The Bremer Detail by John M. Del Vecchio Frank Gallagher Page A

threats against the Green Zone itself. There was a very credible threat to the palace area that ten teams of ten men would make a coordinated attack. The decision was made by someone at the Department of Defense back in Washington, D.C., to replace the contracted Gurkha guards with a company of FAST Company Marines. (We often wondered if they were truly Gurkhas. The Gurkhas have a long and storied past as warriors. Some of these guys did not match that history in any way shape or form.) The Marines took control of the palace, placing teams of their men at all access points into the buildings and at all the entrances to the grounds. We welcomed this change of security. The FAST Company guys were no joke and took their orders and responsibilities extremely seriously. The fact that they were commanded by a former Marine Recon guy, Major Ottinger, made it even sweeter to me. They set up heavy-weapons emplacements, fortified fighting positions, and made the place a hell of a lot safer. It made keeping an eye on the ambassador at the palace a little less tense knowing that the Marines would be checking the IDs of all people coming in. It was a good thing. Their armorers even made repairs on a few of our weapons that were jacked up beyond the capability of Ken and our limited supply of weapons tools to fix. Semper Fi.
    Up to this point, attacks on the palace grounds had been rare. The Iraqis had a curious habit of shooting into the air to celebrate almost anything, and the celebratory fire had punched holes in the some of the trailer roofs. A few people had been hit as the bullets eventually came back to Earth. I found more than a dozen bullets on the ground outside my trailer while I was there. I figured if my time was up, then it was up. I’m still not sure if you get into Valhalla if you’re killed by celebratory fire, but we tried not to waste a lot of time or energy thinking about it. Guys on the team took to putting layers of three-quarter-inch plywood and sandbags on top of their trailers to stop the “what goes up, must come down” theory from providing them a late-night surprise.
    On this particular evening things changed dramatically. Around 2100, over the music that was playing, we heard the unmistakable sound of a rocket being fired in our direction. We glanced up and saw it streaking overhead. Then came the tremendous explosion. The rocket had landed in the parking lot across the street from the palace and about 150 yards from the helos and pilots. A few of the pilots were with us. They immediately headed back to their billets for a head count and damage assessment. I had the shift leader and advance team leader account for their guys. No injuries to any of us. The new guys looked at me with a WTF expression. I shrugged and said, “Welcome to Baghdad.” The rocket destroyed about fifty cars and left a pretty good sized hole in the ground where it landed. Fortunately no one was in the vicinity when it landed.
    We thanked God, turned the music back on, and grabbed another drink. The party had dwindled to about fifteen folks at this time as many people, apparently way smarter than us, ran to the bunkers and hunkered down to wait for an all-clear command. We were Blackwater. We knew when our time was up we would not hear the explosion. We’d just get vaporized. So we partied on. The Marines came over and asked us to head inside for a few minutes while they checked on things. We did. Ten minutes later they announced the all clear, and the festivities resumed. Attacks became a part of the job. The type A personalities on the team always remained calm, cool, and collected—or at least pretended to even if we were not. Image is everything.
    Soon the party numbers swelled back to well over a hundred. After the rocket attack it seemed like everyone needed a drink, and we always welcomed the company, especially the female company. By this time a Blackwater mystique had taken firm hold. We were the rock stars of the palace.