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S
HARK
B
ASE
R
amadi was in al-Anbar, the same province as Fallujah, about
thirty miles farther west. Many of the insurgents who’d been run out
of Fallujah were said to have holed up there. There was plenty of
evidence: attacks had ratcheted up ever since Fallujah had been
pacified. By 2006, Ramadi was considered the most dangerous city
in Iraq—a hell of a distinction.
My platoon had been sent to Camp Ramadi, a U.S. base along
the Euphrates River outside the city. Our compound, named Shark
Base, had been set up by an earlier task unit and was just outside
the wire of Camp Ramadi.
When I finally arrived, my boys had been sent to work east of
Ramadi. Arranging transportation through the city was impossible. I
was pissed—I thought I’d gotten there too late to join in the action.
Looking for something to do until I could figure out how to get
with the rest of the platoon, I asked my command if I could sit out
on the guard towers. Insurgents had been testing the perimeters,
sneaking as close as they dared and spraying the base with their
AKs.
“Sure, go ahead,” they told me.
I went out and took my sniper rifle. Almost as soon as I got into
position, I saw two guys skirting around in the distance, looking for
a spot to shoot from.
I waited until they popped up behind cover.
Bang.
I got the first one. His friend turned around and started to run.
Bang.
Got him, too.
S
EVEN
S
TORY
I
was still waiting for a chance to join the rest of my platoon when
the Marine unit at the northern end of the city put in a request for
snipers to help with an overwatch from a seven-story building near
their outpost.
The head shed asked me to come up with a team. There were
only two other snipers at the base. One was recovering from
wounds and looped out on morphine; the other was a chief who
appeared reluctant to go.
I asked for the guy who was on morphine; I got the chief.
We found two 60 gunners, including Ryan Job, to provide a little
muscle, and with an officer headed out to help the Marines.
Seven Story was a tall, battered building about two hundred
yards outside the Marine outpost. Made of tan-colored cement and
located near what had been a major road before the war, it looked
almost like a modern office building, or would have if it weren’t for
the missing windows and huge holes where it had been hit by
rockets and shells. It was the tallest thing around and had a perfect
vantage into the city.
vantage into the city.
We went out in early evening with several Marines and local
jundi
s for security. The
jundi
s were loyal Iraqi militia or soldiers
who were being trained; there were a number of different groups,
each with its own level of expertise and efficiency—or, most often,
the opposite of both.
While there was still light, we got a few shots here and there, all
on isolated insurgents. The area around the building was pretty
rundown, a whitewashed wall with a fancy iron gate separating one
sand-strewn empty lot from another.
Night fell, and suddenly we were in the middle of a flood of bad
guys. They were on their way to assault the Marine outpost and we
just happened to be along the route. There were a ton of them.
At first, they didn’t realize we were there, and it was open
season. Then, I saw three guys with RPGs taking aim at us from
about a block away. I shot each of them in succession, saving us the
hassle of ducking from their grenades.
The firefight quickly shifted our way. The Marines called us over
the radio and told us to collapse back to them.
Their outpost was a few hundred treacherous yards away. While
one of the 60 gunners, my officer, and I provided cover fire, the rest
of our group went downstairs and moved over to the Marine base.
Things got hot so fast that by the time they were clear we were
surrounded. We stayed where we were.
R
yan realized our predicament as soon as he arrived at the Marine
outpost. He and the chief got into an argument over whether to
provide cover for us. The chief claimed that their job was to stay
with the Iraqi
jundi
s, who were already hunkered down inside the
Marine camp. The chief ordered him to stay; Ryan told him what he
could do with that order.
Ryan ran upstairs on the roof of the Marine building, where he
joined the Marines trying to lay down support fire for us as we
fought off the insurgents.
T
he Marines sent a patrol over to pull us out. As I watched them
coming from the post, I spotted an insurgent moving in behind them.
I fired once. The Marine patrol hit the dirt. So did the Iraqi,
though he didn’t get up.
“There’s [an insurgent] sniper out there and he’s good,” their
radio man called. “He nearly got us.”
I got on my radio.
“That’s me, dumbass. Look behind you.”
They turned around and saw a savage with a rocket launcher
lying dead on the ground.
“God, thank you,” answered the Marine.
“Don’t mention it.”
The Iraqis did have snipers working that night. I got two of them
—one who was up on the minaret of a mosque, and another on a
nearby building. This was a fairly well-coordinated fight, one of the
better-organized ones we would encounter in the area. It was
unusual, because it took place at night; the bad guys generally didn’t
try and press their luck in the dark.
Finally, the sun came up and the gunfire slacked down. The
Marines pulled out a bunch of armored vehicles to cover for us, and
we ran back to their camp.
I went up to see their commander and brief him on what had
happened. I had barely gotten a sentence out of my mouth when a
burly Marine officer burst into the office.
“Who the hell was the sniper up there on Seven Story?” he
barked.
I turned around and told him it was me, bracing myself to be
chewed out for some unknown offense.
“I want to shake your hand, son,” he said, pulling off his glove.
“You saved my life.”
He was the guy I’d called a dumbass on the radio earlier. I’ve
never seen a more grateful Marine.
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