Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper (33 page)

He didn’t need to know the details, so I lied. “A local worker back in Kuwait gave it to us, boss. Saddam killed his family, and he asked us to fly it in Baghdad.”

He looked at me, his brows scrunched. I looked back, my eyes filled with honesty and innocence, and walked away to congratulate Casey on saving the world.

A cable from the M88 was tied around the statue’s hips, until a voice of reason pointed out that if the steel cable broke, it might snap back and kill a bunch of celebrating Iraqis on a television broadcast being seen around the globe. That would not be a good way to follow the flag fiasco, so a chain was rigged instead and looped like a noose around the neck.

It was clear that this would be the instant symbol of the end of this war and would carry the same momentous impact as the Berlin Wall being torn down. For Marines, the image had only one equal, the famous flag raising on Mount Suribachi during World War II, the moment that defines the Corps. This would be our Iwo Jima moment.

The M88 Hercules fired up its big engine and jerked forward. The statue came down. When it hit the ground, the Iraqi crowd went bananas; they spat on the prone figure and whacked it with their fists and sandals. Somehow they decapitated that huge metal statue with their bare hands and then used our chain to drag the bouncing head around the streets. The once invincible dictator, Saddam Hussein, had been toppled and now was just another Humpty Dumpty who had a great fall.

From the start, we had aimed to take Baghdad, and now we had it, but it was not turning out to be the complete victory for which we had hoped. We had lifted the tyrant’s boot, but as the Americans moved in, civil authority disappeared and chaos filled the vacuum. The fall of the statue was the symbolic, not the actual, end of the war against Saddam Hussein. It also marked the beginning of surprisingly unstable conditions around Iraq that soon began to look like still another war.

Marines are trained to fight, and I had anticipated that we would be in Baghdad just long enough to hand it over to some sort of special Iraqi or Coalition occupation force. That would free us to move upcountry and knock heads with lingering organized Iraqi resistance in strongholds such as Tikrit and the Sunni Triangle. Instead, we collided with urgent, widespread, and sustained unrest within the capital city and, by default, became an occupation force.

Even as the statue was coming down, our battalion spread out to protect the hotels, the hospitals, several embassies, a bus station, the Red Cross center, and some government ministry buildings. Gangs
of looters roamed everywhere, and thieves had stripped some of those places totally bare by the time we arrived.

Amid such increasing turmoil, the managers of the big hotels back in Firdos Square were happy to have the Marines around and eagerly gave permission for us to establish observation posts in rooms high in their buildings. We didn’t really need permission, but it was polite to ask, and it was wise of them to comply, for we were the only real protection they had.

Casey and I stashed our Humvees in the valet parking area, closed off the street, posted guards, went up to the eighteenth floor of the Palestine Hotel, and entered the broad room that had been converted from a bar and lounge area into a ministudio. From here, Saddam’s peculiar minister of information, Baghdad Bob, had regularly announced his fanciful hallucinations that the Americans were losing the war. Standing at the windows, I had a panoramic view of the traffic circle below and the ranks of apartment buildings that marched away to the north-northeast. We planted a pair of sniper teams squarely on what once had been the departed government spokesman’s private turf.

To check out another room that was up even higher, a polite concierge ushered Casey and me aboard a cranky elevator, which was crowded with a bunch of reporters wearing Gucci-type military gear, flak vests, and helmets. I had spent my entire career as a sniper trying to be as invisible as possible, intentionally shunning the press and staying deep in the shadows, but in Iraq, it was impossible to keep a low profile. We said hello, but I felt peculiar about being in their midst. They had cameras and laptop computers. We had guns. They had deadlines to meet. We still had a war.

The journalists trooped out at the next floor, and we took the elevator on up to the top level of the Palestine, where the doors opened onto an inky black hallway. We flipped on our flashlights, got our guns ready, and checked the rooms but found them to be both empty and unsuitable for our tactical needs. So we rode the rickety elevator back down and went across the street to see if we could do better at the Sheraton Hotel.

The Sheraton’s elevator was even worse than the one in the Palestine, but the manager took us to the sixteenth floor, where he presented us with a spacious corner room that had beige walls, a nice bed, a desk, two chairs, and a sliding glass door that opened onto a patio with excellent views to the south and west. From windows on the other side of the room, we could double-check the direction being watched by the boys over in the Palestine. We took it, and did not even have to use a credit card.

In a quick trip back downstairs, we grabbed more weapons, radios, and shower gear from the Humvees and got back up to the sixteenth floor as fast as possible to establish the flashiest urban sniper hide I had ever seen.

Usually, I am tucked into junk and dirt and trash, but this was a Sheraton hotel! In no time, we created observation posts and security points, made ourselves at home, and happily acknowledged orders to maintain our positions until further notice. I looked at the carpet, the clean walls, the tiled bathroom with running water, the cushy bed, and the patio with its exquisite view of Baghdad and knew there was a nice dining room downstairs. I felt supremely confident that we could handle this tough duty.

We radioed the teams across the street to coordinate our zones and made accurate range cards of the entire area, drawing diagrams and measuring distances with our lasers to exact points in the
neighborhood and down the streets. If we had to shoot, the cards would quicken our reaction time. Then we started an observation log in which we would record what we saw below, since paper is better then memory. For instance, if the same car came by too frequently, we would know to keep an eye on it.

Casey and I finished the routine by going back over to the Palestine for a final check with the snipers there. We were joined by Bart Greene, our battalion air officer, who wanted to check out the Sheraton’s dining room. That made the Palestine inspection go even faster, and we determined that the boys were set—an armed Marine guarding the door and snipers at the windows, sweeping the streets with sniper scopes and binos. With that routine piece of business done, we got back aboard the elevator and headed for the ground floor and the promise of a steaming buffet of food. We were tired of eating MREs.

The elevator, however, did not go all the way to the first floor. It stopped at the second, where a wide lobby area opened onto a broad outside veranda that gave clear views of the traffic circle, the big mosque, and the remains of the Saddam statue. We had stumbled into the press nest, where television reporters from around the world made their stand-up reports—
Live from Baghdad!!
The hot and brilliant beams of dozens of spotlights seared the surroundings, a combined artificial sun that could have lit up a Red Sox night game at Fenway Park.

The three of us walked out to the big porch where the Jackals were gathered, more than I had ever before seen in one place, and accepted some bottles of ice-cold water. Other than feeling slightly uncomfortable, there was no real problem being around the press types, for the embedded guys and girls plus the band of gypsy Jackals we had inherited early in the war had worked hard to gain our trust
and break down the barriers that normally existed between reporters and warriors.

Richard Engel of the ABC television network, whom we had met earlier in the square, explained the various TV monitors to us, and we watched Marines, Army troops, and officers all over Iraq appearing on various television shows and interviewing with print reporters about the final dash into Baghdad. Engel said ABC was putting together a broadcast that would feature a spread of stars ranging from generals to politicians to pundits, and among them would be Lieutenant Colonel Bryan P. McCoy. The reporter asked if we could join the program, and we figured if it was good enough for Darkside Six, we might as well give it a go, too. It would be a fast way to let our families back home know that we were alive, safe, and in one piece.

Anchorman Peter Jennings in New York ran the show with the sure touch of a lion tamer, and Engel led off our portion by asking how we had ended up in the square. I told him, to his astonishment, that we had received information that the journalists might be held hostage, and we had come in to rescue them. “So the idea was that you were going to seize this hotel and help and get us out, is that correct?” he asked.

We all three had our helmets off but were still festooned with combat gear. We looked
good
on camera. Bart said, “Until a couple of minutes ago, I still thought there were shots coming out of here, and the Army had fired back a couple of days ago.” Oops. The Army had
killed
journalists in that particular incident, but Engel let it slide.

The reporter said he saw us roll up into the square, and Casey confirmed we were in the first Humvees. Then Engel turned back to
the hostage question, and I replied that things became dicey when the square was flooding with people.

“Yeah, we definitely thought there was something going on,” I said. “There was a guy up on the roof with his laptop. And I had, you know, put him in my scope, looking to see what he was doing. I didn’t know if it was an enemy or not without the use of my scope.” Oops, again. I just admitted that I had almost plugged one of the Jackals. Engel had me confirm that I was a sniper.

“And so, if you thought he had something other than a laptop, that would have been it for him?”

Be nice,
I told myself, wishing he would change the subject. “I would have been able to tell. I wouldn’t have to think … you could see it. You can see pretty clearly out of that. So, yeah, I mean, if it was an enemy, we would have dealt with that.” This TV stuff was harder than it looked.

Thankfully, Engel switched to Casey and asked what our job was now.

“The job for tonight will be to make this area secure,” Casey replied. “We’re not exactly sure what happens from here. I know that there are more people that we will have to deal with later, but for tonight, we’ll just make sure that everybody’s safe around here.”

The reporter then asked if we felt safer now and whether we wanted backup support, and Bart sharply observed, “We feel as safe as we felt any other night.”

Casey flipped the question back to Engel. “Do
you
feel safer now that we’re here?” The reporter acknowledged, “I certainly do.”

I pointed out that we always feel safe when we’re together and that our security cordon was already in place, or else we wouldn’t be standing here talking to him. I didn’t mention we also had a thicket of sniper rifles pointed out of the windows directly upstairs. “Right
now we’re completely surrounded by friendlies. I mean, it may seem all nice and dandy up here when we’re talking, but there’s, you know, eight hundred or nine hundred other guys around here with whatever we take to the fight.” Did we feel safe? Damn straight we did.

Jennings broke in to ask if the events of the afternoon meant that the war was over. That one kind of pissed me off. I didn’t believe the war was over at all. “We’re not done yet,” I said. “We’re in a safe environment right now, but we’ll be prepared for whatever happens tomorrow. When the appropriate authority ever says the war is over, then that will be good news.”

We chattered on for a bit more; then our few minutes of fame were over, and we went off to find the Sheraton dining room, where life was slower. The smell of good food was overwhelming, the plates were clean, silverware sparkled on white tablecloths, and the buffet seemed filled to bursting.
This is crazy,
I thought, three Marines in dirty cammies with helmets under their arms and wearing flak vests, checking out a buffet line. After being on the road for three weeks of combat, we would have been delirious with joy just to have a couple of cheeseburgers or a Philly steak-and-cheese sandwich. This otherwise rather ordinary hotel dining room seemed like a banquet at Versailles to us, and we thoroughly pigged out while the dull
whumph
of faraway explosions echoed from where engineers were blowing up captured enemy arms around the city.

The night passed quietly, and the only real shooting we heard was a brief duel between CAAT teams from different battalions who stumbled upon each other in the Baghdad darkness. No one was hurt.

Enrico Dagnino, the Italian photographer who had been with us
during the ferocious Baghdad Two-Mile attack, came up to our room with a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label, and that helped complete this slice of paradise. With others on watch, I sipped scotch whiskey and watched the small television set in the corner as the Al Jazeera network gave its tilted version of our triumph, complete with English script rolling across the bottom of the screen that kept referring to us as “invaders.” Unreal.