15th Anniversary of "We Got Him"

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https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25133826/saddam-hussein-capture-anniversary/


Jim Hickey was in the 11th ACR at Ft Irwin at the same time I was.  He was COL Guy Swan's DCO.

Hickey: Over the radio, John said, “Jackpot.” Bill Coultrup, his squadron commander, was right next to me. We hugged one another.

Bocanegra: We heard “Jackpot—Ace of Spades.” We were like, “No shit!” It was surreal. This was Saddam—where was his personal guard? No shots were fired. It was the opposite of what we’d expected.

Wilson: We heard “Jackpot.” It was said eight octaves higher than usual. Normally the Delta guys didn’t get excited, but this was a big deal.

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my emphasis

Rauhut: Colonel Hickey had a conversation with [the commander of U. S. forces in Iraq] Lieutenant General [Ricardo] Sanchez. Jim said, “What’s next?” You know, the same thing we all were wondering: How do we leverage this? It became very clear, very quickly, that strategically, we didn’t plan for the capture of Saddam.

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A fun memory around this one was a good friend of mine who was in the SCARNG was in one of the RAOC units that was assigned to Baghdad at the time.  He was home for 2 weeks on mid-term leave, and b/c the news came in so early in the day (east cost time) I got to call him and wake him up to tell him about it