Fighting Saddam in Iraq and Isis in Syria

By Steven Gonzalez

Steven Gonzalez was a sergeant first class in the Army Reserve in March 2003 when his company received orders to invade Iraq.

For the next twelve months, Gonzalez and his unit would mostly convoy escorts, set up checkpoints, and provide security around the perimeter of Tallil Air Base near Nasiriyah, Iraq.

He returned to Texas in March 2004, resuming his job with the Haltom City Police Department, and in 2004, he retired after twenty-one years in the military. But he was not yet done with the terrorists.

In 2007, he returned to Iraq to help train the Iraqi police as an employee with DynCorp International, and in 2013, he signed up to fight ISIS as an employee with Universal Protection Service.

But he did not agree with President Barack Obamas pronouncement that ISIS was a JV team nor with his decision not to send troops to Syria. Fortunately, he found a way to join some of his fellow former soldiers fighting ISIS on its own turf.

Join Gonzalez as he honors some of the great friends hes lost and shares the challenges hes faced in Fighting Saddam in Iraq and ISIS in Syria.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532028625

Steven Gonzalez

Steven Gonzalez attended Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas, and served twenty-one years in the military, including three years in the Iraq War. He also served fourteen years with Texas local law enforcement. He lives in Montana and enjoys hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking.

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Copyright © 2017 Steven Gonzalez.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-2863-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2862-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017911163

iUniverse rev. date: 08/04/2017

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

My Start

My Next Chapter: The Iraqi Police

Time Away And Back To Work

ISIS Enters My Crosshairs

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I lost three great friends and fighters in the fight against ISIS: Mario Nunes from Portugal, Jamie Bright from Australia, and S. Ariel from Iran.

I miss them, and I miss their great smiles.

MY START

In March 2003, I was a Sergeant First Class. I was serving with the Army Reserve Unit in the 302nd Military Police Company based in Fort Worth, Texas. I was also a police officer for the Haltom City Police Department in Haltom City, Texas.

On this date, the unit and I were currently at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, waiting for the attack order on Iraq. President George W. Bush’s administration stated that Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, did in fact have weapons of mass destruction. This made Bush’s case for the war on Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein.

Camp Arifjan was one of the staging military points, and there were 20,000 troops stationed there from the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Poland, and Australia. Saddam Hussein’s military forces did fire scud missiles at us, and we were informed that the missiles may have contained chemicals. As a result, we had to work, eat, sleep, and fight with full MOPP gear and gas masks.