Free Burma Rangers. - CITY OF DEATH: humanitarian warriors in the battle of mosul

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Edmund Burke

Hayy Ar Rafai District
Mosul, Iraq
June 2, 2017

MY HANDS SHOOK in terror as a barrage of sniper and machine gun rounds pinged off the friendly Iraqi Army tankour only refugeand slammed into the ground around us. The tanks exhaust singed the hair on our hands and arms as we screamed for the little girl to crawl to us.

Taal! Taal! Come here! Come here! We shouted over the roar of ISIS bullets and airbursts from the friendly artillery smoke screen. We were less than twenty feet from her, but we might as well have been on another planet.

The tank fired its main gun, blowing a hole in the former hospital from which we were taking on most of the gunfire.

BOOM! The sound was deafening, replacing the battles cacophony with a painful ringing in my ears, but the little girl didnt even blink.

Shes in shock.

Somehow, shed survived the massacre when ISIS had opened fire on civilians fleeing the city. That was almost two days ago. Now, in a pile of rotting corpses, she huddled next to her dead mothers body, suffering an even more cruel demise under the relentless desert sun. No doubt ISIS had left her as bait, and wed taken it.

But were her only chance.

Im going to get the girl! I called to David, our team leader.

No! No! No! He grabbed my arm. Theres not enough smoke!

In spite of the adrenaline coursing through my body, it only took me a fraction of a second to know he was right. I would have been shot to pieces. David, who was borderline fearless, had seen a lot more combat and knew what he was doing. I decided to shut up and let him give the orders.

He pulled out his cell phone and called the US military commander stationed several miles away. We need more smoke! he yelled over the noise and shoved the phone back into his pocket. Get ready to give me some covering fire when that smoke comes in!

Copy that! I turned to Sky, a former Marine and team member who, like the rest of us, had volunteered for this suicidal rescue mission. Wed all seen the aftermath of ISISs massacrewhole families, babies even, slaughtered in the street. You go inboard, Ill go outboard, I said, meaning that Sky would take one step out from behind the tank to shoot and I would take three, so that wed avoid each others field of fire.

Roger! Sky nodded. Since the assault on western Mosul exactly thirty days ago, our team had been through a lot. We knew how to work together.

Seconds later, a smoke round hit right on target, sending a hundred balls of fire harmlessly into the middle of the war-torn and body-strewn Mosul highway. Besides the Iraqi tank, it was the only support we had. Like the rest of the battles to retake the citythe fiercest urban conflict since World War IIthis was an Iraqi Ground Forces operation. Wed only volunteered to help. There was no cavalry to call in. It was just us, a few AK-47s, the tank, and the smoke.

OK, guys! Wait for it! David grabbed my shirt and glanced around the tank. Suddenly, he sprinted off to get the little girl. Sky and I jumped out from behind the tank and started dumping rounds into the ISIS-held hospital, which was still visible through the smoke. My ancient AK-47, a subpar weapon at best and not what youd expect a former Navy SEAL to carry into a showdown, was full of tracer rounds, and I watched as each of the bullets streaked through the cloud of smoke and arched into the dark windows of the hospital. Whoever was firing from that position only moments ago was now taking cover. But there were dozens of other windows we werent hitting, and if a sniper had me in his sights, I was toast. We all were.

As a member of FBR, the Free Burma Rangers, Id been preparing myself to be okay with death. Because this rescue, this battle, and, most importantly, these people were worth it.

But in order to understand that, you must first understand where I come from and how I came to this moment.