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

I
NSIDE
I
took the lead.
Waiting outside the first house, I thought about the guys I saw

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being pulled out.
I did not want to be one of them.
I could be, though.
It was hard to get that idea out of my mind. I also knew that I
would be in a shitload of trouble if I did get hurt—going down on
the streets was not what I was supposed to be doing, at least from
an official point of view. It was definitely right—what I felt I 
had
to
do—but it would severely piss the top brass off.
But that would be the least of my problems if I got shot,
wouldn’t it?
“Let’s do it,” I said.
We blew the door open. I led the way, training and instincts
taking over. I cleared the front room, stepped to the side, and
started directing traffic. The pace was quick, automatic. Once things
got started and I began to move into the house, something took
over inside me. I didn’t worry about casualties anymore. I didn’t
think about anything except the door, the house, the room—all of
which was plenty enough.
G
oing into a house, you never knew what you were going to find.
Even if you cleared the rooms on the first floor without any trouble,
you couldn’t take the rest of the house for granted. Going up to the
second floor, you might start to get a feeling that the rooms were
empty or that you weren’t going to have any problems up there, but
that was a dangerous feeling. You never really know what’s

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anywhere. Each room had to be cleared, and even then, you had to
be on your guard. Plenty of times after we secured a house we took
rounds and grenades from outside.
While many of the houses were small and cramped, we also
made our way through a well-to-do area of the city as the battle
progressed. Here the streets were paved, and the buildings looked
like miniature palaces from the outside. But once you got past the
façade and looked in the rooms, most were broken messes. Any
Iraqi who had that much money had fled or been killed.
D
uring our breaks, I would take the Marines out and go through
some drills with them. While other units were taking their lunch, I
was teaching them everything I’d learned about room clearance.
“Look, I don’t want to lose a guy!” I yelled at them. I wasn’t
about to get an argument there. I ran them around, busting their
asses while they were supposed to be resting. But that’s the thing
with Marines—you beat them down and they come back for more.
W
e broke into one house with a large front room. We’d caught the
inhabitants completely by surprise.
But I was surprised as well—as I burst in, I saw a whole bunch
of guys standing there in desert camouflage—the old brown
chocolate-chip stuff from Desert Storm, the First Gulf War. They
were all wearing gear. They were all Caucasian, including one or
two with blond hair, obviously not Iraqis or Arabs.

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What the 
....
?
We looked at each other. Something flicked in my brain, and I
flicked the trigger on the M-16, mowing them down.
A half-second’s more hesitation, and I would have been the one
bleeding out on the floor. They turned out to be Chechens, Muslims
apparently recruited for a holy war against the West. (We found
their passports after searching the house.)