by Chris Martin
By 2014, the industrial age was over. Two wars that revolutionized not only special operations, but warfare, were all but ended. And with it were retiring warfighters who had spent three-quarters of their twenty years spent engaged in mortal combat, looking to transition to the next stage of their lives.
* * *
Chris Kyle returned to Iraq in 2008 for a fourth and final deployment. SEAL Team Three’s aura of invincibility had been shattered during his last deployment, and the Texan returned to battle perhaps a bit less enthusiastic than before—although he maintained an unrepentant love affair with war.
His body was breaking down after years of stress and mounting injuries, and there was a growing sense that the bullet with his name on it was tracking him down.
While Kyle returned to Iraq with a new platoon—DELTA, as CHARLIE, had been split up and its experience filtered throughout Team Three—he once again found himself attached to conventional units. The new generation of SEAL snipers had worked miracles in the eyes of the forces they had augmented. And they were now, quite naturally, in high demand.
“You had such a hostile environment in Iraq with that house-to-house urban environment,” explained former U.S. Navy SEAL Sniper Course Manager Webb. “Employing sniper teams to sneak ahead of the conventional movement really provided a tremendous amount of value. We started to augment those guys and they saw how effective it was and started making the request for the snipers more and more—and they were specifically asking for SEAL snipers.”
That growing reputation provided the SEAL sniper program with widespread awareness, prompting contact from the Army and USMC sniper programs. “They were calling us, wanting to know how we were training these guys. Just given the nature of that invasion, it was just Chris being in the right place at the right time. SEALs aren’t designed to do the stuff these conventional units were doing, but we sure as hell can sneak in ahead of a movement, set up, and provide overwatch protection for these guys.”
An “all-star” task force drawn from SEAL Teams Three and Eight united SEAL snipers from both coasts and set them loose in Sadr City. The hellish urban hole had grown even fouler over the years, now every bit as perilous as Fallujah or Ramadi in their worst days.
However, rather than cut through the Shia militias the way they had the Sunni insurgents west of Baghdad in his previous deployments, Kyle and his element found themselves on the receiving end of things this time around. Under massive assault by RPGs, IED, and machine-gun fire, they scurried from building to building.
The guardian angel that Kyle credited with knocking him over in order to dodge a bullet like the one in Ramadi had seemingly forsaken him. First a bullet struck him in the head, ricocheting off his NVGs but temporarily blinding him as his helmet shifted over his eyes.
Moments later, a heavier round burrowed through the ceramic armor plate on the back of his carrier. While the armor slowed the round so that it caused nothing more than a superficial wound, it was just another sign to Kyle that he was living on borrowed time.
But then the unexpected happened—he survived the vicious battle in Sadr City and his kill count continued into the stratosphere. After the Sadr City mission was completed, he went to work alongside the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, hunting down makeshift bomb shops near Baghdad and tallying up another twenty kills in the process.
That elevated his final confirmed total to 160—with another hundred or so on top of that unconfirmed—the most ever notched on the butt of an American sniper’s rifle.
The bullet with his name on it wasn’t in Iraq after all. He made it back home safe and sound. And, after receiving an ultimatum from his wife, he finally parted ways with the Navy and the Teams. Kyle ended his service ranking among the most decorated heroes of the war, having been awarded two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars for valor.
However, the near-pathological drive to protect others continued to burn inside him. He felt guilty that he would no longer be going to combat—convinced that American servicemen were destined to die because he was not there to watch over them. That haunted him.
His former SEAL sniper mentor, Eric Davis, could sympathize. He said, “That’s what drives me. I want to help other people—I want to save lives. I want to impact the world greatly, so when you leave that, it’s torture. You do feel like—again, it’s not arrogance—but you’re like, ‘Okay, I’m a SEAL, I’m a sniper, is there anything higher end? Is there anything better? Is there anything more I could do?’ The answer is no. So when you leave all that you feel like you’re letting people down and people could die as a result. It’s horrible.”
One way he managed this guilt was by continuing to protect in the best way he could—training military and law enforcement personnel through Craft International. Kyle imparted his hard-earned wisdom so that others would be better able to defend not only themselves, but others as well.
The Legend found a way to have an outsized impact even when he was no longer in a position to deliver lethal and lifesaving fire downrange.
The Texan later stumbled into a second life as a celebrity. An uneasy celebrity to be sure, but a celebrity none the less. His memoirs, American Sniper, was a massive hit—a mainstream sensation. And his legend, combined with his charismatic mix of swagger and humility, made him the closest thing a sniper can be to a household name.
He braved even the talk show circuit (growling at anyone who dared attempt to plaster makeup on his face). This was not to raise his profile, but rather to drive sales for the book. And in Kyle’s case, this was an act of remarkable selflessness, and he donated his share of the book’s earnings in its entirety to “America’s Mighty Warriors”—the foundation created by Debbie Lee, the mother of Kyle’s friend, Marc Lee, who was the first SEAL killed in Iraq back in 2006.
Kyle was tireless in helping his fellow veterans too. There was never any lip service. What he said, he not only meant, he lived.
“He truly cared about veterans and not just spec ops veterans,” Webb said. “He cared about the guys, period. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that he supported a lot of conventional units in Iraq—whether it was the Army or the Marines. He was in the trenches with these conventional guys and he really cared about them. He talked to me in private about it and I knew it wasn’t bullshit. It was definitely a cause that was important to him and close to his heart.”
Tragically, it was due to an inability to turn off this drive to help that the bullet finally did catch up to him. Kyle and a friend, Chad Littlefield, were murdered on a gun range by a mentally disturbed ex-Marine named Eddie Ray Routh, whom Kyle was attempting to help.
“The fact that Chris and his buddy gave their time to pick this guy up and take him to the range just shows you what kind of guy Chris was,” Webb said. “He didn’t have to do that for that guy. I wouldn’t have done it. Chris was out there on the front line with that stuff.”
Davis found the shocking killing difficult to rationalize or accept. “Somebody who is doing straight humanitarian help and helping you in particular? It’s got to be the most deepest rooted evil there is. The most selfish, pyscho … It’s really just gross. It’s dirty. You’re taking someone off the planet.
“Chris didn’t sign up for that. You become a SEAL and you sign up for that. You go to war and you have the clichéd ‘I wrote a check up to and including my life.’ But when you’re taking someone out on the range to help them, the only thing you signed up for is a potentially shitty afternoon when you could have been home with your family. That’s the sacrifice he signed up for there. The very thing he fought for, you’re taking it away from him. That wasn’t Chris’s choice to die.”
Former SEAL “Drago” added, “I want people to see that Chris was a man dedicated to saving lives on and off the battlefield. And even after leaving the Navy he continued that work. He was dedicated to making a difference in other soldiers’ lives. He used his expertise in the field to train them. When they went back in the theater, they were better tra
ined soldiers. He helped others to deal with PTSD. He was saving lives on the battlefield and off the battlefield.
“I would like to tell Chris’s kids that their daddy is now guarding angels in heaven. He is protecting them and making sure they are safe, just like he was protecting us.”
Even in death—perhaps especially in death—Chris Kyle remains the Legend.
“There are all kinds of stories about SEALs and snipers and the military, and stories are cool,” Davis explained. “Stories excite us and are interesting. But legends inspire us and change us forever. Legends stick. You can have all those kills—who cares? That’s just pulling a trigger and executing your job. But when you’re a guy like Chris, who lived his life like he did and held the ethics that he did and stood for something like he did, then the spectacular event becomes more than just a story. Then it becomes a legend.”
* * *
The post-9/11 spec ops snipers not only continued the tradition of excellence established by the likes of Carlos Hathcock during Vietnam, they added legends of their own, and even helped to rewrite the book on what it means to be a force multiplier—a one-man implement of mass influence on the battlefield.
What becomes clear is that, contrary to one’s natural inclinations, snipers like Chris Kyle are not driven to dole out death so much as they are consumed with the preservation of those placed under their protection. That’s a heady calling that does not simply shut off.
Some are able to transition to more indirect methods, such as Howard Wasdin. The former DEVGRU sniper explains that his decision to pursue a career as a chiropractor was driven by the need to find a way to continue helping people.
And there’s former 3/75 Ranger sniper Isaiah Burkhart, who recently became a paramedic.
Meanwhile, Unit snipers John “Shrek” McPhee and Don “Kingpin” Hollenbaugh, along with 3/75 Ranger sniper Nick “the Reaper” Irving, are more direct in their approach, passing the lessons learned in blood down to a new generation of shooters through forward-thinking instruction.
And DEVGRU operator Homer Nearpass, who played such a pivotal role both in Mogadishu in ’93 and in the formative days of JSOC’s AFO activities in Afghanistan in ’01, continues to contribute to the NSWDG sniper community in a meaningful way. Brought back by the command as a civilian government employee following his retirement, Nearpass is there to push DEVGRU’s snipers to the bleeding edge by, for example, testing and selecting new ballistic trajectory apps for use by ST6.
Others still find themselves continually drawn back into the chaos in order to protect others, even after their military careers have ended.
On September 11, 2012, former SEAL Team Three sniper Glen Doherty frantically scrambled from Tripoli as part of a small joint CIA/JSOC element to reinforce the locally placed CIA GRS (Global Response Staff) team in Benghazi, Libya. The U.S. consulate had come under terrorist attack from aggressors later identified as hailing from al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar al-Sharia (ASL), al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and the Mohammad Jamal Network (MJN), underlying just how nuanced and multifaced the amorphous threat of terrorism had become.
Doherty was naturally gifted across a wide range of activities and an instant charmer. Equally at home with surfers and skiers as he was with SEALs, to those who met him, the gregarious Massachusetts native did not appear to be the type who could bring down great violence—unless those who met him were the ones on the other end of that violence.
Always in search of that next adventure, Doherty found one equal to his vast ambition when he became a Navy SEAL in the mid-’90s.
Benghazi wasn’t the first time Doherty had rushed in in response to a shocking terrorist attack. He and sniper partner Brandon Webb were emplaced on the bridge of the USS Cole with a .50-caliber rifle and given very liberal ROE within hours of its attack in October 2000.
“Bub” was ready for his next escapade in 2001 and on his way out of the military when 9/11 happened. That pulled him back in for several years of combat before finally making good on his threat to get out and move in ’05.
“Out” was relative in Doherty’s case. He took on a long series of contracting gigs, putting himself in the most dangerous places on the planet for months at a time and balancing that with some beach or mountainside R & R. He worked and played as hard as human endurance would allow.
His contract as a member of the CIA’s Global Response Staff posted in Libya was supposed to be the last time he’d put his life on the line for money and adventure. GRS had provided plenty of both. Formed in the wake of 9/11, GRS sought established SOF vets to serve as, essentially, high-speed bodyguards for its case officers operating in the darkest corners of the planet. GRS was similarly split between blue-badged staffers and green-badged contractors like the Agency’s Special Activities Division/Special Operations Group. It offered men with the right training and talents six-figure deals for relatively short stints overseas. In other words, GRS and Doherty were a perfect fit.
Or at least they had been. Now in his forties, Doherty was ready to move on to a position where small objects were not regularly flung at his head at 2,350 feet per second. But he still had one last job to complete.
With Benghazi in chaos, Doherty and the rest of the GRS/JSOC team commandeered a plane with $30,000 cash and threw themselves into the madness. By the time they arrived, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith were already dead, but the GRS team was still desperately needed. They arrived at the CIA annex, which had now come under the ire of the terrorist mob.
Doherty made his last stand on the annex’s roof. He was hit with indirect fire moments after fellow former SEAL Tyrone Wood had suffered the same fate. It was the final actions of two men who had worked tirelessly and courageously in the shadows in defense of their nation.
Their sacrifice, along with the efforts of the remainder of the rescue force, prevented any further death, enabling the narrow escape of dozens of cornered Americans. One of the Delta Force operators from the Tripoli-based rescue team was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, while the other, a Marine, earned the Navy Cross for their extraordinary heroism in Benghazi.
* * *
As the attacks in Benghazi so clearly illustrated, the successive winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan did not mark an end so much as a transition.
The United States’ global war had become exactly that. And while parallel drone programs run by the CIA and JSOC, working in concert with its radically enhanced special operations capability, had repeatedly demonstrated the nation’s vast reach and capability to erase its enemies in a highly selective manner, there was no end in sight to what had become a self-perpetuating, endless state of conflict.
President Clinton was right back in 2000. America’s “black ninjas” and its air force of faceless robotic killers did in fact “scare the shit” out of al-Qaeda and its equivalents.
The United States’s CT apparatus—and JSOC and its SMUs in particular—had become, in the words of a former Delta Force operator, the “terrorist’s terrorist.”
But there’s also an argument that claims the manner in which they’ve been used has transformed them into a terrorist factory at the same time.
JSOC has killed thousands upon thousands of “bad guys,” but how many new ones have been created by the very execution of the process?
Somewhat ironically, in the wake of enhanced interrogations and indefinite detention controversies, killing was made more politically palatable than capturing, and the kill-capture ratio shifted heavily as a result. But Predator missiles that materialize from the sky and commando teams who come in the night incite fear and confusion even among the innocents they are actually serving, creating a steady stream of replacements from even the most targeted strikes.
And yet inaction is equally damaging as a nebulous array of quasi-related terrorist organizations with global ambitions continue to fester and spread.
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While al-Qaeda proper had been largely decimated by the Unites States’ relentless campaign, a mass of networks have emerged to both follow its lead and fill its void. Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LET), Asbat an-Ansar, al-Qaeida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Al-Shabaab, al-Qaeida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Haqqani Network, Boko Haram, and Al-Nusra Front are just a small sampling of the constantly evolving terrorist situation that threatens to strike United States’ interests both at home and abroad as AQ’s brand of violence and radical ideology continues its expansion.
Discouragingly, the unwinnable war that had been won in Iraq has since been “unwon.” Without the United States to exert its influence, the new Iraq government almost instantly proved corrupt. Politicians instinctively fell back on long-established ethnic and religious divisions, setting renewed conditions for renewed sectarian conflict.
And without JSOC to “mow the lawn” and systematically cull al-Qaeda in Iraq, AQI morphed into something even darker—ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham)—a grotesquely brutal self-proclaimed caliphate with grandeurs of global domination.
According to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, “They are beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology [with] a sophistication of … military prowess. This is beyond anything we’ve seen.”
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey added, “This is an organization that has an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision and which will eventually have to be defeated.”
ISIS has brought renewed violence to the region and effectively undone all that was accomplished in JSOC’s revolutionary campaign against its predecessor.
Meanwhile, JSOC has continued its evolution as well. The old “daddy” is running the show again following years of SEAL leadership. Adm. McRaven, who succeeded Adm. Olson as SOCOM Commander, retired in 2014 and became the new Chancellor of the University of Texas System. He was replaced atop SOCOM by Gen. Joseph Votel, the former 75th Ranger Regiment Commander who previously succeeded him as JSOC Commander. And Votel’s position at JSOC was assumed by Gen. Raymond Thomas, a former Delta squadron commander.