248 AMERICAN SPY
being targeted by insurgents. Pilots were required to take this precaution
after a DHL cargo plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile when taking off
from BIAP a few years earlier. Because the pilots severely bank the aircraft
during the spiral maneuver, the plane I was on was practically on its side as
it rapidly wound its way down to the airport. I recall looking straight down
out the plane’s window, at the barren Iraqi ground quickly approaching
below us.
The stated reason for my trip was to visit my employees in Baghdad.
Rather than stay in the dangerous city, I’d been invited by a civilian friend
to spend time with him on sprawling Victory Base Complex (VBC), home
of al-Faw Palace and headquarters of US forces—Iraq. Although my trip
was not related to the US military, my friend was able to get me access to
the Black Hawk helicopter “taxi service” for a few flights around Baghdad.
Picture Uber, but in the air and heavily armed. I had to go through a
lengthy bureaucratic process to take a helicopter from point A to point B,
but it was safer than driving. It was also a lot of fun. After buckling up—no
easy task when wearing body armor with steel plate inserts—I enjoyed my
fast and noisy Black Hawk flights around Baghdad. Black Hawks typically
flew in pairs for security reasons, and I could see our escort helicopter off
to our left. Door gunners manned machine guns, pointed menacingly out
each side, although I wondered how they could identify a threat in the con-
gested city we were rapidly passing by from above.
After spending a couple of nights in one part of Baghdad, I wanted to
return to the VBC, but the helicopter “dispatcher” told me there was no
space available on a Black Hawk that day. I told him that was no problem,
since my Iraqi colleague Hassan could pick me up in his little white car
and drive me across Baghdad to the VBC. Apparently nervous that some-
thing might happen to me, the dispatcher became Radar O’Reilly from
MAS*H and found space available on a helo later that day.
During my stay on the VBC, I was able to observe what day-to-day life
was like for our troops there. Compared to the relatively civilized life most
of us enjoy in the United States, they willingly sacrificed a lot by living
and working on a base in Iraq. For starters, they were in a war zone, some
engaged in combat operations, and all equally exposed to the risks of war
simply by being present. The base itself was like a small but very busy, very
dusty city, and everything was the color of the Iraqi desert. Streets and