Sunday Read: This better not suck

How I met a guy in Iraq that would make a difference many times later

For the first Sunday Read I thought I would share a funny story about how life can lead from one thing to another with a chance meeting. For my former subscribers you’ve heard this story before but I’ve updated it a bit.

After all these years it’s remarkable to see how a simple moment in time can lead to a chain of events far in the future and the lesson that everyone matters in this world. I often tell this story when I speak in the category of be kind to everyone. You just don’t know how they may pay that back someday. Steve Schmidt and I met at the Green Zone Burger King and on a hot summer day and it’s been a wild ride since.

Family dinner with the Lincoln Project

Which brings me to how I’m often asked how did I even end up at the Lincoln Project in the first place having never done politics in my entire career? Like many of my stories it starts in the Army in Iraq.

In 2005 and early 2006 I was picked up to serve as the Public Affairs Officer for a military unit in Baghdad called Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I). We were tasked with building the new Iraqi security forces, while employing them in combat, and figuring it out as we went.

I first got hired for the job after deploying for my second tour as an augmentee staff officer with the XVIIIth Airborne Corp. My old West Point professor and division commander with the 101st Airborne during my first tour, then Lieutenant General David Petraeus, made a deal with the Corps Commander and brought me over to the Green Zone to work for him. He was followed in the job Marty Dempsey who went on to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

I guess I didn’t screw their careers up too badly as their spokesman in Iraq.

Walking with LTG Petraeus and Iraqi troops in Baghdad

One day in the summer of 2005, I got invited to go to the embassy by Ambassador Khalilzad’s public affairs advisor to meet with a representative from the White House who was visiting on a fact finding trip. She wanted me to talk to this guy, because, as anyone who follows me knows, I have a habit of saying what I think and telling people exactly how I see things. She thought I would answer his questions honestly.

So, I meet this rep from the White House who I’d never heard of. He was a relatively young guy out of the Vice President’s office named Steve Schmidt. He’d been sent to Iraq to find out why there was a disconnect between communications with the military on the ground and the White House.

We had a great conversation at the Burger King in the Green Zone, where you always met the important people back in the day. We talked about how I saw the challenge and the dangers faced in country by our Iraqi partners. Where they wanted people we helped in Iraq to go on TV and talk about the good works, I explained that was how they would get assasinated, the project destroyed, and their entire family wiped out even in far flung parts of the country. This was a war zone not a 4H project site.

He listened earnestly and at the end of the conversation, I said “can I give you a piece of advice? I’m really tired of when VIPs come to visit, they stay right in the Green Zone. They never get out of this bubble to see the real Iraq. Do me a favor if you ever bring your boss over here, get out of the Green Zone. Go visit Taji.”

Taji was where at the time we were building the new Iraqi army’s first mechanized infantry and tank battalions, often from the parts of old vehicles. Old veterans from the Iran/Iraq war were rebuilding Soviet equipment that was decades old in the boneyards on the base. I thought it would be really cool for them to see that, and he said “OK” and I never thought of it again.

Well, for a little while at least.

Briefing then LTG Marty Dempsey before a press conference in Baghdad in 2005

Six months later, Petraeus has moved on and Marty Dempsey was the commander of MNSTC-I. He shows up in the door to my office at this little headquarters we had in the Green Zone, which was kind of unusual, and he says “Wellman, come with me. We have a mission, we’re going up to Taji.”

I said “let me bring one of my soldiers with the camera” and he replied “we can’t bring anyone else along.” Luckily, I grabbed my camera, a decent point and shoot we’d gotten for me that I carried with me everywhere just in case, and hopped on a Blackhawk with the General for the 30 minute flight north.

As we were flying, I asked the boss what was going on? He said there’s a VIP visiting and they wanted a demonstration of what we’re doing up there.

So, we arrived, and we’re standing on the ramp waiting for the VIP to arrive on a relatively cool December day. You never know who it’s going to be in these situations. We had received lots of Congressmen, four-star generals, and Cabinet Secretaries. We had a whole routine down for meeting these guys and this wasn’t it. So, as we’re standing on the ramp I said to General Dempsey “So, who’s coming in? Do you know?”

And he said “Well, I’m not sure, I heard it might be the Vice President,” and then seemingly every helicopter in Iraq suddenly shows up in the airspace above us. Like a flight of 20 aircraft ranging from Apaches pulling security to Blackhawks and Chinooks.

On the ground my foggy brain is working its way though what is obvious to you all. I pondered out loud, “huh, the Vice President. You know, I met a guy like six months ago who worked for the Vice President and I told him he should visit Taji.”

 General Dempsey is a great man, an Irishman, and he has an amazing ‘what-the-fuck-did-you-just-do’ look he would flash. Memory fades but I think he literally said, “Wellman, what the fuck did you do?”

Sure enough, the helicopters land and out comes the entourage with Vice President Dick Cheney. We had a bus on the ramp for the visitors and I’m standing in the door when this tall, bald guy jumps out of the helicopter and it’s freaking Steve Schmidt. He runs up and punches me directly in the chest plate of my body armor and says, “We’re here because of you, this better not suck.”

So, no pressure at all.

We preceded to give a VIP tour to the Vice President who was on a surprise 8-hour trip to Iraq. This is the first time a senior U.S. official had actually visited the field and met Iraqi soldiers.

Luckily, I had my camera. I took a few pictures of him meeting the Iraqi soldiers and watching the combat vehicles roll by. We ended up putting out a photo press release that day that got a ton of press for what was a pretty cool day.

LTG Dempsey briefing Vice President Cheney at Taji base in Iraq (Photo by Fred Wellman via Getty Images)

And that’s how I met Steve Schmidt.

Fast-forward, I’m retired six years later and started my own public relations business focused on military and veterans issues. I was sub-contracting to the world’s largest privately held PR firm with offices around the country. I had so many contracts they offered to let me use an open office in their D.C. headquarters.

My first time they let me use the traveling office of this big time senior vice president named Steve Schmidt. Being me, I took a picture of my feet up on his desk and sent it to him, because I’m not in the Army anymore and he didn’t work for the White House. He sent me an email full of foul language and our working relationship was renewed.

We worked on a number of veteran focused professional projects over the years that truly impacted veterans lives. When the pandemic hit I ended up volunteering to run a field hospital in New York City. It made some news in veterans circles and Steve called me one night to boost my morale after weeks of 18 hour days. I told him of my worry that my agency would not survive if the lockdowns continued and he told me to stay in touch.

They did continue and the firm, unfortunately, did not survive. At that point the Lincoln Project had exploded onto the national scene and was the buzz of the political world. As I looked at my options I remembered he said to get in touch. I called and left a message letting him know what had happened and seeing if he had any advice?

That night he called late. That gruff voice, “Fred, Steve Schmidt, I got your message. You’re going to work for us.”

I replied, “Okay. Doing what?” He said, “Veteran and military organizing. It’s a major pillar of our work.”

“I’ve never done politics, Steve.” He laughed. “You worked for generals. Yes, you have.”

So, weeks later I joined the Lincoln Project as the Senior Advisor for Veterans Affairs at Steve’s invitation. The rest is another story for another day.

But, just think about that chain of events from a meeting at a Burger King in the middle of a war zone to being in the center of the fight to save our democracy 15 years later. Never dismiss the power of chance encounters.

Steve and I remain friends to this day even after all the battles we fought. He joined me for my podcast just a few months ago. This is a must watch episode as we tell some of this story but much more about what happened at the Lincoln Project and what we face as a nation.

Fun little asterisk to this story. As I was preparing this newsletter, I was looking for the photo I took. I can’t seem to find the original so I Googled looking for it. As I was searching through Getty Images, I came across the pictures and if you zoom in on their website you can see Photo Credit, Frederick Wellman, U. S. Army. They want me to pay $199 for the pictures I took as a government official. Life is strange sometimes.

If you enjoyed this story I hope you’ll share it with your networks and friends. Sunday Read’s will always be free for all subscribers. In the meantime, I’d love you to consider upgrading to a paid subscription. I’ve got some really cool stuff planned for us.

Scouts out!

Fred