Hunters: U.S. Snipers in the War on Terror

by Milo S. Afong

  After days of patrols and over-watching, Byron and Flowers rested at their unit’s command operations center. They were exhausted from constant operations. On their first day back to rest, their temporary base took mortars. The explosions injured a few marines, and the snipers were quickly directed to find the insurgents responsible.

  Early the next morning, Byron and Flowers patrolled from their base. The two of them skirted tree lines and fields while making their way down the peninsula. As they passed through buildings, Byron pulled his pistol and cleared rooms with it, and soon they were on a rooftop. Smoke bellowed from across the river, as other units battled insurgents. Byron and Flowers had their own fight, though. They needed to find the mortar men.

  Reports indicated that the snipers were in the area where the mortars originated. By morning Byron scoured one sector while Flowers searched another with his spotting scope. Their rooftop allowed them to see great distances in every direction. Byron kept his sights on a tree line while Flowers focused on a certain group of buildings. Though it was tedious work, their patience paid off.

  “Hey, I’ve got five guys over here,” Flowers said to Byron.

  Byron turned his attention to the men. His Unertal 10-power scope revealed them standing next to a building. A few men pulled a mortar tube from nearby and began setting it up. Quickly Byron told Flowers to start a fire mission with 60mm mortars. When Flowers got on the radio, Byron found the distance to the men.

  The laser range finder put the men at 1,050 meters (3,500 feet). Byron fixed the elevation on his scope and watched the area to make a wind adjustment. There was none, and he took aim. With the men in sight, he stayed patient waiting for the first round of the mortars to drop. It would keep their position concealed.

  As he waited, Byron concentrated on his breathing and the crosshairs. At that distance, if he was off even just a slight bit, his bullet would not impact the target. Within minutes, the mortars were on their way, and Byron was ready to shoot. Flowers sat behind the spotting scope ready to inform Byron of his adjustments should he miss.

  The group of men huddled next to a building surrounded by knee-high grass. With his crosshairs, Byron aimed at a man standing. He was clearly the best target, giving Byron the entire view of his back. Moments later, the first mortar round splashed, but it was off target. Byron, however, was not. He squeezed the trigger and Flowers watched the man fall.

  “Hit,” exclaimed Flowers.

  When his rifle settled, Byron didn’t have to move his crosshairs. Another man who had been squatting stood up right where the other man had been. Byron could not have been luckier; he quickly settled his sights and fired once more.

  “Hit,” said Flowers again. At the same time Flowers radioed the adjustments for the mortars, and the next round was dead-on. After Flowers called in fire for effects, the next few mortars impacted near the men, engulfing them in a cloud of dust and killing all of them. Byron didn’t think much of the kills; they weren’t his first, but at the time they constituted the longest shot recorded by a sniper in Iraq.

  With the men killed, the command operations center was not mortared again. Byron and Flowers were heroes for a day before they were ordered out on more operations. They moved with Bravo Company to clear more villages. Meanwhile, across the river the fight was on. Marines and insurgents battled for days, all within sight of Byron. He watched tanks and air assets destroy everything. Bombings continued day and night, and it was an incredible sight to see. Once Byron and Flowers watched an AH-1H Super Cobra get hit in midair. The helicopter hovered 200 meters (650 feet) off the ground. Suddenly a rocket struck the side of it, sending it into a spin, but fortunately it landed safely.

  When the fight in Fallujah ended, the marines from Regimental Combat Team Seven stuck around. Insurgents moved about on their side of the river, and for months Byron and Flowers helped with raids and patrols. Often, they set out on their own to observe villages for enemy activity and keep eyes on the roads to prevent IEDs.

  One night, the two snipers were buried in a hide outside of a small village. Days earlier they had provided over-watch for marines conducting a raid there. Byron wanted to watch the area, knowing that further operations were planned there. The snipers focused on a single bridge, which crossed a canal. It was the only way into the nearby village, and if any IEDs were to be planted, Byron figured that along that stretch of road was the most likely region.

  From their hide, the snipers spotted something. Byron noticed a car stopped on the bridge, but even with night vision it was too dark to tell what the occupants were doing. The ROEs wouldn’t allow the snipers to kill without positive identification, and the car quickly disappeared. They reported the situation and waited to see if the men would come back, and the next morning, the car showed again.

  Again, the vehicle stopped on the road. Byron and Flowers were completely hidden four hundred meters away. Byron watched intently through his scope waiting for the occupants’ next move. Suddenly, a passenger jumped from the car and made his way to the side of the road. He wore a white dishdasha, known as a man-dress, and slippers and bent down. Under the watch of the snipers, the man grabbed wires leading from a bush. Wires were used for IEDs, and that was all the snipers needed to engage.

  “That is the tallest Iraqi I’ve ever seen,” thought Byron. He was well over six feet tall. Byron set his crosshairs on the man and fired a shot, hitting him in the chest. He tumbled backward and out of the snipers’ vision. Next to Byron, Flowers opened up on the car and killed another passenger just before the car sped off. When the shooting stopped, both snipers were still full of adrenaline, but they knew that they needed to leave before more insurgents appeared, and they called for extract.

  The next night, the team slipped back into the area. Under darkness they moved up to the crossing to see what the man had been reaching for in the bushes. They found the wires leading into the dirt. Byron and Flowers hoped to catch more insurgents checking on the wires, so they found another position and dug in. The next day a man on a motorcycle passed through the area slowly but did not stop. It was obvious that he had looked into the bushes where the wires were, but he’d had enough sense to keep moving.

  Later, Flowers radioed the company. He explained what they had found, and soon an explosive ordnance disposal team arrived. The wires led to three 155mm artillery rounds buried in the bridge. The marines destroyed the explosives and moved from the area, taking the snipers with them.

  Days later, Byron and Flowers split up. They were given new partners so that the company had two sniper teams available. Byron was dead tired from running missions, but he still carried on. Byron couldn’t shake the thought of the man on the motorcycle and wondered what he had been doing. He convinced his commander to let him observe for five days the same area where they had found the IEDs. He suspected that the man on the motorcycle was up to something. The commander agreed, and Byron was sent out again.

  He and his teammate spent an entire night patrolling and digging in. They were settled by dawn, and for five days they watched the man on the motorcycle drive to and from the bridge, but he never stopped. He only slowed down and looked at the bushes on the side of the road. That drove Byron crazy; he didn’t have enough evidence to kill the man, but they knew he was part of an IED cell. Finally, though, on the fifth day, the man returned, but this time he felt comfortable and stopped on the side of the road.

  From their hide, the two marines watched the man get off his motorcycle and walk to the nearby bushes. When he bent over, Byron saw him grab a set of wires. In a flash Byron moved his sights to the man’s motorcycle and waited from him to get back on. It gave him enough time to settle his rifle. Moments later the man reached his bike but was met with a bullet from Byron. The bullet caused the man to stumble, but to the two marines’ surprise, he hit the throttle and began to drive away. It was apparent he was hit in the midsection, as he covered it with one hand and leaned forward while driving. Byron aimed again, but the man moved t
oo quickly. The two marines wondered how far he actually drove, because he was off balance and could barely handle the motorcycle.

  When he was out of sight, Byron’s partner radioed the situation. Explosive ordnance technicians arrived and were guided onto the wires, which led to more IEDs three hundred yards from the overpass. Later it was discovered that the insurgents planned to blow the IEDs on the bridge as soon as a patrol passed over. They anticipated that the marines would retreat, and when they did, they were to be met with three more IEDs. Fortunately, Byron, Flowers, and the other marine was able to stop it from happening.

  For the next few months, Byron ran missions near Fallujah. He learned that concealment was his only advantage. His two-man team dug into different dirt hides to blend in. They stayed off the beaten path, knowing that shepherds informed the mujahedeen about the Americans’ whereabouts. By early 2005, Byron’s stint in Fallujah was over, and his unit convoyed north to the city of Hit just in time for another operation.

  Operation River Blitz was where Byron made his most memorable shot. The unit was tasked with clearing the city of Hit. The city was a hotbed for insurgents. It had not been patrolled, and by the time Operation River Blitz was under way, the marines expected a fight.

  Days into the operation, Byron and his spotter lay on a rooftop observing south of their position. Soon single gunshots cracked nearby; someone was shooting at the marines on the ground. Earlier, one marine reported that he had been standing near a pole and felt the urge to step forward. Just after he did, a single shot hit the pole where his head would have been had he not moved. It definitely indicated that an enemy sniper was in the area.

  When he heard the shots, Byron grabbed his rifle. He had been looking for the sniper for some time and kept his sights on the area where he would have hidden if he were the enemy. It was toward the town’s ruins, a jumbled collection of fallen buildings and loose debris. A minute had passed when Byron had an idea. He told his spotter to move to the far side of the rooftop while he took to the other side. His spotter raised his helmet above their wall, and within a few minutes, somebody took a shot at it.

  The thump of the enemy rifle drew Byron’s attention. He caught sight of a man crawling from a hole within the ruins, but the man did not have a weapon. It was a common tactic by insurgents to shoot and leave their weapons behind, knowing that Marines could not kill unarmed individuals without probable cause. Byron kept his eyes on the area to see if the man would return. For the rest of the day and during the night he waited, scanning the area where the man had crawled from.

  Before sunrise, Byron and his partner moved to an elevated position. They had ranged the area of the ruins, and he set his sights at 625 meters (a little more than 2,000 feet). The next morning, just after sunrise, Byron saw a slight reflection shining from under a pile of rubble. He dropped his binoculars and reached for his rifle. His scope revealed that the glint was the reflection of an SVD-Dragunov, and the man behind it sported a mustache.

  With his target acquired, Byron told his spotter and they prepared for the shot. When he was ready, Byron fired once, and it was all that was needed. The man was hit in the head. Thirty minutes later six others arrived to the area where the man had been killed. Byron moved positions and could not see exactly what they were doing, but they were not armed. Other marines reported that they carried the dead man’s body away and laid him next to the road.

  In seven months, Byron had experienced the war in Iraq and all that it had to offer. Underneath, he knew that at any moment his life could have been taken. To survive it all, a certain amount of paranoia was needed along with the ability to kill. The weight of it all, everything that he had done and seen, was tucked away to be dealt with at another time. Iraq was no place to ponder his circumstances, especially with his life on the line. Little did he know, however, that it would all catch up with him soon enough.

  At Home

  By late March 2005, Byron was home in America. In a matter of days he went from a war zone to civilian life, and the adjustment was difficult. He returned to his wife and family in Texas, and all was well for the first month. As the days passed, however, slowly his wife noticed a change in her husband. Nightmares started in, and Byron often woke up believing that he was still in Iraq. Not only were his sleeping habits changing, his mind began changing as well.

  He no longer enjoyed the things that he used to. Spending time with his family wasn’t a priority, and he turned to drinking alcohol heavily. To make it worse, the alcohol triggered fits of anger and paranoia. Byron didn’t know how to deal with the images in his head, but he didn’t think that there was anything wrong and continued with his everyday life.

  Soon things got worse. Simple tasks such as walking down the street and driving on roads were difficult for Byron. In Iraq these would have put snipers in a vulnerable position. Byron also couldn’t stand not having his household secured, and he always locked the doors. When he returned to work as a police officer, he discovered that his behavior had changed and he reacted differently than he would have before Iraq. He did not take kindly to stupid questions, nor did he have the patience to deal with irritating civilians, and one scenario in particular made him realize that he had a problem.

  It came when he responded to a call about a man barricaded in a house with a gun. When Byron pulled up outside, he immediately felt as though he were back in Iraq. The Rules of Engagement were different, but Byron still drew his pistol and waited for the man to show himself. In his mind, Byron knew that he might have to kill again, and in fact he was dead set on it.

  The man inside unknowingly walked a fine line. He yelled threats at the officers and moved in and out of windows. Soon he showed himself. The man set foot out on his porch with the pistol in his hand, but he held it lowered by his waist. The job of the officers was to defuse the situation peacefully, but Byron took aim at the man’s head. In Iraq, he would have killed the man by now putting an end to the situation with one bullet.

  As he started to squeeze the trigger, however, something inside him told him to stop. This wasn’t the war. Eventually the man surrendered, but the situation frightened Byron. To him, the value of human life did not carry as much weight as it had before. He’d been seconds away from killing, and he realized that he did not care if he had to or not.

  At the same time, his home life was getting worse. Certain smells, sights, and actions triggered flashbacks of Iraq. He began to see his kills, and the scenes of war. He began not caring about anyone or anything, and the drinking got worse. His constant isolation was his way of not having to talk about the war. Soon, though, all he wanted to do was stay locked up in his house. His wife asked why he didn’t want to leave. She wondered why he was so angry all the time, and why he didn’t care about anything. Byron didn’t know that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

  The anxiety disorder had hit him like a ton of bricks. The cause of his problems stemmed from the actions and events he’d seen in combat. The constant paranoia needed to survive in Iraq, along with being attacked and killing, had done things to Byron’s mind. He wasn’t even aware that he had the disorder. Fortunately for him, his wife recognized the symptoms and wanted him to deal with the problem, but it took some convincing. Byron reluctantly sought help with the local Veterans Administration office. He learned that he was definitely affected by the disorder, and that others suffered from the same problem. It was hard for Byron to admit that he had a problem. He did not want to be labeled, but soon he was admitted to a program.

  When he returned to the police force, Byron was met with bad news. They had learned that he had PTSD and were concerned with him carrying a gun. They held a conference and talked with Byron about his position. He knew where they were going. Byron had been a cop for eleven years and received numerous awards, some even after returning from Iraq. In the end, however, he knew he would rather resign than be forced out, and that’s just what he did.

  Overall, Byron is learning to cope. Just l
ike thousands of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, he found that adjusting to PTSD takes hard work. He has learned to deal with his problems with the help of his family and the PTSD program offered by the Veterans Administration:I’ve learned to let go and move on. I’ve learned to focus on what is important in my life and to enjoy doing that. Talking with other veterans and my family helps a lot. Finally, putting the war behind me and moving on is what has helped me the most. Figuring out how to do that is diff erent for everyone, but that is the key.

  TWELVE

  BEYOND

  BEYOND conventional war fighting, the need for snipers is expanding at every turn. Contingencies across the globe call for the skill provided by snipers. From civilian to military operations, there is no doubting the precision that trained snipers and their weapons bring to the fight. If the situation is critical, most often snipers will be called upon.

  On April, 8, 2009, Somali pirates attempted to hijack the United States-based container ship, the Maersk-Alabama. The ship was filled with humanitarian supplies and traveled a few hundred miles off the coast of Somalia. Aboard, twenty crew members went about their daily activities well aware that pirates patrolled the area, but they did not expect to run into any. Soon, however, pirates appeared on the horizon and sped toward their ship.

  Four days later, three Somali pirates drifted in the Indian Ocean with the captain of the Maersk-Alabama as their hostage. Their hijacking attempt had failed, but they were able to escape aboard a lifeboat from the ship, with the captain. A United States guided missile destroyer, the USS Bainbridge and another warship, the USS Halyburton, were dispatched to the scene. Later, one pirate boarded the Bainbridge after being convinced that he needed medical attention from a wound sustained in a struggle with the Maersk-Alabama crew. The three others, however, kept their weapons fi xed on bound Captain Richard Phillips. Refusing to surrender, the pirates forced a standoff and brought about their own destruction when a U.S. Navy SEAL team was directed to the scene.