Mercenary Mum: My Journey from Young Mother to Baghdad Bodyguard by Neryl Joyce
Authors: Neryl Joyce
Ads: Link
post exchange (PX) store but it was nothing compared to the one the Americans had. The Camp Victory PX sold a good range of food, clothing and DVDs. It even had a Burger King.
Merlin warned that while this area might be safe, the road we’d need to take to get to the Green Zone was not. Route Irish was known as the BIAP Road, or the Jihad Road to the locals. It was one of the most dangerous roads in the world: many, many people had been killed on it. The 12-kilometre highway was the only route to the airport. As such, both military personnel and civilians often used it, making it a popular target for insurgent attacks.
The insurgents’ tactics varied. Suicide bombers would sometimes drive alongside their target’s car before detonating their explosives. Other times they would stand at the side of the road with their car bonnet raised to give the impression that they’d broken down, waiting for a convoy of security vehicles to pass before they pressed the button. Or the crafty pricks would plant explosives inside dead animals and place them next to the road. They’d drop grenades from overpasses, shoot rocket-propelled grenades and guns from nearby building windows, and set up banks of claymore mines, once again hoping to take out whoever they could. They were indiscriminate in who they targeted: military and security personnel, civilians and locals; they didn’t care as long as the body count kept rising. How do you reason with a bunch of arseholes who don’t even respect their own people, let alone a foreign military force?
Merlin took me to the undercover car park, where I met the rest of the team. The introductions were kept very brief. I noticed that they wore all their tactical kit with large shirts over the top to obscure it. Some had grown beards and were wearing Arabic scarves, known as ‘shemaghs’, around their heads.
A guy named Ghost introduced himself while handing me a Glock pistol. I attached it to my belt. Next, he gave me an AK-47. What a bloody archaic weapon , I thought. I wondered where my M-4 was: my contract from the security company had indicated that it was the team’s weapon of choice. An M-4 has a higher rate of fire, and is more accurate and a lot easier to use than the dinosaur I was currently holding. Ghost must have noticed my raised eyebrows. He told me that the company had not been able to get any M-4s into the country as yet, and that they were using AK-47s in the meantime.
I’d never used one before, but I’d heard its operation was fairly easy to pick up. The AK’s bullet calibre was larger than an M-4’s, so if I had to use it, at least it would leave the target with some damage. If I had to shoot an insurgent to protect myself and the team, then I wanted to do it effectively. The AK-47 was certainly up to the job.
After I was kitted up with weapons, body armour and ammunition, we drove the short distance to Camp Victory. Ghost told me to bat my eyelids at all the checkpoint guards, as I was the only team member without the ID card needed to get into the base. As it turned out, I was able to slip in along with the team, and soon I was stuffing my face with Burger King.
While the other guys went off to buy their supplies, Ghost stayed to keep me company. We had a getting-to-know-you chat: he told me he had a thirteen-year-old son whose mother he’d split from many years ago. He’d recently knocked up another woman, but wasn’t sure if he wanted to be with her either. I asked him about his previous experience, and he explained that he had been a medic in the British army. He’d been attached to the parachute battalion, which I took to mean that he’d worked with a combat unit, but he was a trade-qualified medic.
Ghost went on to say that he was the team medic as well as the counter assault team (CAT) leader. Now I was confused. The role of the CAT is to go in and shoot the shit out of the enemy when the team is under attack. It provides massive fire support so the
Merlin warned that while this area might be safe, the road we’d need to take to get to the Green Zone was not. Route Irish was known as the BIAP Road, or the Jihad Road to the locals. It was one of the most dangerous roads in the world: many, many people had been killed on it. The 12-kilometre highway was the only route to the airport. As such, both military personnel and civilians often used it, making it a popular target for insurgent attacks.
The insurgents’ tactics varied. Suicide bombers would sometimes drive alongside their target’s car before detonating their explosives. Other times they would stand at the side of the road with their car bonnet raised to give the impression that they’d broken down, waiting for a convoy of security vehicles to pass before they pressed the button. Or the crafty pricks would plant explosives inside dead animals and place them next to the road. They’d drop grenades from overpasses, shoot rocket-propelled grenades and guns from nearby building windows, and set up banks of claymore mines, once again hoping to take out whoever they could. They were indiscriminate in who they targeted: military and security personnel, civilians and locals; they didn’t care as long as the body count kept rising. How do you reason with a bunch of arseholes who don’t even respect their own people, let alone a foreign military force?
Merlin took me to the undercover car park, where I met the rest of the team. The introductions were kept very brief. I noticed that they wore all their tactical kit with large shirts over the top to obscure it. Some had grown beards and were wearing Arabic scarves, known as ‘shemaghs’, around their heads.
A guy named Ghost introduced himself while handing me a Glock pistol. I attached it to my belt. Next, he gave me an AK-47. What a bloody archaic weapon , I thought. I wondered where my M-4 was: my contract from the security company had indicated that it was the team’s weapon of choice. An M-4 has a higher rate of fire, and is more accurate and a lot easier to use than the dinosaur I was currently holding. Ghost must have noticed my raised eyebrows. He told me that the company had not been able to get any M-4s into the country as yet, and that they were using AK-47s in the meantime.
I’d never used one before, but I’d heard its operation was fairly easy to pick up. The AK’s bullet calibre was larger than an M-4’s, so if I had to use it, at least it would leave the target with some damage. If I had to shoot an insurgent to protect myself and the team, then I wanted to do it effectively. The AK-47 was certainly up to the job.
After I was kitted up with weapons, body armour and ammunition, we drove the short distance to Camp Victory. Ghost told me to bat my eyelids at all the checkpoint guards, as I was the only team member without the ID card needed to get into the base. As it turned out, I was able to slip in along with the team, and soon I was stuffing my face with Burger King.
While the other guys went off to buy their supplies, Ghost stayed to keep me company. We had a getting-to-know-you chat: he told me he had a thirteen-year-old son whose mother he’d split from many years ago. He’d recently knocked up another woman, but wasn’t sure if he wanted to be with her either. I asked him about his previous experience, and he explained that he had been a medic in the British army. He’d been attached to the parachute battalion, which I took to mean that he’d worked with a combat unit, but he was a trade-qualified medic.
Ghost went on to say that he was the team medic as well as the counter assault team (CAT) leader. Now I was confused. The role of the CAT is to go in and shoot the shit out of the enemy when the team is under attack. It provides massive fire support so the
Similar Books
