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

COP F
ALCON
T
he Army rolled in with tanks, armored vehicles, and trucks.
Soldiers humped sandbags and reinforced weak spots in the house.
The house we were on was at the corner of a T-intersection of two
major roads, one of which we called Sunset. The Army wanted the
spot because of its strategic location; it was a choke point and a
pretty clear presence inside the city.
Those factors also made it a prime target.
The tanks drew attention right away. A couple of insurgents
began moving toward the house as they arrived. The bad guys were
armed with AKs, maybe foolishly thinking they could scare the
armor off. I waited until they were two hundred yards from the
tanks before picking them off. They were easy shots, nailed before
they could coordinate an organized attack.
A
few hours passed. I kept finding shots—the insurgents were
probing the area, one or two at a time, trying to sneak in behind us.
It was never hot and heavy, but there was a steady stream of
opportunity. Pop shots, I called them later.
The Army commander estimated we got two dozen insurgents in
the first twelve hours of the fight. I don’t know how accurate that is,
but I did take down a few myself that first day, each with one shot.
It wasn’t particularly great shooting—they were all around four
hundred yards and less. The .300 Win Mag is a hard-hitter at that

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range.
While it was still dark, the Army now had enough defenses at
Falcon to hold their own if they were attacked. I went down off the
roof and with my boys moved out again, running toward a rundown
apartment building a few hundred yards away. The building, one of
the tallest around, had a good vantage not only on Falcon but on the
rest of the area. We called it Four Story; it would end up being a
home away from home for much of the battle that followed.
We got in without trouble. It was empty.
W
e didn’t see much for the rest of the night. But when the sun
came up, so did the bad guys.
They targeted COP Falcon, but ineptly. They’d walk, drive, ride
mopeds, trying to get close enough to launch an attack. It was
always obvious what they were doing: you’d see a couple of guys
on a moped. The first would have an AK and the second would
have a grenade launcher.
I mean, come on.
We started getting a lot of shots. Four Story was a great sniper
hide. It was the tallest building around, and you couldn’t get close
enough to shoot at it without exposing yourself. It was easy to pick
an attacker off. Dauber says we took twenty-three guys in the first
twenty-four hours we were there; in the days that followed, we’d
get plenty more targets.
Of course, after the first shot, it was a fighting position, not a

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sniper hide. But in a way, I didn’t mind being attacked—the
insurgents were just making it easier for me to kill them.