Chapter 46
"He's gonna break your record," he'd tease. "You better get on that gun more."
Well, things evened out real fast-all of a sudden I seemed to have every stinkin' bad guy in the city running across my scope. My totals shot up, and there was no catchin' me.
Luck of the draw.
If you're interested, the confirmed kills were only kills that someone else witnessed, and cases where the enemy could be confirmed dead. So if I shot someone in the stomach and he managed to crawl around where we couldn't see him before he bled out, he didn't count.
WORKING WITH THE ARMY
With the initial attacks dying down after a couple of days, we foot-patrolled back to COP Falcon from Four Story. There we met with the captain of the force, and told him that we wanted to be based out of Falcon rather than having to go all the way back to Camp Ramadi every few days.
He gave us the in-law suite. We were the Army's in-laws.
We also told him that we would help him clear whatever area he wanted. His job was to clear the city around COP Falcon, and ours was to help him.
"What's the worst spot you got?" we asked.
He pointed it out.
"That's where we're going," we said.
He shook his head and rolled his eyes.
"You guys are crazy," he said. "You can have that house, you can outfit it however you want, you can go wherever you want. But I want you to know-I'm not coming to get you if you go out there. There are too many IEDs, I'm going to lose a tank. I can't do it."
Like a lot of the Army, I'm sure the captain initially looked at us skeptically. They all a.s.sumed we thought we were better than they were, that we had out-sized egos and shot off our mouths without being able to back it up. Once we proved to them that we didn't think we were better than them-more experienced, yes, but not stuck up, if you know what I mean-then they usually came around. We formed strong working relations.h.i.+ps with the units, and even friends.h.i.+ps that lasted after the war.
The captain's unit was doing cordon and search operations, where they would take an entire block and search it. We started working with them. We'd do daylight presence patrols-the idea was to make civilians see troops on a regular basis, gaining more confidence that they were going to be protected, or that at least we were there to stay. We would put half the platoon on an overwatch while the rest patrolled.
A lot of these overwatches would be near Four Story. The guys downstairs would patrol and almost always be contacted. I'd be upstairs with other snipers and nail whoever was trying to attack them.
Or we would b.u.mp out five hundred yards, six or eight hundred yards, going deep into Injun territory to look and wait for the bad guys. We'd set up on overwatch ahead of one of his patrols. As soon as his people showed up, they'd draw all sorts of insurgents toward them. We'd take them
After a few days, the captain came up to us and said, "Y'all are bad-a.s.s. I don't care where you go, if you need me, I'm comin' to get you. I'll drive the tank to the front door."
And from that moment on, he had our faith and our back.
I was on overwatch at Four Story one morning when some of our guys started doing a patrol nearby. As they moved to cross the street, I spotted some insurgents coming down J Street, which was one of the main roads in that area.
I took down a couple. My guys scattered. Not knowing what was going on, someone asked over the radio why the h.e.l.l I was shooting at them.
"I'm shooting over your head," I told him. "Look down the street."
Insurgents started feeding into the area and a huge firefight erupted. I saw one guy with an RPG; I got him in my crosshairs, squeezed easy on the trigger.
He fell.
A few minutes later, one of his friends came out to grab the rocket launcher.
He fell.
This went on for quite a while. Down the block, another insurgent with an AK tried to get a shot on my boys. I took him down-then took down the guy who came to get his gun, and the next one.
Target-rich environment?! h.e.l.l, there were piles of insurgents littering the road. They finally gave up and disappeared. Our guys continued to patrol. The jundis saw action that day; two of them died in a firefight.
It was tough to keep track of how many kills I got that day, but I believe the total was the highest I'd ever had in a single day.
We knew we were in good with the Army captain when he came over to us one day and said, "Listen, y'all gotta do one thing for me. Before I get s.h.i.+pped out of here, I want to shoot my main tank gun one time. All right? So call me."
It wasn't too long after that we got in a firefight and we got his unit on the radio. We called him over, and he got his tank in and he got his shot.
There were a lot more in the days that followed. By the time he left Ramadi, he'd shot it thirty-seven times.
PRAYERS AND BANDOLIERS
Before every op, a bunch of the platoon would gather and say a prayer. Marc Lee would lead it, usually speaking from the heart rather than reciting a memorized prayer.
I didn't pray every time going out, but I did thank G.o.d every night when I got back.
There was one other ritual when we returned: cigars.
A few of us would get together and smoke them at the end of an op. In Iraq, you can get Cubans; we smoked Romeo y Julieta No. 3s. We'd light up to top off the day.
In a way, we all thought we were invincible. In another way, we also accepted the fact that we could die.
I didn't focus on death, or spend much time thinking about it. It was more like an idea, lurking in the distance.
It was during this deployment that I invented a little wrist bandolier, a small bullet-holder that allowed me to easily reload without disturbing my gun setup.
I took a holder that had been designed to be strapped on a gun stock and cut it up. Then I arranged some cord through it and tied it to my left wrist.
Generally, when I fired, I would have my fist balled up under the gun to help me aim. That brought the bandolier close. I could fire, take my right hand, and grab more bullets, and keep my eye sighted through the scope at all times.
As lead sniper, I tried to help the new guys, telling them what details to look for. You could tell someone was an insurgent not just by the fact that he was armed but by the way he moved. I started giving advice I'd been given back at the beginning of Fallujah, a battle that by now seemed like a million years ago.
"Dauber, don't be afraid to pull the trigger," I'd tell the younger sniper. "If it's within the ROEs, you take him."
A little bit of hesitation was common for the new guys. Maybe all Americans are a little hesitant to be the first to shoot, even when it's clear that we're under attack, or will be shortly.
Our enemy seemed to have no such problem. With a little experience, our guys didn't, either.
But you could never tell how a guy was going to perform under the stress of combat. Dauber did real well-real well. But I noticed that, for some snipers, the extra strain made them miss shots that they would have no trouble with in training. One guy in particular-an excellent guy and a good SEAL-went through a spell where he was missing quite a lot.
You just couldn't tell how someone was going to react.
Ramadi was infested with insurgents, but there was a large civilian population. Sometimes they'd wander into firefights. You'd wonder what the h.e.l.l they were thinking.