The two former Army Rangers had worked together for about a month in fall 2003 for Vinnell, a company with a contract to train Iraqi soldiers. Zovko wanted the Iraqis to be able to control their own country, so he drove them hard.

On one 12-mile march, "the Iraqis were dropping like flies. Jerry would pick up their packs, trying to embarrass them," co-worker Bob Coleman said. "That works in America, but it didn't work with the Iraqis."

Zovko always had a relentless drive. When he joined the Army in 1991, he was assigned to the 82nd Military Police at Fort Bragg, N.C. MPs almost never train as Army Rangers: Police maintain order; the Rangers are trained to break things. Zovko talked his way into Ranger training and was the rare MP with a Ranger tab on his uniform.

Zovko itched to go to Bosnia in late 1995, when U.S. troops were to help maintain the uneasy truce brokered at the Dayton peace accords. Zovko's unit wasn't going. That didn't stop him from swinging an assignment there.

"He'd do things his own way, and the lieutenants and sergeants would want to boot him out," said Howard Hadfield, a friend from his military police platoon. "He played politics and got people to do what he wanted."

Born in a blue-collar Cleveland neighborhood, Jerko (YAIR-ko) Gerald Zovko -- Jerry -- was a soldier who questioned authority; a gun for hire and an idealist; a gregarious and private man; a loyal but secretive friend.

The Vinnell contract collapsed when many Iraqis abandoned the training. But Zovko and Batalona soon would work together again.

Rust Belt roots

Zovko was a Croatian-American and a son of the Rust Belt. His parents separately escaped the Iron Curtain: his father, Jozo, from a village in Bosnia-Herzegovina, his mother, Danica, from a small city in Croatia.

They met in front of the Croatian Soccer Club at St. Clair Avenue and East 55th Street in Cleveland, where tool-and-die factories and cramped frame houses attracted thousands fleeing from what was then Yugoslavia. Jerry was born three years to the day after Danica Zovko landed in the United States.

Jerry and his brother, Tom, grew up in a home that enshrined love of family, the Catholic Church, Croatia, American democracy and anti-Communism.

The Zovkos started a body shop and worked long hours, Jozo with the cars, Danica with the books. Jerry and Tom would beg to help; let us wash the cars, please. They were always turned down.

"We were afraid they would like it," Danica Zovko said.

The business grew, and the family moved to a tiny brick home in Euclid, home to the Polka Hall of Fame and a host of hyphenated Americans: Hungarian-, Slovenian-, Italian-, Polish- and Serbian-.

Zovko learned English at St. Christine's elementary school. He played soldiers with his brother and friends, and went to summer camp with other Croatian-Americans. A history of the post-World War II slaughter of Croats by Tito's partisans was always on his nightstand. He was a decent student, an average soccer player with skills but no speed.

Croatian nationalism

Zovko's life turned in 1991. He asked to visit his relatives in Croatia for a high school graduation present, his first visit as an adult. On June 25, 1991, the family stepped off a plane into what seemed like a patriotic dream. As they rode through the ancient city of Dubrovnik, the streets were thick with people waving red, white and blue flags with the red-checkered Croatian coat of arms. Croatia had declared independence from Yugoslavia that day.

A free Croatia was emerging. Political parties sprouted like wildflowers. Zovko and his brother spent the summer hanging out in cafes with their cousins, dancing in discos and going to the beach.

Yet, as the teenagers partied, the Balkans began to implode. Serbian-controlled Yugoslavia sent tanks into Croatia.

Back in the States, Zovko left Ohio State University and dropped his plans to become a psychiatrist. He joined the Army.

And he grew. Once among the scrawny kids in his high school, always smaller than his athletic younger brother, he shot up six inches. His mother said it was drinking the water from his ancestral village that did it.

Army training added muscle. Soon he was an imposing sight: 6 feet 3 inches, 235 pounds.

'Mother' Zovko

Before going to Bosnia in 1995, Zovko would pile his platoon buddies at Fort Bragg into a battered orange VW van and go surfing at the beach, or to a bar in Southern Pines called Brook's, where the owner called Zovko "Mother" because he stood back and looked after his buddies like a mother hen.

Sending Zovko to Bosnia made sense. U.S. troops were there in late 1995 to keep the peace. Zovko's first language was Croatian, and he had spent summers in Croatia.

He went under an assumed name; the name tag on his camouflage fatigues said "Riley" to mask his Croatian heritage. He saw relatives on the street but couldn't wave or acknowledge them. None recognized the giant U.S. soldier as their small cousin who had visited just a few years earlier.

Jusip Bevanda, a childhood friend, thought Zovko was involved in covert operations. Ron Slusarsky, a friend from Euclid and an Army veteran, said Zovko witnessed the aftermath of several massacres.

"He saw some action, it was heavy, he was more reserved, probably matured a lot there, and was done playing games with us kids," said Hadfield, the friend from Zovko's military police platoon.

For the first time since third or fourth grade, Danica Zovko saw her son cry. A close friend -- Zovko called him Baker -- was killed. It should have been me, Zovko told his mother.

Zovko tried to move up to the Green Berets, his colleagues said. But an injury slowed his training, and his independent streak got in the way; Hadfield said he was voted out by others in his Special Forces unit for being too unconventional.

So in 1997, Zovko left the Army. He went to work in an industry unknown to most Americans: private military contracting.

Changing culture

For most of the 20th century, the U.S. military had been largely self-sufficient on the battlefield. In the 1990s, during the first Bush administration and under President Clinton, that began to change.

During the first gulf war, one of 50 people on the battlefield was a private contractor. In Bosnia, that ratio was one in 10. Contractors maintained complicated weapons systems, analyzed intelligence, delivered mail, delivered fuel and ran computers.

They also helped the United States put more troops in the field. Congress had capped the number of troops in Bosnia at 20,000; hiring more than 2,000 contractors allowed a bigger U.S. presence. Contracting allowed the military to put more "shooters" on the front lines without officially swelling the ranks.

Zovko's first post-Army job was in Qatar, where he worked with DynCorp, a military contractor. While he kept in close touch with family and friends, calling from Qatar or Dubai or Thailand, he told them little about his work.

Bevanda, the childhood friend who now works in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, says Zovko called him often. Bevanda would often come home and find a wordless message on his answering machine: Zovko barking like a dog, laughing and hanging up.

In December 2000, Howard Hadfield was on a nine-month tour around the world, trying to figure out what to do next. Stopping in Dubai, he sought out Zovko, one of his platoon mates from Fort Bragg.

They hung out in Zovko's apartment, sitting on cushions on the floor, watching Italian soccer, playing guitar or listening to Leonard Cohen or Lenny Kravitz CDs. After dark, as the air cooled, Zovko and Hadfield joined the crowds strolling around the plaza. Zovko told Hadfield he had converted to Islam and was fasting during Ramadan.

After 10 days, Hadfield left without an idea about Zovko's work.

"I didn't know what he was doing, but I think I really cramped his style," Hadfield said.

Opportunity in Iraq

In August 2003, Zovko returned to Cleveland to visit his family. He was taking a job with Vinnell in Iraq to help train the new army.

They were skeptical. Why do you want to go to Iraq?

Zovko was adamant. This was a historic opportunity. The Iraqis need a professional army, not the one Saddam Hussein created. And the sooner the army was ready, the sooner U.S. soldiers could come home.

Among the trainers, Zovko stood out: sharp, almost too sharp, and very disciplined. His fluency in Arabic and reluctance to talk about his past led Coleman, his Vinnell co-worker, to think he was with the CIA, planted to make friends among future Iraqi army officers.

Zovko was serious about the training. Sitting in a ditch during a break, Zovko lectured Coleman on the gravity of their task. He told him the Iraqis deserved a chance to handle their own country.

In November, much of the fledgling Iraqi army went home for the monthlong holiday of Ramadan. Many soldiers never returned. Vinnell's contractors started peeling off. Batalona went home. Zovko left the Kirkush Military Training Base and took a job with Blackwater Security Consulting, based in Moyock, N.C.

Blackwater was backed by a vast private fortune. Its parent company, Blackwater USA, was formed in 1996 by retired SEALs hand-picked by one of their own: a 27-year-old Navy commando whose family was worth more than $1 billion, a man named Erik Prince.

SOURCE NOTES

Chapter 3 of "The Bridge" is based on information collected from these sources:

Jerry Zovko's time with Vinnell: Interviews with Vinnell co-workers Bob Coleman and Ayman Elyas; Coleman's unpublished after-action report.

Zovko's military years: Army personnel records; interviews with friends and relatives Howard Hadfield, Jon Narley, Ron Slusarsky, Jusip Bevanda, Danica Zovko and Tom Zovko.

Zovko's childhood: interviews with Jusip Bevanda, Danica Zovko, Tom Zovko; Jerry Zovko essay from St. Christine's yearbook; Euclid High School yearbooks.

Number of U.S. troops and contractors in Bosnia: "Contractors on the Battlefield: What Have We Signed Up For?" Col. Steven Zamparelli, Air War College, 1999.

(News researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this report.)

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