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

D
IFFERENT 
W
AYS OF 
K
ILLING
W
e went on patrols with the Army unit several more times, trying
to reduce resistance in the area. The idea was simple, if potentially
risky: we’d make ourselves visible, trying to draw fire from the
insurgents. Once they showed themselves, we could fire back and
kill them. And usually we did.
Pushed from the village and the mosque, the insurgents retreated
to the hospital. They loved hospital buildings, not only because they
were big and usually well-made (and therefore protective), but
because they knew we were reluctant to attack hospitals, even after
they were taken over by terrorists.
It took a while, but the Army command finally decided to attack
the building.
Good, we all told them when we heard the plan. Let’s go do it.
W
e set up an overwatch in a house some two or three hundred
yards from the hospital building, across a clear field. As soon as the

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insurgents saw us, they started letting us have it.
One of my guys shot off a Carl Gustav rocket at the top of the
building where they were shooting from. The Gustav put a big
ol
��
hole there. Bodies flew everywhere.
The rocket helped take some of the fight out of them, and as
resistance weakened, the Army punched in and took the building.
By the time they reached the grounds, there was almost no
resistance. The few people we hadn’t killed had run away.
I
t was always hard to tell how many insurgents were opposing us in
a battle like that. A small handful could put up a pretty good fight. A
dozen men fighting behind cover could hold up a unit advance for
quite a while, depending on the circumstances. Once the insurgents
were met with a lot of force, however, you could count on about
half squirting out the back or wherever to get away.
W
e’d had the Carl Gustav with us earlier, but as far as I know, this
was the first time we’d actually killed anyone with it, and it may
have been the first time any SEAL unit did so. It was certainly the
first time we used it against a building. Once word spread, of
course, everyone wanted to use them.
Technically, the Carl Gustav was developed to combat armor,
but as we found out, it was pretty potent against buildings. In fact, it
was perfect in Ramadi—it just blew right through reinforced
concrete and took out whoever was inside. The overpressure from

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the explosion wiped out the interior.
We had different rounds for the gun. (Remember, it’s actually
considered a recoilless rifle rather than a rocket launcher.) A lot of
times, the insurgents would hide behind embankments and other
barriers, well protected. In that case, you could set an air-burst
round to explode over them. The air burst was a lot worse than
anything that detonated on the ground.
The Gustav is relatively easy to use. You have to wear double
ear-protection and be careful where you stood when it’s fired, but
the results are awesome. Everyone in the platoon wanted to use it
after a while—I swear there were fights over who was going to
launch it.
W
hen you’re in a profession where your job is to kill people, you
start getting creative about doing it.
You think about getting the most firepower you possibly can into
the battle. And you start trying to think of new and inventive ways
to eliminate your enemy.
We had so many targets out in Viet Ram we started asking
ourselves, what weapons have we 
not
used to kill them?