, presumably, their children. They were freaked out by our appearance, what with all the guns and body armour. We stopped for a chat with them. Once they had got over their initial fright, they told us that they were on holiday from Canada. I tried to explain to them that, although we were in Kurdistan, this was still a really dangerous place to be in and they were in very real danger of being abducted and held for ransom or, worse, tortured and executed. They didn’t seem convinced, and we left them, shaking our heads at the absurdity of taking a tour into a country that was effectively still at war, with quite a lot of the insurgents trying to capture anyone not from Iraq. It was madness.
As we descended into this tremendous valley we were constantly thinking about this Canadian couple who were foolishly putting their children at risk. They had probably travelled from Turkey through Kurdistan, which, although a lot safer than Mosul, was still a very dangerous place. I was still worried about it and it played on my mind a lot for a couple of hours after. No sane person wants to see innocent civilians hurt or killed, let alone children. I wondered if I’d see them on the news; I half expected to.
We all felt a little calmer after looking at all this beautiful scenery and visiting that tranquil monastery. It was time to head back now, and we trundled off back down the hill, where, in all likelihood, the only real danger we faced was running into a sheep or a goat. But before long it was time to run the gauntlet again as we returned to Mosul.
Once back in camp, we could all relax, so we did our usual hell-for-leather dash back and shot through town as fast as possible. We made it and fired on through the gate as quickly as we could. The American sentries, as always, gave us a wave and cheered when we came through – testament to the good relationship we had with them. We watched their backs, they w
atched ours – it was a cool understanding and, best of all, it worked.
We now had time off until New Year’s Eve and we could do what the hell we wanted – except leave camp, as we were still on lockdown. We just chilled and enjoyed our time off.
Up to New Year’s Eve it was pretty uneventful. We mainly did first-aid training, with our medics teaching the lads trauma procedures, e.g. treating basic gunshot wounds, trauma management and even how to apply a simple plaster. Medical training was essential because of all the contacts we regularly went through. We had suffered so many casualties and deaths over this tour that it had to be done. It was also essential in case one of the trained paramedics was taken out – we all had to have the basic knowledge to be able to patch him up the best we could.
So Christmas had come and gone, and here was New Year’s Eve, and everyone was, to tell you the truth, getting a bit bored. There’s only so much training you can do around camp. In Baghdad you were tasked daily, but up in the north (which was considered an insurgent stronghold) the Americans were very strict about movement. I’m not for one minute saying Baghdad was easy – far from it – but up in the north the insurgency was far more intense.
New Year’s Eve was going to be our last day off, and then we would be in the thick of it again. We decided to get on the range again, just for a few hours at least. Mainly, we tried to put the guys under pressure with their drills. For example, as they were firing we’d shout ‘Stoppage!’ and instruct them to drop to one knee, take the magazine off, clear the weapon and get back into their fire positions. All this training, although mundane, was essential. The more range time we got, the slicker the guys became. Immediate-action (or IA) drills, as they are known, are essential.
We did, however, have an ulterior motive – the mini Uzi was still waiting to be tested out on the firing range.
We approached the American guy who was running our stores and requested a load of 9mm bullets. He wanted to know why we needed so many, since only a few of us carried a Beretta pistol. He said that he didn’t have that many, so we couldn’t have any. We told him about the mini Uzi and he grinned broadly and said we could have as many as we liked, provided we let him have a go as well. It seemed that the mini Uzi was something everyone wanted to have a go on!
So there we were on the range with this mini Uzi. We had managed to get a big bucket load of 9mm ammunition but this presented us with a problem, because we had only two magazines for this thing, and you could empty a magazine in under two seconds! So someone had to be loading all of the time. As we all wanted to have a go, this was going to be a bit of a pain in the arse. We all queued up and agreed that Phillipe could have first go. He let rip with this little fucking gun, eating up the rounds in its magazine in the blink of an eye. A little embarrassingly, Phillipe got only two rounds on target – and he’d used one before! It was only the 25-metre range, but this thing was missing its shoulder stock, so it was hard to control. We were all having a laugh at Phillipe’s expense, but of course that had been the point – to have a laugh.
By the time it was my go I was in hysterics. I clipped the mag on and let rip – the fucking thing tried to jump out of my hand. These things had truly a rapid rate of fire and, unless you’re less then 15 metres away from your target, forget it. Turns out that Phillipe was the best out of all of us. I managed only to wing the target – much to Phillipe’s amusement. Because this mini Uzi didn’t have a shoulder stock it was like having an automatic pistol and, because it’s a very short-barrelled weapon, the rounds tend to go everywhere over a long range.
After the range practice that day, the Gurkhas cooked again and we managed to get hold of a load of wooden pallets from the store and built ourselves a fire for the evening. I was feeling a bit pissed off – call it a bit of depression if you prefer – but this was just down to the fact that I was away from my family. However, this was part and parcel of the job, so you had to just suck it up and get on with it.
Chapter 14
Final Leave
Having been hit and laid up for a number of weeks with nothing to do but think about what had happened to me and my mates more than I really cared to dwell on, I had wanted to go straight back to the job, since boredom was getting the better of me. However, my close brush with death and the ongoing casualty rate among our teams was really making me regret my decision to rush straight back to work. This job was tough and being injured had been a bit of a reality check.
My bosses had advised me to take some leave and go home and recuperate and really think about whether or not I wanted to continue. One of them pointed out that there is nothing worse than working with someone who is nervous and distracted with thoughts of his own mortality. A distracted person could easily endanger the lives of the whole team. At the time I was quite blasé about it. After all, I had been hit in the chest and survived – surely that meant I was bulletproof. I had decided that northern Iraq didn’t faze me. I had the attitude you should have after falling off a horse: you have to get straight back up and back in the saddle before your fears cripple you.
At the time that I went back to work I was sure that I had made the right decision and was eager to get back to all my mates. I was missing the camaraderie. After all, these guys had become my family. After only a few weeks back at work I realised that the advice I had been given was actually very good advice: I should have taken that extra time off to sort out my head and my feelings.
It wasn’t long before one of my bosses suggested to me that I was burnt out and really needed to go home for a while. He was good about it. They weren’t going to sack me or anything like that. However, they were concerned for my welfare and, for the safety of the whole team, I really needed to go home.
Initially I was furious about this. I felt almost cheated, as if I had been injured and come back and they were throwing me away. With hindsight, I realised the truth of what he said to me but at that time I was too angry to appreciate the favour he was doing for me. So, after stewing about it for the best part of two days, I reluctantly agreed to go home for some leave.
I had been working in Iraq for nearly fifteen months by this time and had taken only one decent leave up until this point so I reasoned to myself that I could go home and have time with my family and friends and then would be able to come back, clear-headed and focused. As soon as I told the boss that I would take the leave they arranged it so quickly that it almost made my head spin. In barely twenty-four hours I was, once again, packing up my stuff and hugging Kasper goodbye. Rotten dog still tried to bite me – that’s gratitude for you! Once again I was transported to the airport by the Gurkhas. I said goodbye to all the lads, absolutely convinced that within a month I would be back and carrying on where I had left off. I remember standing outside the airport and watching them scream away with barely a backward glance. I picked up my bag and walked into the airport. After the usual delays I was once more on a plane to Kuwait. I had a twenty-four-hour layover in Kuwait, which wasn’t so bad. I managed to explore a bit more and ate a couple of really good meals in the local restaurants.
The next day I was up early for my flight back to Amsterdam. Everything went really smoothly. There were no delays and before too long I was settling into my seat for the flight. I started to watch the in-flight movie but it was crap and I fell asleep really quickly. I didn’t wake until the air stewardess shook my shoulder to get me to fasten my seat belt. After only about fifteen minutes I was once more in Schiphol. I had to kill about three hours in the airport before my flight back to Heathrow, so I wandered about the shops looking for a gift for my mum. I was feeling quite restless by now and kept checking my watch, but time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. Now that I was on my way home I couldn’t wait to get there and catch up with everyone.
Eventually, after what seemed like eight hours but was really only three, the departure board showed that my flight was boarding. The flight to Heathrow was, thankfully, really short and before too long I was standing outside the airport th
inking about how to get home. I hadn’t told anyone I was coming back, so there wasn’t anyone waiting for me this time. I decided to get the train back to Bristol and call my mate Rodders from the train and get him to collect me at Bristol Temple Meads station. The train was crowded and it was a struggle to find a seat, and, when I eventually found one, I found I was sharing with a harassed mum and her two toddlers, who were noisy and messy. I love kids but these two little monsters would have pushed anyone to the limits – shrieking and screaming and throwing tantrums. Their poor mum kept apologising to me for them but I was very relieved when she got off after about an hour. The rest of the train journey was pretty peaceful.
I got into Bristol, grabbed my bags and left the station. Fortunately, Rodders was waiting for me. We hugged and loaded my bags into his boot. We talked all the way home. I didn’t mention my injury to him and, in fact, didn’t really mention Iraq at all. Rodders, being quite a sensitive guy when it suits him, didn’t push, realising that I didn’t want to talk about it. He knew I would tell him if and when I wanted to.
Getting back to my home town was quite strange. There was a new building in town that hadn’t been there when I’d left. The whole place seemed somehow smaller than when I’d last been there. The quiet pace of life there was at such odds with what I had been going through for the past year that I wondered if I would find it too boring for me.
I spent a few days getting in touch with my mates and meeting up with them – mainly in the local. In fact I think I may have camped out in the pub for about a week. I guess I thought I needed it. I certainly know that I drank quite a chunk of my wages that week! As a lot of my friends are builders and mostly self-employed, they are able to take a lot of time off if they want to – so it was never a problem to find someone to hook up with and sink a few pints.
