Shock Factor (40 page)

The scouts kicked the door in, swarmed inside, and found the financier and a pile of money. Both were scooped up and hauled back to Patrol Base Volunteer in what became the model for future raids. Less than two hours after getting the tip, they'd been able to take down the target. It was so impressive that Major General Peter Chiarelli, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, called Hendrickson to personally congratulate him on the operation.

At the end of August, Hendrickson ordered Delta Company, 2–162, to raid a large warehouse complex smack in the middle of the August 6, 2004, free-fire zone. The warehouses had been used as a staging base for the Mahdi Militia cells that had attacked the Volunteers and the Arkansans from the 39th Brigade. Take down the warehouses, remove any weapons or supplies inside, and the Oregonians figured they could put a dent in the enemy's ability to operate in Zones 22 and 50.

Delta Company would provide both the entry teams and set up an inner perimeter around the warehouses. To keep civilians and any enemy reinforcements from interfering with the operation, an outer cordon would also be established at key intersections around the complex. Hendrickson still had a platoon of 2/7 Cav's Bradleys, and he tasked them with setting up the outer cordon.

The snipers were to provide overwatch for the operation on the outer cordon. Buchholz, Nate Gushwa (who had recently returned to action despite constant pain in his neck, arms, and hands), and Keith Engle received the assignment.

Given that the battalion had been attacked almost every time they went into Zone 22 throughout the month, Hendrickson asked for, and received, Kiowa scout helicopter air support. The 1st Cavalry Division's aviation brigade was spread thin, so the Kiowas could only remain on station for a short time. After that, the Volunteers would either have to get out of dodge or make do without an eye in the sky.

The battalion launched the raid on August 30. The enemy had been tipped off. When Delta Company surrounded the warehouses, which took up a full city block, the entry teams found very little war matériel.

As the search continued, the enemy began moving around on the perimeter. Every time a militiaman appeared, a Kiowa would sweep overhead to investigate. The terrorist would go to ground and wait until the beat of the American helicopter's rotors grew distant again. Then he'd pop up to maneuver through the urban jungle toward the American perimenter.

As the operation continued, the enemy grew bold. The Bradleys started to take small-arms fire. Mortars began to land. Delta Company's commander urged his men to move faster, get the search over with so the whole force could pull out. But the warehouses were a maze of subdivided rooms and bays, filled with all sorts of random boxes, crates, and junk. Lieutenant Brandon Ditto, the platoon leader in charge of the entry team, could not rush this. His men worked methodically to check every nook and cranny.

In the meantime, the Kiowas were needed elsewhere. When they pulled off the target area, the Mahdi seized the moment. On the south side of the perimeter, two Bradleys covered an intersection next to a repair and truck depot used by the Iraqi Ministry of Transportation. On the other side of the MOT compound were blocks of multilevel apartment buildings with a school several hundred yards away.

Urban fighting in some ways is a lot like combat in natural terrain. The high ground becomes crucial in either environment. Hills and mountaintops have been scenes of key battles throughout history, and in Baghdad, tall buildings served the same function as hills. The Mahdi had learned this the hard way in Najaf and firefights in Sadr City. This time, while elements moved in the street, other militiamen flowed into the apartments and found shooting positions in windows and on rooftops. The MOT vehicle compound became the fight's no-man's-land, like a big mini-fortress just waiting for one side to occupy it. The problem was, getting to it was sure to draw fire no matter which side attempted it.

The level of incoming swelled. The Brads battled back with their 25mm auto cannon. Rocket-propelled grenades struck the street around the tracks. Much of the warehouses remained to be cleared, so this was only going to get worse.

The Brads needed the snipers on the high ground. The MOT compound included a tall building in the middle of its truck park. Buchholz took his team, supported by a dismounted squad of cav troopers, and dashed through the firefight to the Ministry of Transportation's front gate. When they reached it, the Americans realized they had no way to breach it. The gate was heavy, thick metal and well reinforced. A small sliding peephole door sat in the middle of it. That gave Buchholz an idea. He pounded on the gate with one fist until, at length, the peephole door slid open and a pair of eyes appeared.

“U.S. Army! We need to come in,” Buchholz said.

Nate Gushwa, who was standing next to Darren, heard a voice say in broken English, “Go away!”

The peephole slapped shut. Darren and Nate exchanged a glance. In the middle of a firefight, they were having a Wizard of Oz moment.

Darren pounded on the door again. The peephole opened. The same eyes reappeared.

“What you want?” the voice asked.

“We are coming inside. Let us in,” Buck said.

“No.”

“Yes, we are.”

Bullets cracked and whined, an RPG exploded in the street by a Bradley. The situation bordered on the ridiculous.

The eyes tracked across the Americans. Between bursts of gunfire, the Iraqi said, “We cannot guarantee your safety.”

“Open the fucking gate right now.”

The gate swung open. The Iraqi stared at the Americans as they flowed through it and entered the truck park. There was no time to search the courtyard, so they decided to clear the building and use part of the dismounted Bradley squad to pull security for the snipers.

They stacked up on the door and entered the main building, weapons at the ready. On the first floor they found medical supplies and bloody bandages. The Mahdi had been using the Ministry of Transportation's facility as a casualty evacuation point earlier in the fight.

Hyperalert now, the men headed upstairs ready for anything. Moving in pairs, they cleared the next floor, finding American currency and grenades. No bad guys.

They finished clearing the building and Buck took Keith up to the roof. Nate set himself up one floor down using a window that overlooked both a series of apartments and the school. He settled down behind his M24 and stuck his eye to his scope.

The Mahdi were everywhere, darting from alley to alley, firing at the Bradleys from windows and rooftops. There was no time for deliberate calculations; Nate had to use Kentucky windage to get his M24 on target.

About six hundred yards away, a militiaman broke cover carrying an AK-47. Nate happened to have the scope trained on that section of the street when he made his move. He tracked the enemy, but before he could take the shot, the man reached the school, pulled open a door, and plunged inside.

Nate saw him through a tinted plate-glass window as he moved into a room.

The day had become a furnace—a hundred thirty-five degrees in the sun. The heat meant the M24's bullet would travel farther with less resistance, affecting its drop. No wind meant Nate would not have to compensate for it. Still, at six hundred yards, hitting the enemy through a window presented serious shooting challenges that he had not yet been exposed to in training or in a real-world situation.

This kind of shot is something our Marine Corps shooters first get exposed to in advanced school, then in greater depth in urban sniper school. Glass affects the trajectory and behavior of a bullet significantly. Without understanding that dynamic, it is easy to miss when shooting through a window, even at close range. The type of glass, its thickness, and how it will react to a bullet strike also play a significant role in such a shot.

Nate was dealing with one of the most complex scenarios a sniper can encounter. Six hundred yards is a tough shot under any circumstances, but this young sniper was also firing from an elevated position. Had the target been in the open, Nate would have had to change his point of aim to counter the height difference. When shooting down at a target, the bullet will travel high, so the aim point has to be below center mass. Exactly where to aim is based on the elevation difference and distance to the target. This is the “dangle of the angle,” and it is an exceptionally difficult calculation to make on the fly. As a result, we use cheat sheets for such shots.

In Nate's case, he had to fire through glass on top of figuring the dangle of the angle. The elevation distance ensured that the bullet would not strike the pane directly head-on. Instead, it would be coming in at an angle, creating a whole different set of variables as to where the bullet would actually go.

Normally, when shooting through glass without any elevation difference, the bullet will break high and to the right. At six hundred yards, if Nate had aimed at the man's chest center mass, the bullet would have hit the pane, deflected upwards and caught the target in the shoulder. In a situation like that, the sniper will aim a little lower and to the left to compensate.

Now, with elevation changes, the ballistics invert. With the rifle above the target shooting down at him, the bullet fired will strike the pane of glass and deflect low and to the left, catching the target on the right side of his body. In this case, if Nate aimed center mass, his bullet would strike the Mahdi militiaman in the right side between his ribs and hip.

The type of glass plays a role in such a shot as well. Thick, double-paned, or shatterproof glass will affect a bullet differently than a single pane. Will the glass shatter, or will the bullet pierce it and leave only a hole surrounded by spiderweb cracks? In each case, the ballistics are different. We're trained in advanced and urban sniper schools to recognize the type of glass and estimate its thickness, then compensate for what that material will do to our rounds. If we guess the type of material wrong, we'll miss. Glass that shatters deflects the bullet in a myriad of little ways. Glass that doesn't shatter slows the bullet down more as it penetrates, which increases the rate of drop.

Bottom line: this is one of the most difficult shots a sniper can make.

Nate had been shooting his entire life. Every sniper brings a set of intangibles to the table. Our schools hone those natural skills, develops those talents. Sometimes, as in my case, those skills and talents are discovered. Unlike Nate, I had never fired a weapon before I joined the Marine Corps. The Corps taught me everything I knew. Nate Gushwa was the exact opposite: he'd spent almost his entire life with a rifle in hand, honing his skills. Those days spent in the woods, or in his backyard refining his talents gave him the knack to shoot anything well. The Army and Guard trained him, brought him to new levels of skill and knowledge, which fine-tuned his native intuition.

In that moment, those instincts nurtured since childhood took hold of Gushwa. He remembered his grandfather's most important lesson: take a few calming breaths before pulling the trigger.

Inside the room, the militiaman paused to peer outside. He wasn't moving anymore. He probably assumed he was safe now that he had ducked inside the school.

The Oregon deadeye breathed out, in, out again. His body relaxed. He set the crosshairs just a hair high, then fired.

“Nate! Get up here!” Buchholz called from the roof.

Gushwa had time only to see through his scope the hole in the plate-glass window his bullet had made. It seemed to be on target, but he couldn't see the Mahdi fighter any longer. Had he hit the man? Or had he missed and caused him to dive away from the window? Nate had no way to know, and no time to observe and find out.

He picked up his M24 and dashed upstairs. When he burst onto the roof, the scene unfolding there made him stop in his tracks. Engle was hunkered down behind the Barrett .50 cal, which he'd laid atop the waist-high parapet that defined the roof's perimeter. Flanking him on either side was a fire team of Bradley dismounts, all of whom were hunkered down beneath the parapet, out of the line of fire.

Bullets cracked overhead, ricocheted off the building and whined in random directions. Buchholz stood totally erect, his M4 to his shoulder, walking back and forth, his upper body exposed to the Mahdi. The enemy was pouring it on trying to bring the big Oregonian down. He'd pause every few steps, take a shot, then move again to find another target. He was growling and cursing, blasting away at the enemy without any regard to his safety. He seemed oblivious to the bullets whipping past him.

Buchholz had an ACOG four-power scope on his M4. Each time he paused to fire his carbine, he'd face the enemy. Anyone who has ever shot a rifle from the standing position knows how difficult it is to do it accurately. If prone is the easiest, standing is the most challenging, and the way the Army trains its soldiers to shoot this way is very different from most civilian marksmanship classes. Instead of standing with your shoulder pointed downrange, shooting from a profile stance, our warriors learn to put their chests toward their target and lean slightly forward. This method was developed to maximize the safety of our men. Shooting in profile exposes the soldier's ribs and side to enemy bullets. Our body armor does not cover these areas, just the back, chest, and stomach. Some have adaptors that protect the neck, shoulders, and groin, but most infantrymen and snipers don't wear those accessories as they are cumbersome and heavy. But firing with our front to the enemy gives us the full protection of our body armor.

Most of us had to learn this method of shooting while in the service, and it takes some men a lot of time to break their old civilian habits.

Nate took a knee and watched his friend pop off another round. “He looked like Conan the Barbarian playing whack-a-mole with an M4,” Gushwa later recalled. “For God's sake, Buck, get behind cover!” he'd told him.

Darren ignored him and kept shooting. Just then a captain who had been in the Bradley with them appeared on the roof. He had come along on the mission as an observer and was not part of the 2-7's platoon attached to the Oregonians. “Hey, I need to take some photos for my research project,” he shouted over the gunfire. Buchholz impatiently waved him forward. The man crouched, camera in hand, and moved up beside Buchholz. He peered over the parapet, snapped a few photos, and went white as a South Dakota winter.