Chapter 23
I've already described what it felt like to take my first sniper shot; there may have been some hesitation in the back of my mind, an almost unconscious question: Can I kill this person?
But the rules of engagement were clear, and there was no doubt the man in my scope was an enemy. It wasn't just the fact he was armed and maneuvering toward the Marines' positions, though those were the important points for the ROEs. Civilians had been warned not to stay in the city, and while obviously not everyone had been able to escape, only small handfuls of innocents remained. The males of fighting age and sound minds within the city limits were almost all bad guys. They thought they were going to kick us out, just as they supposedly had kicked out the Marines in April.
After the first kill, the others come easy. I don't have to psych myself up, or do anything special mentally-I look through the scope, get my target in the crosshairs, and kill my enemy before he kills one of my people.
I got three that day; Ray got two.
I would keep both eyes open while I was on the scope. With right eye looking through the scope, my left eye could still see the rest of the city. It gave me better situational awareness.
WITH KILO
As the Marines moved into the city, they soon reached a position where we could no longer cover them from the apartment towers. We came down, ready for the next phase-working in the city itself.
I was a.s.signed to Kilo Company, helping the Marine units on the western side of the city. They were the first wave of the a.s.sault, sweeping down block by block. Another company would come in behind them, securing the area and making sure that none of the insurgents snuck back in behind them. The idea was to clear Fallujah out, block by block.
The properties in this part of the city, as in many Iraqi cities, were walled off from their neighbors by thick brick and stucco walls. There were always nooks and crannies for insurgents to hide in. The backyards, usually flat with hard dirt or even cement, were rectangular mazes. It was a dry, dusty place, even with the river nearby. Most of the houses didn't have running water; the water supply would be on the roof.
I worked with Marine snipers for several days during the first week or so of that phase of the a.s.sault. For much of the time I was paired with two Marine snipers and a JTAC, a SEAL who could call in air strikes. There would also be a few support guys, Marines who would provide security and occasionally help out with different tasks. These were Marines who wanted to be snipers; after their deployment, they were hoping to s.h.i.+p out to the Marine sniper school.
Every morning would start with about twenty minutes of what we called "fires"-mortars, artillery, bombs, missiles, rockets-it amounted to a h.e.l.l of a lot of ordnance being dumped on key enemy positions. The fire would take out ammo caches or dumps, or soften up spots where we thought we'd have a lot of resistance. Black funnels of smoke would rise in the distance, caches..h.i.t by the bombings; the ground and air would rumble with secondary explosions.
At first, we were behind the Marine advance. But it didn't take long before I realized we could do a better job by getting ahead of the squad on the ground. It gave us a better position, allowing us to surprise any insurgents who tried rallying to the ground unit.
It also gave us a h.e.l.l of a lot more action. So we started taking houses to use as hides.
Once the bottom of the house was cleared, I'd run up the stairs from the top floor to the roof, emerging in the small shack that typically sheltered the entrance to the roof. Sure the roof was clear, I'd move over to the wall at the edge, get my bearings, and set up a
Meanwhile, the Marines on the ground would work down the street, usually side to side, clearing the houses. Once they reached a point where we could no longer cover them well, we'd move up and take a new spot, and the process would start over again.
Generally, we shot from roofs. They gave the best view and were often already equipped with chairs and the like. Most in the city were ringed by low-rise walls that provided protection when the enemy shot back. Plus, using the roofs allowed us to move quickly; the a.s.sault wouldn't wait for us to take our time getting in position.
If the roof was no good, we would shoot from the upper story, usually out of a window. Once in a while, we would have to blow a sniper hole in the side of a wall to set up a firing position. That was rare, though; we didn't want to draw more attention to our position by setting off an explosion, even if it was relatively small. (The holes were patched after we left.)
One day we set up inside a small office building that had been vacated some time before. We pulled the desks back from the windows and sat deep in the room; the natural shadows that played on the wall outside helped hide the position.
THE BAD GUYS
The enemies we were fighting were savage and well-armed. In just one house, the Marines found roughly two dozen guns, including machine guns and sniper rifles, along with homemade rocket stands and a mortar base.
That was just one house on a long block. It was a nice house, in fact-it had air conditioning, elaborate chandeliers, and fancy Western furniture. It made a good place to rest while we took a break one afternoon.
The houses were all searched carefully, but the weapons were usually pretty easy to find. The Marines would go inside and see a grenade launcher propped against a china cabinet-with rockets stacked next to the teacups below. At one house, Marines found dive tanks-apparently the insurgent who had been staying at the house used them to sneak across the river and make an attack.
Russian equipment was also common. Most of it was very old-in one house there were rifle grenades that could have been made during World War II. We found binoculars with old Communist hammer-and-sickle emblems. And IEDs, including some cemented into walls, were everywhere.
A lot of people who have written about the battles in Fallujah mention how fanatical the insurgents were. They were fanatical, but it wasn't just religion that was driving them. A good many were pretty doped up.
Later on in the campaign, we took a hospital they'd been using at the outskirts of the city. There we found cooked spoons, drug works, and other evidence of how they prepared themselves. I'm not an expert, but it looked to me that they would cook up heroin and inject it before a battle. Other things I've heard said they would use prescription drugs and basically anything they could get to help get their courage up.
You could see that sometimes when you shot them. Some could take several bullets without seeming to feel it. They were driven by more than just religion and adrenaline, even more than blood l.u.s.t. They were already halfway to Paradise, in their minds at least.
UNDER THE RUBBLE
One day I came down from a roof to take a break and headed out into the backyard of the house with another SEAL sniper. I pulled open the bipod on my rifle and set it down.
All of a sudden there was an explosion right across from us, maybe ten feet away. I ducked, then turned and saw the cement block wall crumbling. Just beyond it were two insurgents, AKs slung over their shoulders. They looked as stunned as we must have; they, too, had been taking a break when a stray rocket hit or maybe some sort of IED went off.
It felt like an old western duel-whoever got to their pistol the quickest was going to live.
I grabbed mine and started shooting. My buddy did the same.
We hit them, but the slugs didn't drop them. They turned the corner and ran through the house where they'd been, then cut out into the street.
As soon as they cleared the house, the Marines pulling security on the road shot them down.
At one point early in the battle an RPG hit the building I was working from.
It was an afternoon when I'd set up back from a window on the top floor. The Marines on the ground had started to take fire on the street ahead. I began covering them, taking down targets one by one. The Iraqis started firing back at me, fortunately not too accurately, which was usually the way they shot.
Then an RPG hit the side of the house. The wall took the brunt of the explosion, which was good news and bad news. On the plus side, it saved me from getting blasted. But the explosion also took down a good chunk of the wall. It crashed onto my legs, slamming my knees into the concrete and temporarily pinning me there.
It hurt like h.e.l.l. I kicked some of the rubble off and kept firing at the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down the block.
"Everybody okay?" yelled one of the other boys I was with.
"I'm good, I'm good," I yelled back. But my legs were screaming the opposite. They hurt like a son of a b.i.t.c.h.
The insurgents pulled back, then things stoked up again. That was the way it would go-a lull, followed by an intense exchange, then another lull.
When the firefight finally stopped, I got up and climbed out of the room. Downstairs, one of the boys pointed at my legs.
"You're limping," he said.
"f.u.c.kin' wall came down on me."
He glanced upward. There was a good-sized hole in the house where the wall had been. Until that point, no one had realized that I'd been in the room where the RPG had hit.
I limped for a while after that. A long while-I eventually had to have surgery on both knees, though I kept putting it off for a couple of years.
I didn't go to a doctor. You go to a doctor and you get pulled out. I knew I could get by.
FRY ME NOT
You cannot be afraid to take your shot. When you see someone with an IED or a rifle maneuvering toward your men, you have clear reason to fire. (The fact that an Iraqi had a gun would not necessarily mean he could be shot.) The ROEs were specific, and in most cases the danger was obvious.