They also hit a humvee in Iraq and then disarmed the soldiers at gunpoint. Bush, disgustingly, let them do whatever they wanted. Imma be straight up if they are ever used again and point a gun at my guys I am dropping them. Immunity is just a piece of paper at the end of the day.
How the world's most hated mercenaries risked their lives for a US Marine.
Hundreds of enemy fighters had a US compound surrounded in Najaf, Iraq. RPGs and small arms fire poured in from every side. Holding the roof were 8 Blackwater contractors, a few foreign soldiers, and a US Marine who'd wandered in to fix a radio.
The Marine hauled 150 pounds of ammo up four stories, took a round near his spine and shrapnel in one eye, but stayed in the fight. Enemy snipers hit two more of the defenders and soon they were down to single digits, and low on ammo.
The military wasn't coming. So Blackwater scrambled its own helicopters, flying them into the gunfire to drop ammo and carry the wounded Marine out. "The Army wouldn't help," one of the pilots said, "so we got busy."
Just days earlier, the world had met a different Blackwater. Four of its men had driven unarmored SUVs into Fallujah, where a mob ambushed them, dragged them from the wrecks, and set the bodies on fire. That night, Americans turned on their TVs and saw two of them strung up from a bridge, with an Iraqi crowd cheering below.
Blackwater was a new kind of force. Hired guns, many former Special Forces, fighting a war they were no longer in uniform for. They answered to no army, and an occupation rule called "Order 17" made them almost untouchable in court. But that freedom had a dark side.
A Blackwater convoy guarding US diplomats rolled into a busy Baghdad traffic circle and opened fire. When the shooting stopped, 14 unarmed Iraqis were dead, two of them boys aged nine and eleven. Four people were convicted, and years later President Trump pardoned them all.
On the rooftop they kept a wounded Marine alive against a mob. In the traffic circle they were the reason a family never came home. To most people, Blackwater was one or the other, all bad or all good.
Either way, they had a lasting impact on the role of private military contractors (PMCs) in war zones, and the lessons will be felt for years to come.