The crazy flight from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad, Iraq, packed two Blackwater USA pilots and seven security contractors into one of the company’s twin-engine CASA C212 airplanes which looked a bit like the runt of a C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft. Complete with a hydraulic ramp that lowered to take on cargo or allow jumpers to exit, these planes shuttled dozens of private military contractors between Amman and Baghdad each month. Erik Prince was quoted, “In April 2003, just as Blackwater had first expanded into Iraq, we’d purchased Melbourne, Florida-based Aviation Worldwide Services, which added aircraft to the training and logistical assistance we could offer clients.”

After a brief taxi and what can only be described as a syncopated takeoff, we were airborne in seconds—hard and fast. When no more than 100 feet off the ground, we banked sharply to the right and shot high out of Jordanian airspace to avoid other air traffic, as well as the ever-present danger posed by shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, then we flew on to Baghdad.

It was just another beautiful day flying the not-so-friendly skies of the Middle East in January 2005. In truth, the flight itself wasn’t so bad. We even relaxed in jump seats bolted to the sides of the airplane and leaned on baggage to get comfortable. In a short time, the constant vibrations of the airplane combined with the loud buzz of the propellers served to create sufficient white noise for my brain to relax, and I drifted off to sleep.

CASA flight from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad, Iraq—January 2005

The approach to BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) woke me suddenly, and I experienced the most severe case of acid reflux ever. At four minutes out, the pilots began their descent. We were literally dropping from 12,000 to 4,000 feet in a series of circular patterns in what seemed like only seconds, and the contents of my stomach were attempting to escape its confines. We corkscrewed the rest of our way into the airport, making four more nauseatingly sharp and hard banked turns to the right, diving down more on each one.  Multiply that sick, stinging sensation of bile in your throat times a thousand, and maybe, just maybe you can get some idea of the violence this airplane was experiencing.

I swear, by the time we made that fourth hard turn, the right wing tip was just inches away from scraping the tarmac. Next thing I knew, we were lined up on the runway, and only seconds later the landing gear skidded along the pavement. Let’s just say it was much worse than any ride I had been on at an amusement park!

In the first Gulf War commanded by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf and ordered by President George H. W. Bush, Operation Desert Shield was launched on August 7, 1990, after the Iraqi Republican Guard invaded Kuwait and seized control of that country. It later gave way to Operation Desert Storm on January 17, 1991, and the United States entered this conflict to protect Saudi Arabia, Iraq’s oil-rich neighbor to the south.

Initial efforts to drive Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial and naval bombardment and were followed by a ground assault on February 24, 1991. Marked by the introduction of live news broadcasts from news crews embedded with troops in the front lines, the battle was over and the U.S. declared a ceasefire after only 100 hours.

The terrorist attacks perpetrated against the United States on September 11, 2001, represented the first time that many Americans had ever heard of Al Qaeda and its standing call for an international jihad against the “infidels.” Appealing to their prophet Mohammed to guide them, the results of their actions by radical Islamists unleashed in Americans a patriotic spirit and unbridled passion not felt since the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, which drew the United States into World War II.

Soon after the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center fell in New York City, the Pentagon was hit by a third aircraft fashioned as a human missile, and a fourth crashed in a Pennsylvania field, President George H. Bush addressed the American people on live television and included these excerpted comments:

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for America. Today we’ve had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country… Freedom was attacked by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended… The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts… None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world...”

On September 20, 2001, with heartbreak and devastation still fresh in every American patriot’s mind, President Bush followed those comments with this statement:

“I will not yield, I will not rest, and I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.”(Excerpts from GlobalSecurity.org)

Dubbed Operation Enduring Freedom by the Pentagon, combat operations led by General Tommy Franks were ordered by the president to commence on October 7, 2001, in Afghanistan. Before that country saw the birth of a new year, Taliban and Al Qaeda forces were reduced to remote groups of solitary fighters, and a new interim government was in place—just 78 days after combat operations had begun.

On March 19, 2003, President Bush announced to our nation once again that a war effort was under way in the Middle East. Designed to rid Iraq of tyrannical dictator Saddam Hussein, the president authorized Operation Iraqi Freedom, emphasizing that this undertaking was intended to eliminate Hussein’s ability to develop and utilize weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

During these operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States relied heavily on the use of independent contractors, often referred to as private military contractors (PMCs), to support the missions.  In due course, the U.S. Department of State created the Worldwide Personal Protection Services program and began hiring thousands of these PMCs to augment its own Bureau of Diplomatic Security personnel. Responsible for the protection of its personnel and facilities in the U.S. and overseas, the State Department had become increasingly reliant on the     private sector; roughly 90 percent  of the Diplomatic Security workforce was composed of independent contractors.

I was arriving in Baghdad at a time when the United States Department of Defense had initiated Operation Iraqi Freedom II (OIF 2), basically America’s mission to stabilize the nation after the damage inflicted by the initial ground war. Just nine months prior, while I was deployed as a security coordinator on a rebuilding project in Afghanistan sponsored by USAID, Blackwater suffered its first loss of personnel in Fallujah. In March 2004, the company brokered a deal with Kuwaiti firm Regency Hotel & Hospital Company and became the security provider for ESS Support Services Worldwide, a subcontractor to Halliburton’s subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root. Just days later, Blackwater agreed on a new pact with Regency and became a direct subcontractor to it, effectively giving the company control over the contract’s security procedures.

Erik Prince wrote in his book Civilian Warriors, “On March 30, 2004, the four men of Blackwater Team November 1 arrived at the Army’s Camp Taji, located a dozen miles north of Baghdad. The men—forty-eight-year-old Wes Batalona, thirty-two-year-old Jerry Zovko, and thirty-eight-year-old Mike Teague, all former Army Rangers, as well as thirty-eight-year-old former Navy SEAL Scott Helvenston—had been on a mission transporting an ESS employee north from the capital [to Fallujah].

They delivered the principal without an issue. There, however, the plan changed: with Blackwater’s team now at Camp Taji, ESS management called our site manager in Baghdad, Tom Powell, and requested that November 1 make an additional run. They all knew Fallujah was nasty and prior to the official contract start date with ESS, November 1 didn’t have the heavy-duty squad automatic weapons that were still in route from Regency. Batalona determined that even without the fully armored vehicles and standard manpower the team could accomplish the task.”

The eventual result of this decision would rock the Blackwater community, not with fear but with a tremendous sense of loss and an outpouring of what I saw firsthand as American patriotism and would later recognize as Christian spirit. In his book, Mr. Prince detailed the horrific events that ultimately resulted in the death of all four men: “The entire assault was over in seconds. Four men had been betrayed and ambushed; had there been six in the vehicles that morning, the other two surely would have died as well.” The burned and mutilated bodies of two of the men were hung by insurgents in some sick sign of effigy on a green trestle bridge that traversed the Euphrates River. In less than one week, the Pentagon launched Operation Vigilant Resolve in Fallujah and despite killing more than 700 insurgents, the U.S. Marines were ordered to stop their advance and pull out of the city of Fallujah just five days later.

In November 2004, American troops launched Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah, later determined to be one of the nastiest and most blood-spattered battles of the entire Iraq War. One week later, on November 14, 2004, Marines from the 3^rd Battalion, 5^th Marine Regiment regained control of the city and reopened that trestle bridge where the Blackwater men had been crucified. Before leaving the city, the Marines left behind a handwritten message scrawled on the bridge that read, “This is for the Americans of Blackwater that were murdered here in 2004. Semper Fidelis 3/5.” The message also included a crude but emotional post-script unfit for printing here.

Something I can print is this: sand can sometimes blind us, and for any person of faith attempting to navigate these coarse grains and rough edges of difficult times, there is no substitute for a firm focus on God and a powerful resolve to stay the course, no matter the odds.