James Ashcroft - Escape from Baghdad: First Time Was For the Money, This Time It’s Personal

Contents

THE MISSION: Get in. Rescue an entire family from death on the streets of Baghdad. Get everyone out alive.

THE PAY: Saving the life of a friend.

Gun-for-hire James Ash Ashcroft thought hed left Iraq behind. Last time he only got out alive thanks to the bravery of his interpreter and friend Sammy. But now a call for help means Ash must once again face the chaos of war-torn Baghdad and this time theres no pay cheque. Abandoned by the occupying Coalition Forces, Sammy and his family face certain death at the hands of the Shia-dominated Iraqi Police and the death squads that roam the streets unless Ash and his team can get in and get them to safety over the border. This is the action-packed story of their audacious escape from Baghdad. It is a gripping account of the chaos of war, where the only thing that can be relied upon is the bond between former brothers-in-arms.

James Ashcroft is a former British Infantry Captain who served in West Belfast and Yugoslavia, and trained with various elite US Army and Marine Units. Since leaving the army James has spent twelve years as a security and risk consultant to multi-national clients and high net worth individuals around the world. He worked as a private security contractor in Iraq from September 2003 to May 2005. He published Making a Killing in 2006. This is his second book.

Making a Killing

IN MEMORIAM

Philip

Jason

James

Hendriks

Johannes

Mohanned

Hayder

Riyadh

Ziadh

Khaled

Sean

Oleg

Vance

Susie

When unable to wear the lions skin, clothe yourself in the foxs... either the highway of courage, or the byway of cunning... and the wise have won much oftener than the valorous.

Baltasar Gracian,The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done...

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.

Cicero,On Friendship

If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.

William Penn

The Babylonians, in order to reduce the consumption of food, herded together and strangled all the women in the city each man exempting only his mother and one other woman whom he chose out of his household to bake his bread for him.

Herodotus,The Histories

The sand of the desert is sodden red

Red with the wreck of a square that broke;

The Gatlings jammed and the Colonel dead,

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.

The river of death has brimmed his banks

And Englands far, and Honour a name...

Sir Henry John Newbolt, Vita Lampada

Theyve got us surrounded again, the poor bastards.

Creighton W. Abrams, Jr.

.50 cal 12.7mm-calibre anti-matriel round, also a term used to refer to the Browning machine-gun firing that calibre

5.565.56 x 45mm-calibre rounds, standard NATO calibre since 1979

7.62 NATO62 x 51mm round used in the GPMG and rifles such as the G3 and FAL

7.62 short 7.62 x 39mm round used in the AK47, RPD and SKS

9-milly British Army slang for 9mm pistol

AAFES Welfare shopping organization establishing shops for US forces around the world on US bases. Commonly known as the PX

Abrams US main battletank M1A2, probably the best in the world, 120mm main armament, .50 cal machine-gun and two 7.62mm GPMGs

ACOG American 4x magnification optical rifle sight

Actions on Term used to describe standard operating procedures for any given scenario

AK47 Soviet assault rifle firing 7.62 short, available folding or fixed stock with 30- and 40-round magazines or 75-round drum. Later models also known as AKM.

AIF Anti-Iraqi Forces, official nomenclature for insurgents.

AP Armour Piercing

Barrett M82/M107 .50 cal anti-matriel semi-automatic rifle

BIAP Baghdad International Airport

Blackhawk US utility helicopter, military designation UH-60, usually armed with two machine-guns, either 7.62mm GPMGs or mini-guns

Blackwater Blackwater Security Consulting, a strategic division of Blackwater USA, a PSC operating in Iraq

Bradley Bradley M2 Infantry Fighting Vehicle, or M3 Cavalry variant tracked, armed with 25mm chain-gun and 7.62mm GPMG. Usually carries TOW missiles, although some variants carry anti-aircraft Javelin or Stinger missiles. Three crew and six passengers in the M2

Browning Browning Hi-Power pistol, or GP35, a 9mm automatic pistol with a 13- or 20-round magazine. Made by FN. Sometimes also used to refer to the Browning M2 .50 cal machine-gun

Casevac Casualty Evacuation

CF Coalition Forces

Commando cord Tightly woven, thin, green utility cord capable of taking a fully laden soldiers weight, used by Royal Marines. Apparently just like para cord, but just a little bit stronger

CP Close Protection, bodyguarding activity

CPA Coalition Provisional Authority, the interim government installed by the US government after the invasion of Iraq. Also refers to the presidential-palace compound later known as the Green Zone, the International Zone

DF Defensive Fire

Dragunov Soviet-bloc semi-automatic sniper rifle firing 7.62 long

DynCorp DynCorp International, a PSC operating in Iraq

Egyptian PT Sleeping

FN Fabrique Nationale. Belgian firearms manufacturer that has produced some of the best weapons in the world, used by armies the world over, including the Browning pistol, the MAG, the Minimi and many others

GPMG General-Purpose Machine-Gun. See also

GPS Global Positioning System, satellite navigation system that can be handheld, the size of a cellphone, or vehicle-mounted and, for no good reason anyone could ever explain to me, anything up to the size of a dustbin lid on the roof

Green Zone Or GZ. Compound surrounding the CPA and US Embassy palaces, approximately 4 sq km in the centre of Baghdad. Later known as the International Zone or IZ

Humvee Standard 4x4 utility vehicle of the US forces. Armed with anything from SAWs and 240s to .50 cals and Mk19s

ICDC Iraqi Civil Defence Corps, local troops recruited and trained by CF to carry out military security duties. They had a reputation for being corrupt, with a strong tendency to desert with all their kit