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B
UILDING
M
Y
R
EP
M
y knees were still hurting from being pinned under rubble back in
Fallujah. I tried to get cortisone shots but couldn’t. I didn’t want to
push too hard: I was afraid of getting pulled out because of my
injury.
Every once in a while, I took some Motrin and iced them down;
that was about it. In battle, of course, I was fine—when your
adrenaline is pumped, you don’t feel anything.
Even with the pain, I loved what I was doing. Maybe war isn’t
really fun, but I certainly was enjoying it. It suited me.
By this time, I had a bit of a reputation as a sniper. I’d had a lot
of confirmed kills. It was now a very good number for such a short
period—or any period, really.
Except for the Team guys, people didn’t really know my name
and face. But there were rumors around, and my stay here added to
my reputation, such as it was.
It seemed like everywhere I set up, I’d get a target. This started
to piss off some of the other snipers, who could spend whole shifts
and even days without seeing
anybody,
let alone an insurgent.
One day, Smurf, a fellow SEAL, started following me around as
we went into an apartment.
“Where are you setting up?” he asked.
I looked around and found a place I thought looked good.
“Right there,” I told him.
“Good. Get the hell out of here. I’m taking this spot.”
“Hey, you take it,” I told him. I went off to find another spot—
and promptly got a kill from there.
For a while, it didn’t seem to matter what I did, things would
happen in front of me. I wasn’t inventing the incidents—I had
witnesses for all my shots. Maybe I saw a little farther, maybe I
anticipated trouble better than other people. Or, most likely, I was
just lucky.
Assuming being a target for people who want to kill you can be
considered luck.
One time, we were in a house on Haifa Street, where we had so
many snipers that the only possible place to shoot from was a tiny
window above a toilet. I had to actually stand up the whole time.
I still got two kills.
I was just one lucky
....
.
O
ne day, we got intel that the insurgents were using a cemetery at
the edge of town near Camp Independence at the airport to cache
weapons and launch attacks. The only way I could get a view of the
place was to climb up on this tall, tall crane. Once at the top, I then
had to go out on a thin-mesh platform.
I don’t know how high I went. I don’t want to know. Heights
are not my favorite thing—it makes my balls go in my throat just
thinking about it.
The crane did give me a decent view of the cemetery, which was
about eight hundred yards away.
I never took a shot from there. I never saw anything aside from
mourners and funerals. But it was worth a try.
B
esides looking for people with IEDs, we had to watch out for the
bombs themselves. They were everywhere—occasionally, even in
the apartment buildings. One team narrowly escaped one afternoon,
the explosives going off just after they collapsed down and left the
building.
The Guard was using Bradleys to get around. The Bradley looks
a bit like a tank, since it has a turret and gun on top, but it’s actually
a personnel carrier and scout vehicle, depending on its
configuration.
I believe it’s made to fit six people inside. We would try and
cram eight or ten in. It was hot, muggy, and claustrophobic. Unless
you were sitting by the ramp, you couldn’t see anything. You kind
of sucked it up and waited to get wherever it was you were going.
One day, the Bradleys picked us up from a sniper op. We had
just turned off Haifa onto one of the side streets, and all of a sudden
—
buh-lam.
We’d been hit by a massive IED. The back of the
vehicle lifted up and slammed back down. The inside filled with
smoke.
I could see the guy across from me moving his mouth, but I
couldn’t hear a word: the blast had blown out my ears.
The next thing I knew, the Bradley started moving again. That
was one tough vehicle. Back at the base, the commander kind of
shrugged it off.
“Didn’t even knock the tracks off,” he said. He almost sounded
disappointed.
I
t’s a cliché, but it’s true: you form tight friendships in war. And
then suddenly circumstances change. I became close friends with
two guys in the Guard unit, real good friends; I trusted them with my
life.
Today I couldn’t tell you their names if my life depended on it.
And I’m not even sure that I can describe them in a way that would
show you why they were special.
Me and the boys from Arkansas seemed to get along real well
together, maybe because we were all just country boys.
Well, they were hillbillies. You’ve got your regular redneck like
me, then you got your hillbilly who’s a whole sight different animal.
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