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W
ITH
K
ILO
A
s the Marines moved into the city, they soon reached a position
where we could no longer cover them from the apartment towers.
We came down, ready for the next phase—working in the city
itself.
I was assigned to Kilo Company, helping the Marine units on the
western side of the city. They were the first wave of the assault,
sweeping down block by block. Another company would come in
behind them, securing the area and making sure that none of the
insurgents snuck back in behind them. The idea was to clear
Fallujah out, block by block.
The properties in this part of the city, as in many Iraqi cities,
were walled off from their neighbors by thick brick and stucco
walls. There were always nooks and crannies for insurgents to hide
in. The backyards, usually flat with hard dirt or even cement, were
rectangular mazes. It was a dry, dusty place, even with the river
nearby. Most of the houses didn’t have running water; the water
supply would be on the roof.
I worked with Marine snipers for several days during the first
week or so of that phase of the assault. For much of the time I was
paired with two Marine snipers and a JTAC, a SEAL who could
call in air strikes. There would also be a few support guys, Marines
who would provide security and occasionally help out with different
tasks. These were Marines who wanted to be snipers; after their
deployment, they were hoping to ship out to the Marine sniper
school.
Every morning would start with about twenty minutes of what we
called
“fires”—mortars, artillery, bombs, missiles, rockets—it
amounted to a hell of a lot of ordnance being dumped on key
enemy positions. The fire would take out ammo caches or dumps,
or soften up spots where we thought we’d have a lot of resistance.
Black funnels of smoke would rise in the distance, caches hit by the
bombings; the ground and air would rumble with secondary
explosions.
At first, we were behind the Marine advance. But it didn’t take
long before I realized we could do a better job by getting ahead of
the squad on the ground. It gave us a better position, allowing us to
surprise any insurgents who tried rallying to the ground unit.
It also gave us a hell of a lot more action. So we started taking
houses to use as hides.
Once the bottom of the house was cleared, I’d run up the stairs
from the top floor to the roof, emerging in the small shack that
typically sheltered the entrance to the roof. Sure the roof was clear,
I’d move over to the wall at the edge, get my bearings, and set up a
position. Usually there would be something on the roof I could use
—a chair or rugs—to make things more comfortable; if not, there
was always something downstairs. I’d switched back to the Mk-
11, realizing that most of my shots would be relatively close,
because of the way the city was laid out. The weapon was more
convenient than the Win Mag, and at these ranges just as deadly.
Meanwhile, the Marines on the ground would work down the
street, usually side to side, clearing the houses. Once they reached a
point where we could no longer cover them well, we’d move up
and take a new spot, and the process would start over again.
G
enerally, we shot from roofs. They gave the best view and were
often already equipped with chairs and the like. Most in the city
were ringed by low-rise walls that provided protection when the
enemy shot back. Plus, using the roofs allowed us to move quickly;
the assault wouldn’t wait for us to take our time getting in position.
If the roof was no good, we would shoot from the upper story,
usually out of a window. Once in a while, we would have to blow a
sniper hole in the side of a wall to set up a firing position. That was
rare, though; we didn’t want to draw more attention to our position
by setting off an explosion, even if it was relatively small. (The holes
were patched after we left.)
One day we set up inside a small office building that had been
vacated some time before. We pulled the desks back from the
windows and sat deep in the room; the natural shadows that played
on the wall outside helped hide the position.
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