Another story developed when a fixer we had hired to help translate informed us that there was a big battle going down early the next morning near Kirkuk. No way were we going to pass that up. We left around four a.m. the next morning.
“Just keep driving until you get to the Daesh,†the Peshmerga checkpoint guard said. I was trying to get to the front line to follow along with the Kurdish offensive outside Kirkuk on September 11. Can’t really blame the guard for his concise instructions. As our car approached the front, we saw dozens of up-armored Humvees and pickup trucks. Peshmerga fighters stood around waiting for their orders, talking and smoking cigarettes. As I got out of the car and began walking down the road, a group of Kurdish journalists looked at me and began waving their hands, saying, “No good, no good!â€
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Jack served as a Sniper and Team Leader in 3rd Ranger Battalion and as a Senior Weapons Sergeant on a Military Free Fall team in 5th Special Forces Group. Having left the military in 2010, he graduated from Columbia with a BA in political science. Murphy is the author of Reflexive Fire, Target Deck, Direct Action, and Gray Matter Splatter. His memoir, “Murphy’s Law” is due for a 2019 release and can be pre-ordered now.
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