Mercenary's Diary

I say "mercenary" because this guy is a private civilian contractor hired to drive trucks in Iraq, and of course we know from the left that makes him a "mercenary."

This comes from steve_in_hb's dad. I trust the provenance of it myself. (Plus, there are photos.) But, this being a friend-knows-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy deal, it's not exactly nailed down with MSM-level rigor.

Some personal information redacted.

My barber knows a truck driver named Fred who signed up to drive trucks in Iraq. He considered the 12-month contract which pays $125,000 (triple his anuual income here), but opted for 18 months at $250,000. He's 48 and married with two grown children.

He was in Iraq for only five months before he was sent back home following an incident. He and another civilian were driving a truckload of medical supplies to an Iraqi hospital. The truck was armored, they both wore body armor and helmets, carried automatic rifles and had ammo belts hanging from their shoulders. The other guy was driving.

The armored truck, looking a bit Road Warrior-ish

They were going down a road in the countryside when they saw a checkpoint coming up manned by guys wearinf Iraqi police uniforms. They agreed that the checkpoint looked phoney and drove through without stopping. Whereupon a couple dozen insurgents popped up from nowhere and began shooting at them. At one point there was an insurgent on the hood of the truck trying to shoot them through the windshield which fortunately was bullet proof.

Fred opened the passenger side door, leaned out and shot the guy off the hood. The driver must have been flooring it because the truck fell over on its side, Michael went flying out the door and landed in a sewage ditch next to the road. He later said he was covered in shit and piss and fighting for his life.

Now Fred was never in the military and had never fired a gun in his life until he received training in Iraq. He suddenly became Rambo and killed nine insurgents before help arrived. He was so charged up with adrenalin that he went to the last two guys he killed and stood over them riddling their bodies with bullets.

He and the driver had separated during the action. When they found each other later, they both said the same thing: "I thought you were dead."

The next day the base commander told Fred he was a marked man. The insurgents saw what he had done to the bodies of their two friends and vowed to kill him. The commander was worried that the insurgents would overrun the base. It's in the middle of nowhere and protected by only a barbed wire fence. Michael was moved out of the civilian quarters and into an out of the way shack in case the rebels came looking for him.

He wasn't given any more driving assignments and sat around for three weeks doing nothing except collecting his salary. Finally, word came down the chain of command that he had to return to the States.

Hanging out in one of Saddam's palaces

It's not Michael Yon, but I thought it was worth sharing.

Andrew Sullivan just emailed me to say this guy shoud be tried as a war criminal for shooting up already-dead terrorists.

posted by Ace at 06:06 PM

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