Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of theWar on Terror (14 page)

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I
t was a dreary, ugly night in Willoughby, Ohio. Jerry had listed his brother as next of kin on company paperwork; around seven thirty p.m., a local U.S. marshal and I knocked on the door of Tom Zovko’s home. Jerry’s sister-in-law answered the door. She called Donna and Jerry’s father, Joe, who soon arrived at the house as well. The names of those killed had been leaking out through the day, and they’d all seen the news footage. Nothing in the world could ease a family’s pain over that. But seated at the dining room table, I told Donna and Joe that I’d met their son. That I thought if anyone could have survived this war, it was Jerry. I listened to their stories about him as a boy; I told them of my own sons. We talked about family, and loss, and Joan’s battle with cancer. We prayed together. They were gracious, even in their profound grief.

As I left that night, I gave the Zovkos money for funeral expenses—it only seemed right. Blackwater matched the insurance funeral
expense payout for each of those who were killed. Once the military released custody of the men’s remains, a Blackwater representative met each of the families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where DNA, dental, and medical records were evaluated and death certificates issued. We escorted the bodies from Dover to the designated funeral homes; that included sending one of our CASA C212s to Dover to fly Mike Teague’s body home to Tennessee.

In the days following the attack, reporters contacted everyone. And soon, we heard, the grief-stricken homes were flooded with unrelenting phone calls. A member of the Helvenston family in Florida emailed us with a cell phone number “that we are giving out to family and friends in case anyone has to get through. We are attempting to prepare statements to give out in hopes [of getting] the press taken care of all at once.” No luck. Two days after the killings, Helvenston’s mother, Katy Helvenston-Wettengel, emailed us: “OK, we give up. Please have the police shoo the press away.” So we did—Blackwater called the local cops and asked them to keep the reporters at bay.

We would have done that for anyone at Blackwater. The hours and stresses and life events each of us had endured the past six years had created an indelible bond among our team—and that extended to Wes and Jerry and Mike and Scott, and everyone who worked for us. They were part of the “family at Blackwater,” as June Batalona described it in an email soon after her husband’s death. “First of all, how do I start to thank you—all of you at Blackwater—for everything you have done to help me, and most of all [our daughter]?” she wrote. “My family is [in] awe just talking about Blackwater; they are so proud of each and every one of you, and believe me, we will never forget all of you. Please pass along our thanks to everyone, and I am so proud to be part of your family at Blackwater.”

Everyone on our team enjoyed getting to know these families, even amid tragic circumstances. Patricia Irby, Scott Helvenston’s ex-wife, emailed us about summer plans with their kids, and settling
into a new house—even ideas for a pig roast. Six months later, when Irby wrote that she couldn’t cash Scott’s last paycheck of $9,000 because the family hadn’t gotten an executor to the estate, but their children needed the money, we immediately issued a new check in her name. “If the estate comes after us for the $$, then so be it,” reads one of our internal staff emails from the time. “It sounds like the kids need the money.”

We remembered birthdays and anniversaries—and I fondly remember now the calls and thank-you notes in reply. Mike Teague’s widow, Rhonda, sent Ana Bundy a short note after the observance of his birthday following his death. “I felt so touched that you guys remembered his birthday and us,” she wrote. “I know he is not forgotten. Thank you for that.” Blackwater’s team even arranged for a condolence letter to be sent from Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader to Jerry Zovko’s parents. I felt that was important.

Ten days after the attack, I joined roughly eight hundred other people at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Cleveland to celebrate the former Ranger’s life. The entrance procession, “Nearer My God,” was sung in the family’s native language by the St. Paul Croatian Church choir. They chose a reading from the second book of Maccabees, about a noble warrior who made peace with Arab nomads.
Jerry’s brother, Tom Zovko, told mourners
, “He wanted to help the Iraqis, and he wanted to do it on their terms.” The congregation then drove thirty-five miles to Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery, where Jerry Zovko’s remains were buried with full military honors. The service there included a seven-gun salute, two Army buglers, and a police bagpiper. The words “Proud,” “Patriotic,” “Strong,” and “Brave” were carved into his granite headstone.

Six months later, with the families of the fallen by our sides, we dedicated a memorial garden at the Blackwater training center for Wes, Scott, Mike, and Jerry—and the others who would give their lives while working for us. It’s a quiet place near the original Moyock lodge, where a pebbled footpath encircles a small pond. Large stones along the walk bear the names of the Blackwater dead. Benches and
shade trees offer solitude. The entrance is marked by a life-size bronze sculpture of a boy clutching a folded American flag.

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W
hile Blackwater and the families of the fallen men dealt with grief and the practical details of funerals and estates, press coverage of the killing began to escalate. Initially, news reports simply described the slain men as civilians. Which was accurate: The four security contractors were hired by a private company and reported to corporate bosses. They certainly weren’t riding in military vehicles. Furthermore, Blackwater’s men weren’t operating under the Pentagon’s command structure; there had been no coordination with the Marines before heading into Fallujah, and there had been no help from the military after. But to the general public, “civilian” suggested something like Red Cross or UN personnel, or perhaps a contractor delivering the mail. Maybe crazy tourists. So the disconnect with the news footage was immediate: The Blackwater men were wearing body armor and carrying machine guns into insurgent strongholds, just like soldiers. They had elite military backgrounds and were working on behalf of the Defense Department’s mission in Iraq. Tracked all the way back up the chain of subcontracts, the money ultimately flowed to them from the Pentagon. Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions clearly defines noncombatants in war zones as “persons taking no active part in the hostilities,” which historically keeps those contractors on mail runs from being considered combatants. Yet had they had a moment to react that morning in Fallujah, the four Blackwater men would have become a very active part of the fight.

So they weren’t combatants—but they weren’t noncombatants. Batalona, Zovko, Helvenston, and Teague were civilians, but they were armed, ultimately at the behest of the DoD, pursuing dangerous missions. The four fell into a glaring gray area of international law that experts in Geneva and beyond have continued to debate for years.

At the same time, the relentless rolling of the awful footage seared
my company’s name into the public consciousness. As
Joseph Neff, a reporter who would extensively cover
the attack, later described it: “I first met the private security company Blackwater at the breakfast table on April 1, 2004. The
News & Observer
, the newspaper where I work in Raleigh, North Carolina, displayed a photo of a burning truck and an exultant mob on the front page; inside, there was an even grislier photo of a crowd, including children, cheering at the sight of two burnt corpses hanging from a bridge. I quietly pulled aside the front section, making sure my kids, six and nine at the time, stuck with the sports and comics.”

People who previously hadn’t known a thing about PMCs now had but one horrible scene—and one name—to associate with the industry. I have always been leery of the mainstream media—another thing that came from my father, who gave one newspaper interview about his company around 1980, felt he was misquoted, and basically said, “Never again.” Suddenly, it seemed, the feeling was mutual. Rabid-left pundits and politicians who either didn’t grasp the history of Blackwater’s business or simply weren’t interested in learning called my men “mercenaries.” It was the start of my being labeled a war profiteer. It began a growing howl of inflammatory rhetoric that would, in the years that followed, drown out any sense of reasoned discussion.

The attack also had major political and military implications: Ambassador Bremer’s CPA clearly hadn’t managed to bring stability to entire cities in Iraq—yet the American public was to believe this was a country that would somehow be ready for handover three months later? Moreover, these were the chanting barbarians American troops had been sent to liberate? At home, President Bush was deep in his reelection battle with Senator John Kerry in March 2004—and that “Mission Accomplished” speech given nearly a year earlier looked more off base than ever. In Moyock, we wondered how the Pentagon might respond to the killing of our men; it was a question that was suddenly one part military planning, one part moral imperative, and one part reelection campaign gambit.

We had all watched, for the better part of a year, coalition forces trying to win the “hearts and minds” of Fallujans in hopes of promoting peace and security. U.S. troops had helped with infrastructure repairs, provided cash, and tried to build relationships with town officials. It never worked. Insurgents in the city had fought the coalition from the outset—with everything from violent attacks to petty insults. In one memorably odd incident, soldiers spent days building a new community soccer field in the city center, only to see insurgents rip down the goal nets, scrape the dirt off the field, and cover the site with garbage as soon as they left. “
What kind of people loot dirt
?” one soldier asked. Then, when the Marines relieved the 82nd Airborne in the Sunni Triangle,
insurgents began spreading leaflets around town
nicknaming the new troops “
awat
,” a delicate cake that crumbles on contact.

The day before the attack on Blackwater’s men, General James Conway, then commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, which was conducting counterinsurgency operations throughout the Sunni Triangle, had conceded, “
Fallujah is probably our center of gravity
. We know that there are more bad guys around Fallujah than anywhere else in our whole area of operations.” After the atrocity on March 31, it was clear that some within the DoD would want to reduce the city to rubble.

On the other hand, we knew that Marines on the ground, who shared their superiors’ disgust with the news footage, were hesitant about an all-out invasion. Conquering a ten-square-mile city is a massive undertaking, even for a force as well equipped as the American military. Additionally, available manpower would be limited to just two Marine infantry battalions and the two most combat-ready nearby ICDC battalions—far less than an overwhelming force for the deadly house-to-house slog of urban warfare. Further, a major military response would set a complicated precedent: Blackwater’s “civilians” weren’t staffing a hospital, after all—our men were carrying guns in a war zone. Would the Pentagon lay siege to a city of three hundred thousand to retaliate for the deaths of four armed
contractors? Would it now exact vengeance upon anyone who harmed security contractors? The Marines,
Conway would later explain
, “felt . . . that we ought to probably let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge.”

I didn’t begrudge the Marines that. It’s not the military’s job to protect security contractors. Men and women in uniform have important jobs to do; my men were in Iraq supporting them. The truth is, I didn’t expect the Pentagon to respond. But did everyone at Blackwater appreciate the consideration and camaraderie? Absolutely.

Among the most influential decision makers, the response to the killing of civilians was clear: President Bush was reportedly highly upset and emotional. Hours after the murder of Blackwater’s men, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq and a man not particularly given to sentimentality, told a roomful of reporters, “
Somewhere out in this world
there are going to be families who are getting knocks on the door from people telling them what happened to their loved ones. It is not pleasant to be on either side of that door, I can tell you.” With Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld advocating harsh action in closed-door meetings, Kimmitt soon added that the military response would be “
deliberate, it will be precise, and it will be overwhelming
.”

Less than twenty-four hours after the attack on Blackwater’s men, the Phase IV rebuilding effort in Fallujah was no more. Assault plans were drawn up for the Marines and ICDC battalions to surround the city, then strike simultaneously from the southeast and northwest. They would be supported by tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, and massive AC130 Spectre gunships, the heavily weaponized cousins of C130 cargo haulers. Army lieutenant general Ricardo Sanchez, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, briefed the Marines on the decision to attack Fallujah. “
The president knows this is going to be bloody
,” he said. “He accepts that.”

As coalition forces took their positions on the outskirts of town,
rebels from elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle and beyond took theirs, streaming into the city to help fortify the insurgency. On April 4, the Pentagon issued an ultimatum, demanding Fallujah’s town elders turn over those responsible for murdering Blackwater’s men. They refused.

Soon, half a world away,
a condolence letter from Ambassador Bremer’s office
arrived in a mailbox outside Cleveland, at the home of Joe and Donna Zovko. “Rest assured that our authorities are actively investigating Jerry’s murder and that we will not rest until those responsible are punished for this despicable crime,” it read. “Your family will remain in our thoughts and prayers as you confront this terrible tragedy in the difficult days ahead. I will do my part to ensure Jerry’s contribution to this county will be forever remembered by the Iraqi people.”