Rubén Gallego, the congressman who escaped death in Iraq

Colombian-born Congressman Rubén Gallego says he was lucky in Iraq. During his deployment in Iraq’s Anbar province, he escaped death at least 11 times. 

His new memoir written with American Sniper co-author Jim DeFelice, They Called Us “Lucky,” credits luck for surviving the armed conflict. 

“I have had my lucky streak in real life and I’ve used it up. I have lived my eleven lives and I will strive for my twelfth to be a good and happy one,” Gallego said. 

The book was written primarily as a tribute to the men he served with at the Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, as well as for the “people who want a real view of the war,” he explained. 

"I could have written a book glorifying me...but that's not it," the congressman said in an interview with Axios.

During his six-month service in Iraq, the nickname "Lucky" Lima became sadly ironic as 23 men in his company and 25 others in the battalion died in Anbar.

Gallego’s book talks about the profanity, crude jokes, drinking, and insubordination that defined his time in the military. He also admits that he liked being followed by children on his patrols because it meant the mujahideen were less likely to attack, according to Roll Call.

Gallego admits that he became indifferent to the plight of the Iraqis during his stay.

The book also portrays the bureaucratic problems his company faced in Iraq, including Gallego's annoyance with the Pentagon leadership who ran the war and the continued systemic failures in veterans' support.

“This book is not about politics, it's about reality. It's important to convey how powerless you are when you're in the military and when you're at war, and the only way to really convey that is to complain about it, but not to offer solutions," he said in an interview with NBC.

They Called Us "Lucky" also chronicles the early years of Gallego’s life, who went from a poverty-stricken immigrant child in Chicago to a congressman shouting instructions on how to put on a gas mask in the House of Representatives on January 6, 2020.