Ghanaf, Iraq

Ghanaf, Iraq
Language(s) Spoken:	Arabic, Kurdish

Rachel Mills and her unit of Marines assist in the operation of a checkpoint in Ghanaf, Iraq as part of the Iraq War.

Notable Locations

• Two alleys
• An apartment building
• A makeshift checkpoint
• A side street
• The town's main street

Notable Visitors

• Ammar
• Barton
• Rachel Mills
• The rest of Rachel's unit
• Men in hazard suits

Heroes Evolutions

The Private

In chapter 1 of The Private, Rachel Mills recalls what happened to her during her last tour in Iraq the previous summer. Rachel arrives at a makeshift checkpoint in a Humvee and her commanding officer, Barton, yells towards her to assist in searching a car operated by a woman. After finishing applying surgical gloves, she exits her Humvee onto the town's wide and dusty main street. However, she immediately hears a low, fast, erratic beeping coming from behind the Humvee. Rachel goes to where she heard the beeping, and hears boots running away but doesn't spot anyone. Barton yells for her again, and Rachel shouts back that she is coming. However, before she starts back, Rachel spots a torn piece of local newspaper on the ground with a coded message on it and picks it up. Just as she does so, there are loud bangs at the checkpoint as gas canisters go off disabling most of the rest of her unit. Then shooting starts and some of her people fire their M16A2s and men in hazard suits fire back using Kalashnikovs.

Rachel decides to flee the gas and rushes by an apartment building towards the nearest alley, where she encounters her unit's Iraqi translator, Ammar. Rachel instructs Ammar to run with her and they head down a side street and hide in a side alley. Two men in hazard suits pass by, and one temporarily removes his mask before another orders him to place it back on in English. Rachel spots the men and notices that the man who removed his mask did not appear to be of Middle Eastern descent. Rachel then studies the coded message, and then strips off some of her armor, finding a small black disk in her helmet. She drops the location bug and stomps on it, but realizes too late that it was Ammar who put it there. Ammar points a pistol at Rachel and forces her out onto the street at gunpoint. Men in hazard suits quickly gather around them and one of them places a smelly hood over Rachel's head.

Notes

• There is no known city or town named Ghanaf in Iraq. There are two similarly named towns called Gharraf in Iraq: one with a 2004 population of 1120 is in Muhafazat al Anbar province; another with a 2004 population of 8100 is in Muhafazat Dhi Qar province.
• It is unknown as to whether Ammar lived in Ghanaf or had accompanied Rachel's unit there.