Shock Factor
Authors: Jack Coughlin
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For Mark Evnin, one of the first snipers to fall during OIF I, we will never forget you.
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CONTENTS
Chapter One:
Messengers of Death
Chapter Four:
The Playground of Snipers
Chapter Five:
The Pigeon Flipper
Chapter Seven:
Sniper with a Rocket Launcher
Chapter Ten:
Under Watchful Eyes
Chapter Eleven:
The Kill or Capture Christmas
Chapter Twelve:
The Face of Victory
Chapter Thirteen:
Al-Qaida's Graveyard
Chapter Fifteen:
Ain't Dyin' Tonight
Chapter Seventeen:
The Thousand-Yard Shot
Part III
Observations and Uprisings
Chapter Twenty:
Where Shades of Gray Are Found
Chapter Twenty-One:
The Lifesavers
Chapter Twenty-Two:
Off the Chain
Chapter Twenty-Three:
Gushwa's Thirty
Chapter Twenty-Four:
The Man Who Lost His Shoes
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Baghdad 911
Also by Jack Coughlin and John R. Bruning
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PROLOGUE
Guardians
Shortly after I left the Marine Corps so I could provide a stable home for my two little girls, I flew to the Pacific Northwest to do an interview for
Shooter,
my first book, which detailed my experiences as a Marine sniper during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I was scheduled to sit down with a local talk-show host of some renown. When I arrived in her studio, she welcomed me to her program, then asked, “So what's it feel like to be a murderer?”
Twenty years in the Corps taught me to expect anything and be ready for it, so this question didn't really surprise me. How I answered it surprised her.
“You don't really believe that,” I said.
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
“Because if you really believed that I'm a murderer, you would not be sitting alone in this booth with me. And you'd already be dead.”
The show's producer leapt to his feet, waving frantically for me to stop. The host's jaw dropped. She had no response.
Afterward, I thought about what she had said. I served my country as a Marine Corps sniper for two decades. I am a part of a community and a heritage that stretches back to the foundations of our Republic. We have been in every conflict and battle since Lexington and Concordâand not a few have turned in our country's favor as a result of our presence.
For two hundred years, others have called us murderers. To the British officers we sniped off their horses during the American Revolution, we were ungentlemanly butchers. To our own troops in World War II, we were a scary, insulated community that stood apart from the line infantry. They called us “Ten Cent Killers,” which was the cost of the .30 caliber rifle cartridge we used in our scoped Springfield 1903s. During Vietnam, the grunts called us “Murder Inc.” or “Thirteen Cent Killers.” Inflation made us more expensive, I guess.
Bottom line, being called a murderer comes with the territory. Over the years we have been the most misunderstood and marginalized community in the American military. Only in the past two decades has this really begun to change. And if those who wear the uniform don't get us, civilians certainly won't either. Yet the folks back home are the biggest beneficiaries of our work in combatâthough they will never know it.
After that studio appearance in Seattle, I got to thinking about a shot I took in Somalia in 1993 that underscored a lot of the misperceptions about our community and who we snipers are.
My spotter and I were on the roof of a three-story building that sat astride one of Mogadishu's main roads, tasked with watching over a Marine reconnaissance platoon, about thirty men strong, that was out on a sweep. Their lieutenant had led them down into a brushy depression in an otherwise vast and open field. There was little cover, just a few tin shanties at the bottom of the draw, and another one at the far end of the open space just over nine hundred yards from our position. My spotter and I glassed (meaning searched through our optics) the area, alert for any of the clan members or bandits who had been taking potshots at our men and the UN's relief personnel. When my scan reached the shack at the far end of the field, I saw movement.
A man stepped into the doorway, his body at a forty-five-degree angle to me. He was holding an AK-47 assault rifle. He was only about three hundred yards from the recon platoon, well within the range of an AK-47 with iron sights.
As I watched him, he raised the AK to his shoulder. The barrel was pointed at my fellow Marines, who were unaware of his presence. All this had happened so quickly that we had not had time to radio a warning to the recon platoon.
I moved fast. Keeping my eye in the scope so I didn't lose sight of him, I factored in the wind speed, dialed in two minutes of windage, then took the shot. My M40 bolt-action rifle cracked and the report echoed through the city. Since I'd done the calculations on the fly, I was a little short. The 7.62mm round hit the ground in front of the gunman, skipped off a rock, and struck him in the right knee. He fell and his AK dropped.
I kept the scope on him, adjusting the crosshairs so they centered on his chin this time. A few seconds passed. The gunman seemed rooted in place, his weapon virtually forgotten. He didn't look like he was in pain, and he didn't act like the sudden shot had surprised him. Instead he remained motionless and continued to stare out at the Marines in the depression. I held my fire, waiting to see what he would do next, hoping that the wound I'd already inflicted would be enough to discourage him from doing anything further.
No such luck. He reached for his weapon. I pulled the trigger again. My second bullet hit his midsection. He flopped over on his back, his left leg twisted under him. I saw his wounded leg kick out, twitch, then go limp. By the time the Marines reached him, he was dead.
It was miraculous that my first bullet had hit him. Had it not skipped off the ground and knocked him off his feet, he would have been able to open fire on the recon platoon before I had had a chance to reload. He could have killed one of our Marinesâone of my brothers. His death would have been traumatic enough, but what most books and movies won't show you is the effect that death would have had on his family, friends, community, and platoon. That moment would have forever scarred everyone in that Marine's life. With twenty years in the Corps, I've seen that happen many times. I've known widows who, decades after losing their Marine, were still adrift in their grief. I've met sons and daughters who never had the chance to know their fathers. I've seen parents whose grief has wrecked them. I've seen Marines blame themselves and never recover from the guilt of that loss.
I killed that gunman to save not just the Marine in his sights, but to spare everyone in his life the consequences of his death. Ask any military sniper why he does what he does and he will tell you, “To save lives.” There is no way to tell how many Americans back home have had their worlds protected by our work. Since 9/11, I would venture to guess a majority of us have been silently affected in some way by our snipers. It is those shots we take that help keep those worlds intact.
Since I wrote
Shooter,
I've often been asked if I ever felt remorse for the lives I've taken. The answer is no. I know what could have happened to our people if I had failed, and I will never regret doing all I could to protect them. The shots I didn't take are the ones I regret. They haunt me, because I know that there are evil men alive because of me who have most surely done my fellow Americans harm. The lives and worlds at home they've torn apart since my encounter with them ⦠that weighs on my conscience. Other snipers will tell you the same thing.
A sniper team is one of the most powerful and multidimensional assets on a battlefield. We are the guardians of our brothers-in-arms and can perform that task in many ways, both with the triggers we pull and with the information we develop through stealth and guile. It has been that way since the American Revolution. In the pages to follow, you'll meet a dozen American snipers. You'll be immersed in their world and learn who they are and why they chose to join our community. You'll see them in action in missions both in Afghanistan and Iraq. You'll learn how they are the keepers of a heritage that began with the founding of our Republic. For all the changes in technology that have transformed our battlefields, the fundamentals of our community, established two centuries ago, remain the same.
We are a close-knit, tight-lipped community. Here, for the first, time, is a glimpse into our world and how we exist within it. We are proud of our profession and proud of the meaning our work has given us. We are life-takers when we have to beâusually as a last resort. But where we derive our value is not in the pull of the trigger, but in the lives we have saved and the families that have remained intact as a result of our precision, professionalism, and skill. That will always be our greatest contribution whenever our nation finds itself at war.
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CHAPTER ONE
Messengers of Death
JANUARY 9, 1815
THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS
The Shooter stood tall on the earthen rampart, his rifle at his side. His right hand held its barrel while his right foot backstopped the weapon's hand-carved stock. He wore buckskin leggings, a shirt and pants of woven linsey-woolsey, which gave him a tramplike appearance. A broad-brimmed felt hat shadowed his predator's eyes.
He stood alone, immune to the battle raging around him. The din had no parallel in his lifeâthe crash of gunfire, the roar of cannon juxtaposed against distant bagpipes, and a New Orleans band belting out “Yankee Doodle.” Around him, men died by the hundreds.
Across the battlefield, a group of British officers rode together. One, Lieutenant L. Walcott, sighted the Shooter and marveled at his poise. Suddenly, the Shooter moved. He shouldered his rifle and its barrel swung toward Walcott's party. The officers began to laugh. The American was over three hundred yards away, no way he could hit any of them. The gesture seemed ridiculous.