Shooter Read online

  Now I wasn’t hiding at all but rode atop a truck and operated openly within a congested urban environment. In such plain view, I was the subject of an animated conversation among the six men who had started talking at me. I warmed to these guys and even traded cigarettes with one, but I never trusted them for a second. Who knew if a weapon might appear from beneath one of those long robes?

  “Hey, dude,” I called out to Casey after glassing the area again. “Look at this. I’m dominating an entire avenue of approach, just me, from a park bench, like on a Sunday afternoon.” I felt like an eight-hundred-pound gorilla with a gun.

  Later that afternoon, with Al Budayr in our hands, we went looking for information.

  Marines blew a hole in a wall to get into the local police station, where they released prisoners and picked up notebooks filled with information and photographs. A cache of weapons was found in a schoolroom.

  When the regional headquarters of Saddam’s political machine, the hated Ba’ath Party, was discovered, Casey and I accompanied Steve Blandford, the same smart chief warrant officer who had worked with us in the unexpected visit inside the Iraqi home an hour earlier, into the two-story lime-green building. It turned out to be a gold mine of intelligence, for it was packed with more logbooks than we could count, and Casey even retrieved the appointment and address books from the mayor’s office. Account ledgers noted payments and names. A detailed sketch of the town’s defensive positions, no more than a few weeks old and frequently modified, was discovered. Beneath the empty eyes on the posters of Saddam that were in every room, we hauled away a trove of information about his corrupt and savage government.

  After we left, a certain junior officer decided to bring in a squad and secure the building. Corporal Dustin Campbell, who had helped me spot targets in Afak, was moving stealthily from room to room with another Marine when they heard glass breaking and the noise of someone walking. They went to full alert and set up shooting positions to take out the clumsy enemy solider they thought was blundering toward them. A window crashed nearby, and they tensed for the confrontation-but it was Officer Bob who suddenly walked into their sights. He had gotten separated and was entertaining himself by throwing rocks through windowpanes like some adolescent prankster.

  Our mission to open Route 17 as a supply corridor between the isolated major Marine units was a total success, and we had crashed through Bonus Town, Hajil, Afak, and now Al Budayr, four towns with an estimated combined population of over two hundred thousand people. By moving aggressively and quickly, our tanks, the Amtracs, armored Humvees, and about seven hundred Marines simply ran over those little towns. Taking them aggressively had minimized casualties all around. Our audacious use of force and surprise became known as the Afak Drill, and most of the bad guys chose to run rather than face us.

  However, the success of a single unit did not mean the entire war was going well. We had crossed the border from Kuwait into Iraq nine days ago, and despite making major advances, by March 29 things were not moving with the lightning speed that had been envisioned and was needed. The Army was having serious problems out in the desert, Basra still defied the British, and exposed supply convoys were raw meat for guerrilla attacks. With the Marines, our tanks were only just beginning to roll with the needed resupply vehicles over to Task Force Tarawa, and the 5th Marine Regiment was still bogged down in back of us, at Diwaniyah. Our raids along Route 17 had been successful, but the offensive was falling days behind schedule.

  Snipers are always looking for an edge, because we don’t like to fight fair. So when Casey found me that evening after things had calmed down, I was recording my day’s work in my sniper’s logbook. I now had six kills since the start of the war, and I added specific notes about the weather conditions, the range, directions of the targets, windage, and a few other things. Racking up the new kills did not make me feel proud. Snipers hate what ultimately happens when we pull the trigger, but we understand that we are important fixtures in something much larger than ourselves. Out of professional habit, I entered my observations and results in the logbook. Over time, when we compare those notes, the books can reveal patterns of enemy behavior and highlight their mistakes, so we can kill more of them.

  We shared some food-packages of nasty MREs. Casey was as excited as a pup, having been in the middle of some firefights, and he was clearly over the hump of worrying whether he could measure up as a combat Marine. “Is this all there is?” he asked. “I want more! Gimme more!”

  “You want to fall off another roof?”

  “Asshole. You know what I mean.”

  He said that about two dozen prisoners had been captured that day and that maybe twenty bad guys had been killed. Ever the engineer, he pointed out, “You got four of the twenty today, Jack. Twenty-percent of the total for the whole battalion. Not bad.”

  I put away the logbook and told him that I felt as if I had finally been taken off the leash and that I was happy to be contributing to the fight, able to see some shit and do some shit. There was no telling what was going to happen next, but I sensed target-rich environments ahead. “If this keeps up, I’m going to come out of this with some hellacious numbers.”

  Life had been a lot simpler many years ago, when I first joined the Corps and was pulling duty as a crossing guard at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Simpler, but nowhere near as interesting.

  That night, we decided that we no longer wanted to go into battle with Casey’s driver, Corporal Baby, because he had not measured up to our standards. That would not do, so we picked Corporal Dustin Campbell as his replacement. Campbell was one of the best riflemen in the company and had impressed me with his exceptional eyesight and courage during the recent fighting.

  Campbell’s only problem was that he talked back to his superiors, which made him an even more natural fit for our team. Evervone recognized that Casey and I were in charge, but we encouraged what might be termed a free-flowing exchange of views. It not only taught the boys to be mentally quick, but if a guy could not hold up under our verbal abuse and dish it right back, how the hell was he going to stand up to somebody trying to kill him?

  “I don’t know how to do this,” Campbell protested the first time we put him behind the wheel of the Humvee. “I’m just a small-town boy from Mississippi!”

  Lieutenant Casey Kuhlman, a product of intense Marine Corps leadership training on how to deal sensitively with the concerns of his men, told Campbell to just shut the fuck up and drive.

  14

  A Call Home

  Sunday, March 30, began with a brilliant sunrise and bad news from home. We had bedded down outside of Al Budayr after the long day of fighting on Saturday, and the memory of the smiling little Iraqi girl I had touched on the head had lingered with me overnight. The thought made me homesick. I missed my family.

  As dawn broke, I went to find Paperboy-John Koopman, our embedded newspaper reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle- who had been receiving periodic e-mails for me on his laptop. All my sisters and their families, my mom, my mother-in-law, my kids, and my friends had sent warm messages, but there had been nothing from Kim.

  Paperboy said there were no e-mails for me today, but he lent me the satellite telephone that he used to file his stories, and I stepped away to find some privacy as I dialed my home number far, far away. The call all the way from the battle zone to our house in 29 Palms went through without a problem, an amazing feat of technology, but the telephone was answered by the babysitter. Kim was once again away at school, she said. Cassie and Ashley filled me in on what was happening in school and at day care, and their happy voices were sounds from a different planet, a balm to me in troubled times. The babysitter sounded flustered, though, falling all over herself with apologies that my wife was not at home. The connection terminated with a forlorn little beep. I returned the phone to Koopman and walked off to find a quiet piece of desert.

  Smack in the middle of the thousands of men of the 1st Marine Division, I felt isolated and alo
ne, as if I were the only person out there on the desert sands. I had called home six times since I left California, and my wife had been there twice. I’d had more conversations with the babysitter than with her.

  Then I thought about the time difference. California is eleven hours behind Iraq, so since it was about 6:30 A.M. on Sunday where I was standing, it would be 5:30 P.M. Saturday at home. Suddenly I realized that the babysitter had said my wife was at school, but I knew she didn’t have any classes on Saturday night! Why wasn’t she home with the kids? Was she out at a happy hour with some other teachers? Was she off at a library? Or was it something else? Shivers went up my spine. To me the word “wife” no longer seemed a term of endearment, home was on the far side of the world, and there was nothing I could do at the moment about the obviously out-of-whack domestic situation.

  I was feeling crushed by demoralizing doubt. Killing enemy soldiers had not bothered me, but not hearing from Kim did. Churchill once called his own deep depression the “black dog,” and I could hear that same sort of drooling beast panting hotly in my own ear. Hell of a way to start a day.

  I needed to shake up my brain. Too much emotion was creeping into my consciousness, and I could not operate as a shooter that way.

  Jack (right) and Casey (left) are outside Ba’ath Party compound in Al Budayr.

  (Courtesy of Gunnery Sergeant R. P. Simpson)

  Jack on the plane to Kuwait.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  Sergeant Jerry Marsh is at his machine gun in the turret of Casey’s Humvee in the streets of Baghdad.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  First Sergeants Norm Arias (right) and Guy Rosbough (left) rest atop a mountain of money after we break up a bank robbery.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  Sergeant Major “Uncle Dave” Howell.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  Our secret chemical identification specialist-Little Bastard.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  Lieutenant Colonel Bryan P. McCoy (right) addresses the men of the Bull at Camp Ripper, Kuwait. Jack is on the left, and Casey, wearing glasses, is in the middle.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  Corporal Mark Evnin at Camp Ripper, Kuwait.

  (Courtesy of Staff Sergeant M. S. Mattson)

  Jack shooting from atop of Casey’s Humvee, Afak.

  (Courtesy of Gunnery Sergeant R. P. Simpson)

  Marines of the 3/4 Battalion, the Bull, move on Ad Diwaniyah.

  (Courtesy of Staff Sergeant B. R. Bochenski)

  Colonel Steve Hummer, commanding officer of the 7th Marines, gives the order to attack into Baghdad to Lieutenant Colonel McCoy (left), and Major J. M. Baker (right).

  (Courtesy of Staff Sergeant B. R. Bochenski)

  Jack throws a grenade in Az Zafaraniyah.

  (Courtesy of Gary Knight)

  Casey goes over a wall in Az Zafaraniyah.

  (Courtesy of Gary Knight)

  A column of smoke from an air strike rises on the far side of the Diyala Bridge.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  The Diyala Bridge, with the body of an Iraqi fighter.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  The new bridge we built across the Diyala River.

  (Courtesy of Gunnery Sergeant R. P. Simpson)

  The statue of Saddam Hussein, as seen between U.S. Marines, moments before it is pulled down.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  Cheering Iraqis gather before the statue falls.

  (Courtesy of Staff Sergeant B. R. Bochenski)

  Iraqis with Casey’s flag at the base of the fallen statue.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan)

  Lieutenant Colonel McCoy (center) and Sergeant Major Howell at a memorial service for fallen Marines in Iraq.

  (Courtesy of Major B. T. Mangan

  Jack is presented his Bronze Star by Major J. M. Baker, 29 Palms, California.

  (Courtesy of Lance Corporal H. E. Laredo)

  As a sniper, you are supposed to be coldhearted and must be able to control yourself, no matter what is going on. But you are still human. If you don’t have feelings and emotions, then you step over the line and are just a psychotic killer. It can be a difficult balancing act.

  No one was allowed inside my head while I worked, and I had spent almost twenty years building my invincible gunslinger persona, and I never let my guard down in front of anybody, not even Casey. It was okay for me to bitch about other things, but I always stopped short of exposing any personal feelings.

  So although I listened to other people’s problems on a daily basis out in the field, there was really nobody there for me, which was as it should be. Now there probably was no one at home, either. We all have a private room in our soul for our deepest secrets, but I have a whole warehouse down there in which I keep my personal stuff, because I carry so much of it. Since I had no control over what might be happening back home, I put my girls safely on a shelf that was out of harm’s way and turned my growing anger and frustration onto the soldiers of Saddam Hussein, closing off any thoughts other than those directly related to where I was and to my job. Life was easier when my worldview was narrowed to what I could see.

  So far in this war I had fired six shots and had six kills, exactly the right ratio. I considered the ill-trained, poorly led soldiers of Iraq to be hamburger in my scope, practically begging me to kill them, and I was more than ready to grant that wish.

  Then came the second slice of Sunday-morning bad news, and we learned that the war was about to grind to a dead stop for three full weeks! Coalition forces all across Iraq were to stop in place for a twenty-one-day “operational pause” to refit and secure the exposed lines of supply. McCoy was summoned to take a helicopter back to regimental headquarters for an official briefing.

  We were stunned and almost felt the earth tilting beneath our boots, because we could not understand the reasoning behind the decision. We still had plenty of supplies and had just ripped through four towns in a single day to kick open a vital supply line. So what was the problem? To us, stopping made no sense at all, but orders are orders.

  Now we believed that dusty, nowhere Al Budayr on Route 17 was to be our home for the next month, so we planned to go back into the town and set up shop in the old Ba’ath Party offices. McCoy could be the mayor for a while, and we could erase all traces of the Saddam regime. We would saturate the area with patrols for security, maybe reopen schools, get the utilities running, and prove to the locals that the dictator and his men were no longer to be feared.

  It was a good hearts-and-minds program, but I found it all to be totally depressing. My boys were trained as scouts and snipers, not carpenters or bricklayers, and we had come to fight, not to occupy. Yes, we wanted to help the people, but we also needed to get on with the real job. Having my boys put down their rifles to do reconstruction work would be like hitching up a thoroughbred racehorse to pull a beer wagon.

  And personally, the sooner I finished in Iraq, the sooner I could get back home, and a lot could be happening back there in an extra thirty days, none of it good. I was struggling to keep apart the two phases of my life, the professional and the personal.

  Thank God that op-pause nightmare only lasted a few hours.

  I was checking the Main’s defenses when Gunnery Sergeant Don Houston came running up with good news. “Jack!” he announced with a big smile. “It’s off!”

  “What’s off?”

  “The stupid fucking op-pause. I just heard it on the radio.”

  “No shit?” I thought he was trying to be funny, and I was in no mood to get excited about a joke.

  “No shit, Jack.” He threw a little jab at me, tapping my shoulder. “You get to kill more people tomorrow.” I could almost feel the monkeys jumping off my back.

  Immediately we went back to being Marines instead of administrators. We received orders to collect the noncombat battalion units that we h
ad stripped off for the Afak Drills, then move up to the big cloverleaf intersection and prepare to attack into Ad Diwaniyah.

  As we returned along Route 17, small groups of civilians emerged from their homes to wave, a hopeful sign that they were beginning to believe that Saddam and his thugs were finally gone and that they could perhaps have a brighter future. I was riding atop the Humvee, with my rifle across my lap, watching them watch us, when among those standing in the crowd outside of Afak I recognized someone: straight black hair, light-blue-and-white-striped shirt, greenish-brown pants, white shoes, and a big mustache. It was the guy who had been down in the street, the man I had come within a kitten’s whisker of killing. He saw me, too, and there was a strange moment of recognition as our eyes locked and he looked at the big sniper rifle. I patted the weapon and gave him a look of “Man, you don’t know how lucky you are.” He returned a look that seemed to say he understood how-close he had come to dying, and then gave a slight nod, perhaps a silent “Thanks for sparing me.”

  Over the next twenty-four hours, the 5th Marines pulled out of Ad Diwaniyah, heading farther north. Our first units arrived at the cloverleaf before their final trucks left, so there was no break in the chain.

  We smelled the place even before we could see it, an overwhelming stench of rot and filth that grew even worse as the hours passed and the afternoon temperatures rose. Bugs of biblical-plague proportions attacked us, along with swarms of blackflies and gnats and battalions of fleas. Good God, what an awful place. It had been the landfill for the city, and stinking trash was everywhere. As the day passed, it rained, and the gathering pools of water turned the disgusting area into stinking mud syrup. When the rain stopped, the saunalike humid heat returned, as did the bugs.