Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs Read Free

conquered what is now Iraq in the fourth century B.C. ; the Parthians and the Romans followed. Christianity came to the land between the first and third centuries A.D . Assyria—northern Iraq between the Euphrates and Tigris—was an important center for the early Eastern Christian church. In the seventh century, Khālid ibn al-Walīd, one of history’s greatest generals, helped bring Islam to Iraq; it has been the dominant religion ever since.
    For the next thousand years, Iraq was part of various kingdoms, settling under Ottoman rule in the sixteenth century and then, following World War I, becoming a League of Nations “mandate” under British control. Though Iraq was formally granted independence in 1932, British influence remained strong until after World War II.
    Through much of this time, the most important allegiance a man had was not to the distant emperor or sultan, or even to the local governor or consul, but to his family and tribe. Even today, tribal identity is very important. Experts say there are over one hundred and fifty tribes in the country.
    Iraqis are related to tribes in two ways: birth and marriage. If a man marries outside his tribe, as a general rule, his children belong to the tribe he comes from. My own tribe is small but important. (I still have many relatives in Iraq, and mentioning its name will give them troubles they do not need.) Our ancestors and current members include many successful people. My own grandfather was a prominent leader; he had a private militia and was hired by the Turks to fight against the British.
    I was born December 4, 1964, in Mosul. The city straddles the Tigris River about 225 miles north of Baghdad. It’s a sprawling city, with parts that date back to the early Mesopotamian civilizations and areas that were among the most modern in Iraq before the war. Some 1.8 million people live in the city, many in densely packed areas of small homes often shared by many adult members of a family.
    Americans often don’t realize how urban Iraq really is. The government estimates that more than three-quarters of Iraq’s 31 million people live in cities. More than 7 million of them live in Baghdad. Imagine a country the size of California, but with most of its population clustered into a handful of cities. The vast desert that many Americans think of when they picture Iraq lies west of Baghdad. Lightly populated, it is not the environment most Iraqis experience day to day.
    Mosul is a case in point. When I was born it was a large, flat city, a collection of khaki-brown brick and concrete buildings spreading as far as the eye could see. Lush parks with tropical green trees and large lawns added color, while the curved roofs of mosques and minaret towers gave the city depth. Newer buildings in the city center pushed against the old but didn’t obliterate the place’s history, much less imply the frantic pace of Western metropolises. A Westerner might imagine a Mediterranean city without the Mediterranean; a little slower, a little older, not quite as romantic.
    For me, Mosul was a wonderful city. The nearby mountains are beautiful. The streets were clean. My family was respected. We lived in an apartment roughly a thousand square feet, cramped for a large family but typical of our street, a dense residential area a block from one of Mosul’s main thoroughfares. The houses were cement and brick, khaki tan, neatly kept but far from fancy or ostentatious. I had an older brother, Hamid, born in 1957; a younger brother, Saif, came in 1973. I have three sisters, all older than me: Samaa, who was born in 1953; Hana, born in 1954, and Muna, born in 1962.
    There was one other child in our immediate family, another brother, Ali, a few years older than I was. He was outside the house one day when he was eight, playing near an open cooking fire. Suddenly his clothes somehow caught fire. By the time the flames were extinguished, his body was badly burnt; he died of his injuries.
    I was