Real Life

Babies, Bullets and Baghdad: meet Australia’s Mercenary Mum

How an ordinary suburban mum risked her life to become a high-security bodyguard in Iraq’s most dangerous ‘red zone’.

When Neryl Joyce opens the door to her stylish home in Perth, you’d never guess that this smiling, suburban mum is just as comfortable wielding an M4 machine gun, as she is separating whites from colours before putting on a wash.

Beneath her well-groomed exterior and friendly, instantly welcoming character, 41-year-old Neryl has survived ambush attacks, walls of enemy bullets, and spent months on end waking to the scent of gunpowder and the sound of car bombs exploding.

She also carries the scar of losing some of her best friends – like the colleagues she was working alongside when they were shot dead in cold blood by insurgents on a dusty Baghdad road.

Neryl could have lived a less terrifying existence, and stuck with her job as a Woolworths’ checkout girl, but she had an insatiable thirst for adventure.

Following in the footsteps of her colonel father, at 18, she joined the army. She made it through gruelling training sessions, learnt about weapons, first aid, navigation, drill marching and section attacks and turned herself into a dangerously skilled national weapon. But that didn’t change her desire to be a mum.

“It was just a natural assumption that I’d be able to do both,” says Neryl, who gave birth to her son, Kane, at 24.

When Neryl’s husband Bruce left her, she found juggling the army and being a single mum to a two-year-old extremely tough. Yet she was craving a professional challenge, and in November 2004, she made a life-changing decision to head to war-torn Iraq and work as a high-risk bodyguard. Her job was to protect the electoral commissioners in Iraq’s first ever democratic elections.

Choking back tears, she kissed a five-year-old Kane goodbye, leaving him to enjoy some quality time with his dad, and “changed into my cargo pants and thick, black army boots … there was no turning back now.”

“Some people will say that leaving my son and doing that job is a bad thing, but I disagree.

“Bruce deserved time with his son and it was a good thing emotionally and behaviourally for him to have a greater influence from his father.”

Although Neryl kept in close contact with Kane over the phone, being away from her baby tore her apart. But she knew how important her role was in helping bring stability to a country destroyed by violence.

“Before I went over there I wrote two letters for my son in case I didn’t come back. One was directed to him as a little kid, and another letter for when he turned 18,” says Neryl. She gave the letters to Bruce, telling him to hide them away, and secretly prayed he’d never have to use them.

Neryl put her life on the line by going to Baghdad. She sacrificed her own comfort, safety and enjoyment of life’s luxuries to help in the fight for a democratic, peaceful Iraq.

But there was one thing she wouldn’t sacrifice: and that was her son’s most important moments. “It was coming up to his first day of school, and they told me I might have to stay [in Iraq].

So, I just had to push my point and say, ‘look, I know there’s important stuff going on, but my son comes first. And I made sure I was home in time.”

Mercenary Mum by Neryl Joyce, published by Nero, is on sale now $29.99.

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