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Many became acquainted with Chief Wiggles
through his detailed and inspiring wartime “blog” on the internet. As a chief warrant officer in the Army National
Guard with 34 years of service, he has served as an interrogator and Korean linguist. He has been to South Korea more than
50 times, functioning as an interrogation team chief, interpreter, and debriefer of North Korean defectors He was called to
the Middle East in 1991 during Desert Storm, where he interrogated dozens of Iraqis. Saving Babylon recounts his experiences
in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, from the start of the war through the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Paul has worked for FedEx for the past
15 years, and is currently a World Wide Account Manager. He has taught supply chain management and operation management at
the University of Utah and at Brigham Young University.” (insidescooplive.com) Chief Warrant Officer Paul Holton is
the author of Saving Babylon.
According to the book description of
Saving Babylon, it “is the gripping account of an Army interrogator in the Iraq War. Holton’s
techniques, honed over 34 years, got him inside the hearts of Iraqis. He dealt with the best and the worst of Iraqi society
on a daily basis. He interrogated Iraqi generals, judges, political candidates, POWs and common crooks. He saw freedom take
root. Holton saw more good being done than the media has ever published or broadcast. It’s time Americans read that
side of the story.
One reader of Saving Babylon said, “A truly motivational presentation by one who experienced the rigors and the challenges
of military duty in Iraq. Holton's message is most poignant due to his daily involvement with the Iraqi people whose homeland
is undergoing drastic change. Holton's role is to interrogate high ranking Iraqi POW's who run from those who wish to delay
the work of rebuilding the shattered country to those who wish to assist positively and constructively in forming a truly
functioning and vibrant Iraqi economy and society.”
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One reader of Saving Babylon
said, “Here we have the personal memoir of Chief Warrant Officer Paul Holton, (a/k/a "Chief Wiggles") the
"morale officer" in a Utah National Guard Unit. When not in uniform, Holton works as an account manager for Federal
Express Corporation and travels as a missionary with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Holton's National Guard
unit reported for mobilization in February 2003. Initially stationed at a holding camp in Kuwait, Holton provided intelligence
support to a battalion-level commander, whose unit participated in the southern ground invasion of Iraq. After the U.S. started
the war that March, Holton conducted the extended interrogation of some fourteen Iraqi Generals who had surrendered during
the early days of the invasion. Once the so called "coalition forces" pursued the war into Baghdad, Holton's role
morphed slightly from interrogating high ranking prisoners to gathering information from willing Iraqi citizens. Living in
the "Green Zone," Holton was one of the first American military representatives whom an Iraqi citizen with information
to share, would encounter.
Apparently working with little supervision,
Holton's team in Baghdad interviewed Iraqi citizens and helped to funnel seed money to individuals deemed deserving of coalition
favoritism (thereby stimulating the local economy.) As a part of these public relations efforts, Holton maintained a blog
website that helped to insure that awareness, donated items, and funds, were raised back home for Iraqi children. This effort
to get candy, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and toys delivered from U.S. donors into the hands of needy Iraqi children, was dubbed
Operation "Give."
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