Part 61 (1/2)

I dropped him before he could fire.

Then it became a waiting game. The rocket was valuable to them. Sooner or later, I knew, someone would be sent to get it.

I watched. It seemed like forever. Finally, a figure came down the street and scooped up the grenade launcher.

It was a kid. A child.

I had a clear view in my scope, but I didn't fire. I wasn't going to kill a kid, innocent or not. I'd have to wait until the savage who put him up to it showed himself on the street.

TARGET-RICH

I ended up getting seven insurgents that day, and more the next. We were in a target-rich environment.

Because of the way the streets were laid out and the number of insurgents, we were getting close shots-a number were as close as 200 yards. My longest during this time was only about 880; the average was around 400.

The city around us was schizophrenic. You'd have ordinary civilians going about their business, selling things, going to market, whatever. And then you'd have guys with guns trying to sneak up on the side streets and attack the soldiers putting up the wall. After we began engaging the insurgents, we would become the targets ourselves. Everyone would know where we were, and the bad guys would come out of their slug holes and try and take us down.

It got to the point where I had so many kills that I stepped back to let the other guys have a few. I started giving them the best spots in the buildings we took over. Even so, I had plenty of chances to shoot.

One day we took over this house and, after letting my guys choose their places, there were no more windows to fire from. So I took a sledgehammer and broke a hole in the wall. It took me quite a while to get it right.

When I finally set up my place, I had about a three-hundred-yard view. Just as I got on my gun, three insurgents came out right across the street, fifteen yards away.

I killed all of them. I rolled over and said to one of the officers who'd come over, ”You want a turn?”

After a few days, we figured out that the attacks were concentrating when the work crews reached an intersection. It made sense: the insurgents wanted to attack from a place where they could easily run off.

We learned to b.u.mp up and watch the side streets. Then we started pounding these guys when they showed up.

Fallujah was bad. Ramadi was worse. Sadr City was the worst. The overwatches would last two or three days. We'd leave for a day, recharge, then go back out. It was b.a.l.l.s-to-the-wall firefights every time.

The insurgents brought more than just their AKs to a fight. We were getting rocketed every fight. We responded by calling in air cover, h.e.l.lfires and what-have-you.

The surveillance network overhead had been greatly improved over the past several years, and the U.S. was able to make pretty good use of it when it came to targeting Predators and other a.s.sets. But in our case, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were right out in the open, extremely easy to spot. And very plentiful.

There were claims by the Iraqi government at one point that we were killing civilians. That was pure bulls.h.i.+t. While just about every battle was going down, Army intelligence a.n.a.lysts were intercepting insurgent cell phone communications that were giving a blow-by-blow account.

”They just killed so-and-so,” ran one conversation. ”We need more mortarmen and snipers... . They killed fifteen today.”

We had only counted thirteen down in that battle-I guess we should have taken two out of the ”maybe” column and put them in the ”definite” category.

GET MY GUN

As always, there were moments of high anxiety mixed with bizarre events and random comic relief.

One day at the tail end of an op, I hustled back to the Bradley with the rest of the guys. Just as I reached the vehicle, I realized my sniper rifle had been left behind-I'd put it down in one of the rooms, then forgotten to bring it with me when I'd left.

Yeah. Stupid.