American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U. S. Military History

G
ASSED
A
British unit flew in in the morning. By then, the battle was over.
Of course, we couldn’t resist needling them about it.
“Come on in. The fight’s over,” we said. “It’s safe for you.”
I don’t think they thought it was funny, but it was hard to tell.
They speak English funny. Exhausted, we moved back inside the
gate to a house that had been almost completely destroyed during

---

the firefight. We went into the ruins, dropped down between the
rubble, and fell asleep.
A few hours later, I got up. Most of the other guys in my
company were stirring as well. We went outside and started
checking the perimeter of the oil fields. While we were out, we
spotted some of the air defenses the Iraqis didn’t have. But the intel
reports didn’t have to be updated—those defenses were now in no
shape to bother anyone.
There were dead bodies everywhere. We saw one guy who’d
literally had his ass blown off. He’d bled to death, but not before he
tried to drag himself away from the planes. You could see the blood
trail in the dirt.
While we were sorting things out, I spotted a Toyota pickup in
the distance. It drove up on the road and stopped a little more than
a mile away.
White civilian pickup trucks were used by the Iraqis as military
vehicles throughout the war. Usually they were some version of the
Toyota Hilux, the compact pickup built in a variety of styles. (In the
States, the Hilux was often called the SR5; the model was
eventually discontinued here, though it continued to be sold
overseas.) Not sure what was going on, we stared at the truck for a
few moments until we heard a 
whup
.
Something went 
splat
a few yards from us. The Iraqis had fired
a mortar round from the rear bed. It sank harmlessly into the oily
mud.

---

“Thank God that thing didn’t blow up,” somebody said. “We’d
be dead.”
White smoke started pouring out of the hole where the projectile
had landed.
“Gas!” yelled someone.
We started running as fast as we could back to the gate. But just
before we reached it, the British guards slammed it shut and refused
to open up.
“You can’t come in!” one of them yelled. “You’ve just been
gassed.”
While Marine Cobras flew in overhead to take care of the
mortar trucks, we tried to figure out if we were going to die.
When we were still breathing a few minutes later, we realized the
smoke had been just that—smoke. Maybe it was steam from the
mud. Whatever. It was all sizzle, no boom, no gas.
Which was a relief.