The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi (19 page)

“Yeah, man. What can I say, I’m too worried about your well-being to think of myself.”

“Good to hear,” he said, charging up the chainsaw for his next victim.

We got through all ten trees within about an hour and some change. When it was done, we looked at the gaggle of felled palms strewn about the compound, then at each other.

“Combat chainsaw,” Chucky said proudly.

We nodded and headed back inside.

Back on the rooftop, Jonny and I traded time on the gun and didn’t see much of anything in terms of targets or threats. It was, as usual, oven hot. Before 0800, the Bradleys, Abrams, and APCs began their slow drive over to Springfield. The push had come, but the day was otherwise a standard sniper overwatch where the enemy didn’t want to play.

Eventually, I took a nap. When I woke I looked through our loophole and saw a Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s main gun pointing right at us. The cavalry was all around. The next phase of building up the COP was already starting. Our job as tip of the spear was done.

Despite my brief bout of combat ineffectiveness from dehydration, I felt all right about the op until word came over the radio that an ANGLICO (Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company) Marine we’d worked with on previous missions had been killed when he popped up to return fire on a rooftop a kilometer from our hide.

He’d taken a round right to the head.

War has a way of pushing and pulling your psyche in different directions. Just as I was trying to put the dehydration out of my mind, Ramadi gave me another sobering reminder that the enemy is everywhere all the time. You may not see him, but the danger is always there.

With all the armor in the area, we didn’t even wait until nightfall to patrol back. We skirted the low side of the train bridge, and as we came around the bridge, I snapped a picture of Marc. He was carrying his Mk 48 in his signature style as if it were an extension of himself. He never wore a sling with his gun. Instead he just heaved it around with ease. The photo has always been one of my favorite pictures of Marc.

Securing COP Iron was a big deal for the Army. It was in a hairy part of Ramadi, and the Army was grateful for our help in making the op go smoothly. I read about the operation in
Stars and Stripes
a couple of days later. It was a good write-up, save the part where the Army said they used Navy SEALs along with Iraqi snipers. That made for a good laugh, since I’d never laid eyes on an Iraqi sniper. The whole thing was good press for the Army, and, more important, having a footprint in the southern end of the city was going to allow us to move through the middle and southeast. Just another op in Ramadi where both flora and fauna paid the price.

“In war there is no substitute for victory.”

—Douglas MacArthur

B
EFORE 2006, THE
best summer of my life was the single summer I spent in college. I was supposed to be in summer school, trying to make up for my poor performance my first two semesters and earn enough credit to creep my way out of freshman year. Instead, I played rugby, tossed horseshoes, drank a lot of beer, and made the occasional appearance in an academic building. When the summer ended, I was still a freshman according to the dean of students at James Madison University.

Many people hear about the Battle of Ramadi, about what we did there and the things that happened, and tell me they’re sorry. Their apologies, though well intentioned, normally make me angry. The summer I spent in Ramadi was the watershed of my young adult life. What most people don’t understand is that I would give back that summer in Harrisonburg in a heartbeat, but it’s never occurred to me to wish I hadn’t gone to Ramadi.

After having a lot of success north of Route Michigan, the Army wanted to push farther into south-central Ramadi to establish a command observation post from which coalition forces could launch operations and further secure the district. The location the Army commanders chose for COP Falcon—as it would come to be known—was a compound at the corner of Sunset and Baseline Roads. Sunset runs north–south about a half mile east of the Habbaniyah Canal, and Baseline runs east from Sunset toward the Ma’Laab district in Ramadi’s southeast. Our platoon was tasked as the main reconnaissance element for the Army’s operation to secure Falcon. Our objective’s proximity to the canal afforded another opportunity for a riverine insertion.

We started the op around 2000, trucking to Camp Hurricane Point under the cover of darkness to meet up with the Marine SURC-boat unit again. This was one of our few ops with no Jundis, and as the Marines nosed their boats into the water, our sixteen-man platoon piled in and packed it up tight. I took up a position with my Mk 11 toward the front of the boat. I had the suppressor elastic banded to my web gear to cut down on the length and weight of the gun. I slung one arm out of my ruck, sitting in a half crouch and pointing my gun out at the bank. Marc set up next to me with his Mk 48. He swatted at a mosquito on his neck.

“I really need to remember to bring bug juice for these riverine ops,” he said.

“It doesn’t really help,” I said. “These mosquitos don’t give a fuck. They’re going to get theirs.” I swatted at one buzzing next to my ear.

I packed a dip of Copenhagen as the boats rumbled to life and
headed west on the Euphrates. We made the turn south down the canal and then passed under the bridge that extends Route Michigan into the city. The slow rumble of the engine cut the water smoothly as I watched the sleeping city pass grainy-green in my night vision. Our guns were equipped with Advanced Target Pointer/Illuminator/Aiming Lasers (ATPIALs), and they projected infrared lines of glowing green that danced around on the horizon. SURC boats are armed with two miniguns—one on each side—and a .50-cal on the back. Miniguns are six-barreled rotary machine guns and a pretty mean piece of ordnance. Our pace was just slow enough that the wind cutting past us provided no noticeable relief from the mid-July heat and sauna-like humidity. I spat toward the water and watched a line of dip spit fall on the boat’s wall in front of me. The scenery changed from small buildings to reeds and palms, and finally to the structures that indicated we were entering the belly of the city. I rechecked the safety on my weapon.

We approached our insertion point in the city’s south-central region, rumbling up toward a grove of trees and low grass. We hit the bank and exited quickly, fanning out and setting security. After a quick pause, we got into a single-column formation and moved out. Chris was on point with Biggles next in line, then Luke, Rex, me, and Marc. We moved slowly and stealthily, applying the same maxim we used while clearing buildings: slow is smooth; smooth is fast. We were in no rush to get there. No one is a fan of running to his death.

As we patrolled through the trees, I strained to see in the shadows, anticipating the muj who might be waiting to light us up. We reached an intersection and Chris gave the signal to halt. We took a knee and set security before moving across and into the city’s ravaged streets. Chris passed back the signal to break into a dual-column formation. This provided cross-cover with each column watching its opposing rooftops. After a couple of blocks, the street narrowed and Chris signaled
for us to funnel back to a single column. Suddenly, the smell of human shit smashed me in the face like a frying pan. About fifty yards in front of us was a canal of raw sewage. Shit creek. On one deployment, a SEAL buddy of mine actually fell into one of Iraq’s shit creeks and was submerged in raw sewage for a few seconds. He became violently ill for several days.

Internally, I cursed the engineers who had conjured up the shit creeks, when the signal came back to freeze. Everyone silently took a knee. Several seconds passed and then three shots rang out from the front of the platoon. Then the signal came to move out with quickness. We ran, and I saw the first few guys make their way across the flimsy two-by-six that served as the shit creek’s walking bridge. I rushed across carefully. Up ahead, Chris put three security rounds in a body laid out on the ground just off our path. He was already dead, but since there was an AK next to him, the Legend was just making sure. As I ran past, I looked down and saw a skinny muj in a blue tracksuit and tank top with a red and white wrap around his neck. His face had been mostly blown off, but I caught the sight of a giant pair of horse teeth, which I assumed were his front incisors. I could count at least three shots right to the (eyes-nose) triangle. An AK-47 lay on the ground next to him. Apparently, he was waiting to ambush another patrol as we approached. He had picked the wrong spot and the wrong time, to say the least.

Our target building was only about one hundred yards up, and I could see the eight-foot wall surrounding it as we approached the corner of Sunset and Baseline. We peeled left and right, stacking up on the wall to hold security while the rest of the platoon got in position. Marc and I hoisted Chris and Biggles up and over, and they unlocked the large main gate, which was big enough for a car to drive through. We flooded inside and Marc and I cleared to the left side of the building. It was about twenty feet wide and sixty deep. We busted through the front door and into an airy and empty front room. Our train swept
through the building while a few guys cleared the half acre around the outside. Empty and clear. We all took a breath.

Those of us in the assault element headed to the rooftop to set up. We were all curious about what had gone down with the dead muj on our approach.

“Chris, what happened, man?” Jonny asked quietly. “Did you get a-fucking-nother one?”

“Hell no,” he said in his Texas twang. “I saw the guy creepin’, but my fuckin’ ATPIAL shit the bed on me. Luke comes up; I’m like, ‘Gimme a battery.’ He’s like, ‘no.’ And then he shot the dude.”

“Gimme a fucking battery?” I said condescendingly. “In the middle of an op? Shit should have been squared away before we took off, man. Even the Legend has to PMS his gear, brother. Guess you let that one slip away.”

“Well, how many motherfuckers you killed?” he said defensively. “Besides, you gotta let Luke get one once in a while. Officers need all the help they can get.”

“Sounds like something the Myth would say,” I shot back.

“Yeah, yeah, I got yer myth right here. By the way, Dauber, no more Copenhagen for you,” Chris said.

“I guess you’re right, Legend. I need to cut back. Don’t want my grill looking like that Horse Teeth motherfucker you shot back there,” I quietly quipped.

Chris smiled. “Fucking Dauber. Always some smart-ass shit to say.”

“I love you too, Legend,” I replied.

From the top of the building we could see clearly in every direction. The Army, with the recommendation from our recce patrol a few nights before, had specifically chosen the building for that reason. It was optimally located in that part of the city. I set up looking up Baseline Road to the north and attached the suppressor to my Mk 11. Chris set up facing east down Baseline with his .30-cal, and within a
matter of minutes that lucky bastard shot a muj placing an IED at four hundred yards.

“Mother. Fucker,” I mumbled to myself.

“Looks like you put some batteries in that weapons system,” I said quietly.

“Yup,” Chris said. “I think I got Horse Teeth’s buddy.”

We both enjoyed a laugh.

With our building secured and the surrounding area covered by SEAL snipers, it was time to call in the cavalry. Around midnight, the Army’s main assault element rumbled down Sunset. At least thirty or forty tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles were rolling in force to establish a permanent presence around the newly christened COP Falcon compound. Things were about to get very boring. The Army’s tanks and Bradleys surrounded the compound, locking down Baseline, Sunset, shit creek to the west, and the area to our south. We were suddenly smack in the middle of a highly protected security perimeter with nothing to do but sit there, sweating. Knowing we weren’t going to get much action if we stayed put, Luke got on the horn with the Army to try to find us some work.

“Good luck finding targets with an entire armored division down there,” I said to Chris and Jonny. “It’s gonna take Luke a while to finish tickling the Army officers’ balls. It’s time for some rack ops.”

“Maybe he could borrow some batteries from the Legend to power his radio and make the call,” EOD Nick added.

Chris kept his eyes on his scope, clearly unamused by our banter.

By the time I woke up from a power nap, we had gotten the go-ahead to press forward and set up in another building outside COP Falcon’s perimeter. Tony got everyone together and briefed the plan. Chris had identified a four-story apartment complex—perfect for sniping—about four hundred meters east on Baseline. We were going to patrol up, secure it, set up sniper hides, and kill any muj trying to ambush the COP. Another day at the office.

We patrolled out in a single column. At the edge of the Army’s security perimeter, two tanks sat at an intersection, engines rumbling and guns trained to the north and east. The tank commanders’ heads poked out from the top hatches like turtles from their shells. The Army’s Abrams tanks use a weird type of fuel, and as we walked between them, I inhaled a hot blast of tank exhaust. It felt like Ramadi blowing a disgusting burp in my face—an angry breath from the rotten guts of a diseased city. We walked along crumbling sidewalks in the shadows of war-scarred buildings, and Baseline stretched before us into the distant blackness of the Ma’Laab to the east.

At the target building, those of us not in the assault team fanned out in a hasty security perimeter while the breachers moved into place. They quietly cut a lock on the compound’s gate and assaulted in. The rest of us peeled off in trail. There were at least ten rooms on each floor, and we cleared the whole place quietly, calling our status over the radio as we progressed through. The building was completely abandoned, save the occasional prayer rug, bedding, and trash. Once again, I headed up to the roof with the other snipers. With the cover of darkness, we could stand up and get a good look over the wall around the rooftop at the real estate before us. Chris and I found a spot looking east that provided an unobstructed view of J Street for more than a kilometer. Chucky came up and blew two loophole charges in the wall on the east side and one on the south. Chris and I set up behind one of the holes looking east. EOD Justin set up with an Mk 48 on the hole to our right. Jonny set up looking south, and Marc, Spaz, and Ralphie set up watching the north. With COP Falcon behind us to the west, our six o’clock was well covered.