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For Abducted Guards, Iraq Wasn't Just About Money
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"The RPG attacks were the scariest thing I've ever seen," he said.
Reuben went back and forth about whether to stay on. He weighed the risk and time away from his family against the cash, which never seemed to be enough, and the appeal of the warrior lifestyle.
"I kind of like doing it. I enjoy it," he said, smiling. "I'm getting caught up on some bills and stuff like that. And I heard they're coming out with that new Dodge Challenger in 2008. I want that."
"I can't handle monotony," said Munns, the young former Marine who is also missing. "I gotta have something that shocks my system so I know I'm still alive."
Munns is tall and lanky, with an air of military discipline and close-cropped brown hair that fluffs into an Afro when he doesn't cut it. A meticulously scripted tattoo encircles his left forearm: "The unwanted, doing the unforgivable, for the ungrateful." The tattoo was the motto of his Marine sniper platoon, which fought in the 2004 assault on Fallujah.
"It's us doing the dirty work for the rest of our society who don't really care about us," he said.
Munns left the Marines in 2005 and said he immediately regretted his decision. He spent a year installing swimming pools for Viking Pools of Redding but still worked half as hard as he did in the military. He had applied to reenlist in the Marines when the Crescent job came along.
The job fulfilled Munns's need for excitement, he said. It also helped him and his fiancee, Jackie Shaw, buy a three-level fixer-upper in Redding that he dreamed of renovating himself. At the time of the attack, the house purchase was in progress.
The culture of private security was different from the brotherhood Munns had known in the Marines. He said he reserved his loyalty for his two closest friends, Cote and Mike Skora, an Army veteran from Chicago. The three guards had made a pact, half in jest: They would take their own lives or shoot each other to avoid being captured.
"I'd take a bullet for them," Munns said of Cote and Skora. "The rest of these people, I probably wouldn't."
Munns turned to Cote one morning as they prepared to cross the border. "It's not the getting hit part that bothers me," he said. "It's the getting lost and getting hung from a bridge part."
Cote chuckled.
