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

forgiving and understanding teacher. He gave you a chance, then a chance and a chance. He was a kind man, and I learned a lot from him. The same was true of Ziad, and I remember both men fondly.
    Then there was my math teacher, whom I’ll call Edmund. He was a Christian, unlike the others, but religion had nothing to do with his teaching style. He had a darker nature than the other men, more typical of the teachers in my school, and I would imagine throughout Iraq. Physical punishment was very much accepted at the time, and Edmund regularly delivered beatings in class, even for the smallest offense. I personally don’t object to punishment any more than anyone else, but if a teacher was unfair, that bothered me. Edmund’s punishments were out of proportion to the crime. Years later, I don’t remember the infractions I was beaten for, but I do remember the lack of justice.
    I remember one time a friend was late to school. As punishment, the teacher—none of the men I’ve named, though I can’t remember who it was—had my friend hold out his hand so he could smack it with a cane. He hit him so hard I thought his hand was broken.
    I decided to get even for him. After we were dismissed, I went home and got my slingshot. Walking back to the school lot, I found my teacher’s green Volvo, stepped back, and took up position.
    Fsssshew . . . thwack, crash!
    The first stone broke the window. I kept up the bombardment, breaking another window and inflicting a few nice dents until all my ammo was gone. They say justice is sweet, and I have to admit it felt pretty good to mete it out.
    To me things had to be balanced. It wasn’t that my friend had been in the right. The problem was, his punishment was out of proportion to his crime. My assault evened the ledger.
    The next day, the teacher asked if anyone knew what had happened to his car. My friend immediately figured out what had happened, but he didn’t rat on me. Others may have suspected, but the teacher never caught me, and I certainly wasn’t going to confess.
    Corporal punishment was one reason, I guess, that I tried to be good—not because I was afraid of getting hit, but because I knew I couldn’t control myself if someone hit me. I was sure that I would go crazy and fight to the end. One of us would have died, and I’m sure at that age I thought it would be the teacher.
     
    THERE WAS ONE thing besides justice that I deeply cared about in school: sports.
    I discovered basketball as a middle school student. I lucked into a gym teacher who would eventually become a good friend—Mr. Yas. At first he seemed very harsh and tough. But I soon learned the method behind his strictness. He was being tough for a good reason. He saw that I had a lot of potential, and by demanding that I do my best, he was pushing me to achieve. And he was tough but not unfair; strict, yet with a good nature. It was no surprise that he became my favorite teacher.
    Mr. Yas taught us many sports, but basketball was my best. I learned to shoot, to rebound, to play defense. Dribbling became second nature. Basic concepts blossomed into complex patterns in the paint.
    I got better as I grew, and by the time I got to high school I made captain as a freshman. From that year on, I played what we called bifet, the equivalent of a center/power forward in American basketball. The team jelled around me. In my second year we had the best high school team in the entire city, and dominated regional competitions. The team’s success made me something of a celebrity. It was heady stuff.
    In America, a standout high school basketball player might dream of the NBA, and would certainly be recruited for college. Unfortunately for me, basketball in Iraq was nowhere near as developed. There was little chance of me making a living at it, and it had no bearing on my going to college. But it was certainly fun while it lasted.
    I grew to over six feet tall in high school, eventually reaching six-four. My height gave