Hunters: U.S. Snipers in the War on Terror (14 page)

“Five, four, three, two, one” counted Adam, and the snipers opened fire.

Santos, however, laying next to Steven, hadn’t anticipated the back blast of the .50-cal. It threw dirt into his eyes and knocked his rifle over before he could fire. When he recovered, he quickly picked his rifle up and scooted to the left, out of the Steven’s dust.

When he found the car, Steven’s bullets sent sparks into the air like fireworks. The driver realized the situation and started the vehicle. Santos swung his rifle to the right, searching for the men digging; one stood completely still, in shock. He was Santos’s first target.

Wiping dirt from his face, Santos concentrated. His crosshairs bounced momentarily until he slowed his breathing and relaxed. The man in his sights turned his head toward the car, just as Santos let one fly, but his shot missed. It was close enough to make the man duck, but instead of running for the car, he ran in the opposite direction.

Steven shot the car three times before it started to move. All of the men except the one who had run were in it. They had no clue where the snipers were and drove straight for the marines’ hill.

With a quick search, Santos couldn’t find the man who ran off. The lucky bastard had made it into defilade, and Santos turned his attention to the car.

“Get on line,” said Adam, realizing that the car was going to drive right below them. When they heard that, the team each grabbed a weapon and waited for the car to close in. Steven reached for his M16 with the M203 attached; he wanted to stop the car with a grenade. Adam grabbed an M16, as did Anthony, while Santos used the M40A3, figuring that if the car got past them, he’d try and put a shot into the back windshield.

The road was a straightaway, allowing the driver to go as fast as he could. Right when the car reached the hill, the marines opened up, but hitting the car was like trying to shoot a flying bird. Adam and Anthony unloaded two magazines apiece, while Steve lobbed grenades. Santos fired once, but the scoped rifle wasn’t the weapon of choice. Unsurprisingly, the car made it through a gauntlet of fire and drove off.

When the dust cleared, the snipers were disappointed that they hadn’t stopped the men. They reported the incident and headed for extract, and within the hour a MAP squad made it to the intersection. There they found two 120mm artillery rounds chained together, forming what the marines knew as a daisy-chained IED. If used correctly, it could have hit two or more vehicles at once. When the snipers learned of this, they were partly satisfied, but Santos wasn’t completely satisfied until later in the week when he helped kill the insurgents emplacing the IEDs.

Four nights later, Santos and Steve were back, this time with two other snipers. Instead of the hilltop eight hundred meters away, they were now 320 meters (a thousand feet) from the intersection. When they inserted, they spent the entire night digging into a small mound of dirt, and by morning, they were buried in the mound with desert camouflage netting covering them. The team was undetectable to the naked eye.

The next day was filled with more observing. When it came time for Santos to watch, he rolled over behind the .50-cal. Two holes had been made to observe from, one for the .50, and the other for the M40A3 used by Kevin, the other team leader. Santos had only been on watch for fifteen minutes when a van neared the intersection. It slowed to cross the road, but after it did, it made a U-turn and crossed again. It turned around once more, but this time it stopped on the road.

“Get them up, we’ve got something here,” Santos told Steve, who was monitoring the radio. The two other snipers were resting.

Within seconds the van door opened and two men climbed out. One had an AK, the other two green mines like the ones the marines had found before.

“We’ve got targets,” said Santos.

Steve kicked the others awake and explained the situation. Their preformed plan was for the SASR and the SAW to stop the vehicle while the others dropped the men. When Santos saw the weapons and explosives, he transitioned back to the van and prepared to shoot.

The vehicle wasn’t like most American-made vans, where the engine block sits in the front. It was similar to a Volkswagen bus, where the engine is between the driver and passenger. Knowing that, Santos aimed at the lower section of the driver’s door; his MK-211 green-tipped Raufoss rounds would easily penetrate the door and send a secondary bullet through to the engine. In the seconds that he waited for the other snipers to prepare, Santos pulled the SASR tightly in to his shoulder; the next few minutes would seem like a lifetime.

The snipers had neither the time nor the instinct to put in hearing protection. By the time the marines were ready, the two men had made it to a hole, while the driver of the van watched. They had no clue that the snipers were little more than three football fields away.

Santos opened fire, hitting his mark. The .50-cal resounded in their small hide, causing everyone’s ears to ring in pain, but Santos didn’t let up. Another shot made the driver reverse at full speed, while the men outside stood surprised by the ambush.

By now Kevin put his M40A3 to use. Confused, the insurgent with the AK fired in the team’s direction but with no precision; Kevin lined him up and fired a shot dead center into his chest. Steven was on the radio calling for the quick reaction force while Victor raked the van with his SAW. He and Santos caused the driver to fumble, and he drove off an embankment and slightly out of sight.

After five shots with the SASR, Santos couldn’t take the pain. He used his left hand to close his ear while shooting. The others felt it as well, and Santos couldn’t help but laugh when another marine let out a whimper after each of his shots.

With the van out of sight, he and Victor aimed for the man with the mines. He dropped them and ran on the road from left to right. Victor sent a burst in his direction and hit the man, causing him to face the marines. That gave Santos a perfect view, and he aimed for the man’s chest, but the man staggered from Victor’s bullet. When Santos squeezed the trigger, he clipped the man’s side, next to his stomach, causing a gaping wound under his rib cage. From the shot, the man fell on his face and died.

The last man, the driver, was out of the van and running for his life. Luckily for him, he was on the other side of the road and only his head was exposed. Santos watched it bobbing up and down while he ran and fired a few times but missed. After a minute, the snipers saw that the man was running for another vehicle in the distance, six hundred meters away. Only the back of the car was exposed, and Santos put his crosshairs on the rear windshield behind where the driver would be. One shot shattered the rear windshield, and Santos had to change magazines. Steve launched a few inaccurate grenades, and the driver of the van limped across the road safely and got into the back passenger seat, allowing the car to speed away.

Twenty minutes later, the quick reaction force arrived. The snipers met the men at the road and inspected the damage. Kevin had shot his target in the heart, and he was barely breathing when the marines walked up. Santos kicked him in the head as he died. The other man, whom Victor and Santos had shot, lay on his face in the middle of the road. The side of his stomach was missing, from the SASR, leaving parts of his guts on the road, while 5.56mm holes from the SAW riddled his chest.

Such stories are not abnormal coming from snipers who have operated in Iraq. Since the beginning of the war, and all across the country, military snipers have earned their stay among the best and most utilized weapons among Coalition Forces, but as of July 2009 the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq’s major cities marked the end of fighting for most snipers. However, the road to the finish was a hard one, and the lessons learned were paid with blood.

The combat environment in Iraq has transformed in the past seven years. In 2003, the invasion demanded speed and flexibility. Mobility kept snipers successful, but immediately following, when the war shifted to insurgency, snipers needed patience and stealth. To be effective, snipers required preparation, knowledge, patience, and timing. Beyond all else, snipers understood that a conniving enemy using unorthodox tactics awaited them on the battlefield.

Aside from weather and restrictions, terrorists groups are indeed the main enemy in Iraq. These groups make up several factions, each maintaining different ideals, and abide by certain rules of fighting unique to each group’s intent. In Iraq, these groups vary from region to region, and by sects of religion. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is one of the more well-known groups, which is mostly formed by foreign fighters. Sunni and Shia groups also operate against Coalition Forces and most often keep to their local communities. Throughout Iraq, U.S. snipers have faced these fighters and have learned of their tactics.

Many of the groups have learned and utilized the same tactics against the Coalition. The most basic and effective has been the used of IEDs, ranging from vehicle-borne suicide bombers willing to kill themselves with vehicles packed with explosives, to insurgents planting bombs on the side of the roads. With patience and precision, snipers have been lethal in countering such methods.

Intimidation has also been effective for terrorists. Killings, kidnappings, mass bombings, and assassinations have threatened civilians and Iraqi soldiers and prevented them from helping Coalition Forces. For snipers, timing and preparation have been effective tools to prevent such methods.

The combat environment in Iraq also plays a part in sniper operations. Many have reported the differences and lessons learned between Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, much of the fighting takes place in rural areas and open landscapes. There, snipers must always consider the sun’s position for building hides and patrolling. Keeping to the shadows is a must, because once they are exposed, enemy contact is highly likely. Snipers have also learned that in Afghanistan, the enemy fights to keep his ground.

Iraq has posed different threats. Highly populated areas present obvious barriers for snipers. Remaining undetected can be difficult, which is why snipers move almost strictly at night. Urban areas also make it hard for snipers to hide entire teams, but many tactics can be used to counter this threat.

Overall, Iraq has shaped the way that the U.S. military prepares and uses snipers. It has been a place of hard lessons, and great successes. It is also a war zone that has presented incredible stories of snipers in combat.

BRAVADO
and pretension aside, snipers tiptoe a fine line between life and death in the form of success and failure. Finding the enemy, or being found by the enemy, depends heavily on a few factors. Thousands of hours of training and preparation combined with extraordinary standards guide snipers toward success, but unfortunately in war, men make mistakes. In Ar Ramadi, Iraq, 2004, one incident showed that mistakes are paid for in lives. This event, as painful as it was for Marine snipers, gave a bitter lesson in death, but later it provided a remarkable example of redemption.

By the summer of 2004, combat action ribbons were guaranteed in Ramadi. The Second Battalion Fourth Marines had taken over the capital of the Al Anbar Province earlier that year and immediately traded blows with relentless insurgents and anti-Coalition fighters. For months the “Magnificent Bastards” had battled the enemy from the streets, rooftops, bases, and anywhere else the enemy dared meet them.

In that time, the battalion’s snipers proved to be a hot commodity, worth their weight in gold. They had disposed of countless IED planters, repelled attacks, and survived brazen bombing. One team, though, Headhunter Two, led by resilient sniper Sergeant Santiago, cheated death repeatedly. These men braved the most firefights and hairiest engagements of all the teams in the city. Their luck soon turned, however.

By summer the team had hit a crossroad. They lived alongside Echo Company, deep inside Ramadi, at a small operating base known as Combat Outpost. Its location allowed insurgents to pester the marines with small arms fire and RPGs. In addition, that month, daily mortar attacks peppered the outpost. The marines pinpointed the enemy’s firing locations with counter-mortar technology, and once a pattern was established, Sergeant Santiago’s team was dispatched to eliminate the perpetrators of their grief.

Preventing IEDs on Route Michigan, the city’s main road, had been their regular assignment. The new mission was a much needed change of pace, but when Santiago received the brief, he realized a problem. The command also wanted his team to resume IED prevention, meaning that unfortunately for Santiago, he needed to split his team. This was a decision he would never forget.

Though he had divided his team before, this time was different. He wanted two of his teammates for the counter-mortar mission, leaving the last member in charge of three infantrymen to make up a four-man IED prevention team. He left Tommy in charge. While Tommy was not a HOG, he had plenty of sniper operations under his belt, and he had Santiago’s full confidence. The problem was that Tommy was not pleased. Normally snipers do not allow untrained men to fill the roles on a sniper team, but with a thin platoon, they had no choice in this instance. Even though the marines filling in had experience on observation missions, Tommy was left bitter about the situation.

His disappointment came with good reason. On the IED missions in Ramadi, the snipers used one rooftop the entire time and were not allowed to move positions even after being compromised. Santiago argued that this practice directly contradicted sniper doctrine, but the command’s larger perspective called for the snipers to stay put because they filled a vital gap in the line of observation positions along Route Michigan. Tommy feared an inevitable attack if they continued with the same position. Nevertheless, in the Corps, mission has priority, and though Tommy didn’t want to go, it had to be done.