Iraq 2004

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Because of my background in finance and spending a few years in US Army Special Forces (but I did not become a Green Beret), I ended up as the Official Paymaster for the Iraqi Armed Forces (IAF). Because of this position, the bad guys put a bounty on my head of $20,000 US and $5,000 US on the heads of the three US service members assigned to the Special Operations Detachment (SOD) I commanded for a total of $35,000 (Bounties were used by both sides in Iraq and Afghanistan). I am holding what we called a “brick”, one thousand Iraqi dinar (IQD) notes in the denomination of 25,000 IQD. At the time, the exchange rate was 1500 IQD to $1 US so that is the equivalent of $16,666 US. The safe, which was just a wall locker, contained almost $1 million US in various Iraqi dinar notes. My team and I ran the entire Iraqi Armed Forces payroll for almost five months (mid-February to the end of June 2004). It was this tour where I earned my Bronze Star Medal and my US Army Combat Action Badge (CAB). An Army buddy of mine is currently pitching Hollywood about making a movie about this.