The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America's Deadliest Marksmen

by Brandon Webb

  Osman and I immediately drew our weapons, and the four turned and ran back in the direction they’d just come from. They had been walking up the hill toward us and had just started cresting when they’d come to a standstill, so they were still half-concealed by the hill and visible only from the waist up. Now they quickly sank below the ground line again. We got a few shots off but didn’t hit them.

  Osman and I both turned on Newman. “What the hell is wrong with you? ‘Hey guys, come on out here’—and you don’t happen to mention that there are four guys with fucking guns out here? What the fuck, Newman?”

  We were just about apoplectic with fury. He’d nearly gotten us killed. To this day, I am completely baffled as to why those four didn’t simply shoot us in the back as we crawled out of that hole oblivious to their presence.

  But there wasn’t time to ream Newman out in the manner that he deserved, at least not now. We hopped on the radio and told Cassidy what was going on, then ran over to the hilltop to search out the retreating four Afghans. We glassed them, and sure enough, there they were, tearing for the Pakistan border where we could not pursue. We called in an air strike fast and took them out with a 1,000-pounder before they could get make the border.

  Then we went back and unloaded on Newman. I wanted to call in an air strike on him, too.

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 10

  After the previous day’s close call, on day 5 we decided to go out and set up a reconnaissance position so we could have the whole valley in view and watch enemy forces sneaking back and forth along a series of mountain trails that led across the border into Pakistan.

  Osman and I took a map and planned the whole thing out. We would go in and insert before dawn, at 3 A.M., driving out on night vision in vehicles that were completely darked out. We’d go in two teams. Four of us—Osman, Patrick, a guy named Mark, and I—would insert at the north end of the valley (where the caves were) and take a position on the northeast corner of the area we were surveilling. A team of six marines would take a position across from us on the northwestern corner, so they could observe the other side of the valley from their vantage point. Two of the marines were first-rate snipers, and they were pretty psyched to get out there and do a sniper op for a change.

  By now we knew there was a significant level of enemy activity going on here in this valley. The idea was for these two teams to hide out for the entire day and fill in as many details in our overall picture as possible: who was moving around and where, what they were up to during the day, and where they were laying up at night. We would pass any intel we gathered back to the platoon, who would sort through it all and feed it back to base at Bagram.

  Since our resupply, I now had my .300 Win Mag. I felt much better going out on patrol with my proper sniper gun.

  Two other guys from the platoon were going to insert us, Jackie and Doug, with Doug driving and Jackie riding shotgun. Osman, Patrick, Mark, and I would ride in the back and quietly slip out when we reached our location at the top of the valley.

  In preparation for the mission that night, we each had our specific tasks. Doug and Jackie’s job was to tape up all the vehicle lights before we left. There were two reasons for this. First, obviously, was to dark out the vehicle so the enemy couldn’t see it. Anyone who happened to be close enough would be able to hear the vehicle, but without any lights showing we’d be invisible, so they wouldn’t be able to place us or even know for sure who was driving it. (This was, after all, a vehicle we’d taken from some of their guys.) The second reason was equally important, and that had to do with our ability to see what we were doing. Night vision is so sensitive that any significant source of light renders it useless. Even a vehicle navigation light will flood you with too much illumination and make you as good as blind.

  At 2:30 the next morning we were ready, present, and accounted for, our gear assembled and tied in tight. The six of us loaded up our vehicle and climbed in. We were already buzzing with anticipation. This would be a dangerous mission; inserting smack into the midst of armed enemies of unknown number and location is always a relatively freaky thing to do. We had no way of knowing how many hostiles we might encounter, or where, but we were as ready as we’d ever be, and itching to go round up all the intel we could.

  Doug switched on the ignition—and all the dash lights came on.

  No one had taped them up.

  “Jesus,” I muttered. Osman leaned over into the front seat and glared at Doug. “Doug, dude, what the fuck?”

  “Damn,” said Doug. “I thought I told Jackie to tape them up.” In the next seat over, Jackie responded with a look that said, Hey, don’t lay it on me.

  I was furious. This had been their one and only job: Tape up the damn lights. It was a mission-critical task. Doug was in charge of making sure this happened—and it didn’t.

  We clambered out of the vehicle and tried to make a quick job of it, but it was too late. Timing was critical. The sun would be up by five or earlier, and if we were going to do this at all, we had to be out there before then. The marines were waiting on us, because they’d be taking off a few minutes after we did to create a staggered insert (SOP). We couldn’t hold things up. We had to make the call: Go now, or cancel the mission. I did not want to make that insert with our lights on, but there was a lot riding on this mission. We needed that intel. “Fuck it,” we said, “let’s go.”

  We tried driving with our night vision, but it was hopeless; the dash lights made it impossible, as we’d known they would. So of all ridiculous things, we now had to drive out there with our headlights on, meaning we could be seen from miles away. Halloooo, Taliban, anyone out there? Here we are! Doug drove up the valley while Osman and I did our best to get our rage under control.

  We reached our insert point at the northern end of the valley, and the four of us rolled out of the backseats. Doug turned the vehicle around and headed back the way we’d come. We took cover and sat like statues, watching the lights slowly disappear.

  The rule of thumb for an insert like this is that once you’re dropped off, you immediately rally up in a small perimeter behind cover and then spend your first few minutes motionless and silent, doing nothing but sitting, waiting, watching, and listening. We sat motionless and silent for about fifteen minutes, waiting, watching, listening. We saw and heard nothing.

  After a few minutes, we proceeded to make our way up the mountainside as silent as the snow, heading for high ground. We stopped about an hour later when we’d gotten about three-quarters of the way up the mountain, reaching what we call military crest.

  This was something we’d all learned way back in Third Phase of BUD/S, in the land nav training. Gaining high ground is one of the most basic tactical advantages known to every military force in history. High ground gives you a better view of your field of engagement, and if you should become embroiled in any direct action it’s a lot easier to fight downhill than it is to go up against someone who is above you looking down. On the other hand, you don’t want to take position at the very peak of your terrain, called skylining, because there you’re more exposed.

  Once we reached the ideal elevation (probably at something like 9,000 feet) and found an appropriate hide site, we clipped on some veg and dug into the mountain’s flank. We had all three of the conditions we wanted: good concealment, solid cover from potential gunfire, and good eyes on our sector.

  Just then the sun started coming up. We called over to the marines on the radio. “ECHO-1,” they said, “we’re not set. We ran into a little problem on our way out. We’re not exactly sure what to do here, over.”

  “Roger that,” we said, “we’ll be right there.”

  Osman and I left Mark and Patrick there and headed back down the mountain to where the marines had stopped. When we reached them we could see that they’d been scared shitless. They described what had happened.

  The marines’ team had gotten a late start, and by the time they reached their insertion point it was already near sunup. On their w
ay up the mountain to their surveillance location, they had stumbled across a cluster of heavily armed Afghans in rough fighting position. Despite their arms, these characters were disheveled and disorganized; it looked like they’d just woken up and the marines had startled them. Evidently these Taliban guys hadn’t realized that the shock and surprise were mutual. They dropped most of their guns and ran. The marines could not believe what they’d left behind: guns, rocket launchers, grenades, a frigging armory. After marking the location, they moved on and were just debating what to do when we called them.

  Osman and I told them to go set up on the northwest mountainside according to plan, and we’d go check out the location they’d marked.

  We started patrolling back toward the coordinates the marines had given us, which were in the general direction of our insert point. It was daylight by this time, so we had to go slow, using cover all along the way. It took us a while. We finally got to the spot, stopped, and looked around us.

  There were rocks stacked up into a fighting position. Clearly this place had been used before. From what we could see, there’d been five guys there. We found one bedroll with about four RPG (rocket-propelled grenades) wrapped in it, a bunch of Chinese hand grenades, a few Enfield bolt action rifles, a few AK-47s, and a bunch of other shit they’d left behind. There was a teapot on their little cookstove. The teapot was still hot.

  After thoroughly checking out the site, we started looking around at the surrounding terrain and glanced down the hillside. We both saw it at the same time.

  It took an effort to keep my knees from buckling under me.

  The spot we were staring at, maybe 150 yards downslope from this heavily armed campsite, was the precise location where we ourselves had inserted four hours earlier, fully lit up and headlights blaring. We had driven practically right into these guys. Our vehicle had to have awakened them up when it drove by. There was no way they would not have heard that thing coming and seen its headlights—and they had the high ground.

  Osman and I stared at each other, both in full realization that it was a marvel we were alive. Because we had sat there in silence for fifteen minutes after rolling out of the truck, and had kept ourselves extremely quiet once we did get on the move, these guys had not seen us. If they had, we’d be dead men. No doubt about it.

  We examined the campsite again and did our best to work out exactly what they’d been doing there. It clearly was not a makeshift or impromptu site, such as you’d set up if you were passing through and needed to hole up for just one night. It was a planned location, not 150 yards from a road they’d probably seen us traveling before. They were here to ambush us, plain and simple. They knew we were operating in this area and figured one of our daytime patrols would pass by again sooner or later. Only a matter of time. They had dug in a well concealed fighting position on this hilltop and were waiting for us. They just hadn’t expected anyone to run into them in the middle of the night.

  We worked out the sequence of what must have happened.

  Our truck woke them out of a dead sleep at something like 3:00 A.M., then surprised them by turning around abruptly and leaving the area. They shook off their sleep, made some hot tea, and were in the process of setting up for the day—when a team of armed marines on foot stumbled into them. Murphy’s Law.

  We radioed back to base. Commander Smith happened to be monitoring the radio. We explained the situation and reported that we were sitting on a substantial cache of weapons, as well as a bunch of paperwork and field notes these guys had (incredibly) left behind. What did he want us to do?

  “Just take the paperwork,” he said, “and leave the weapons there.”

  Leave the weapons? Why—so these guys could come back and shoot at us the next day? It made no sense. We signed off. Osman and I each took an AK-47 and brought it with us just to have as extra weapons, then carefully dismantled everything else. We hid the rockets, then destroyed the RPG launcher. It took us about an hour to get it all squared away, but there was no way we were leaving all that weaponry there for someone else to use.

  After we’d sanitized the place, we made our way back to our hide site up on the northeast face, where we met up with Mark and Patrick and told them what had happened. We spent the day out there, but it was unsatisfying. We saw little, and there was not much to bring back in the way of intel. As much as we’d hoped to chart out the comings and goings of the bad guys we knew were all over the place, we weren’t able to see much.

  We returned to camp at night a little frustrated—and angrier than ever at Doug. Osman and I wanted to kill him, and he was not happy about being dumped on. But this was the second time in two days that someone’s carelessness or laziness had nearly gotten me killed.

  Back to that 90/10 rule. Our platoon now consisted of sixteen people, not including the EOD and air force guys and ancillary experts who were with us for this mission. Fortunately, we had jettisoned Gilroy Jones in Oman. (When Harward learned he was in our platoon he said something like—and I’m not quoting directly here but probably close to it—“What? If the guy’s a fucking turd, get rid of him!” Harward was my kind of commander: He did not suffer fools lightly. In fact, he didn’t suffer them at all.) Even without Gilroy, four of our current sixteen were liabilities, at least from my perspective. Four out of sixteen is 25 percent. We were pushing that 90/10 rule way past its limits.

  There had been some tension before, but from this point on a sharp rift developed in the platoon. Osman and I knew this was not a good state of affairs. Of course you want to operate as a team. Of course you want to have harmony among all your forces. We knew that—but damn, we could not afford to tolerate even the tiniest scrap of laziness. We were in the freaking mountains of Afghanistan. Our shit needed to be seriously dialed in tight, and it wasn’t, not enough. Not yet.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 11

  The next day we went out on another village op. There were genuine bad guys hiding out there, and there were people who were just living up here in the mountains, usually with a wife and couple of kids, living the simple life, farmers wresting their keep from the land. We could usually tell the difference pretty clearly—but not always.

  There was a place we’d been watching for a few days now. These people appeared to be farmers, but we were not 100 percent positive. We decided it was time to go out there and see up close. I was set up as sniper overwatch to guard the platoon as they went in to meet the people and talk.

  It was morning. I watched as Cassidy and his team made their way up there to where a small group of these guys was congregated in a few buildings. It wasn’t like we were storming the place; this was more of a diplomatic mission.

  Having dug into my sniper overwatch position, in the kind of well-concealed hide we’d been trained to construct in the stalking phase of sniper school, I used the scope on my .300 Win Mag sniper rifle to get a closer look at these people. The villagers clearly saw Cassidy and the guys approaching. Something was going on there, but I couldn’t tell what. They were talking something over, looking a little hurried about it. I caught a glimpse of a few of them running around, as if they were in a rush to get something done. Something felt suspicious about it to me, but it could also be completely innocent.

  I relayed my observations to Cassidy on the radio and told him to be on his toes.

  As I continued moving my rifle in a small oscillating arc, shifting my view back and forth between Cassidy and his team and the little knot of Afghan farmers, I noticed one guy standing off to the side. He had a gun.

  Shit.

  The man had his rifle slung casually over his shoulder, and there was nothing threatening about the posture. I couldn’t tell if he was a bad actor or an innocent farmer. I was leaning toward farmer—but why was he carrying a gun? Alarm bells were going off in my head.

  Cassidy and the team were now close to the house. Man oh man, I was thinking, do I take the shot? Will it put Cassidy in a tough spot?

  The guy was about 600 yards away, sligh
tly more than six football fields. I knew I could take him out in a heartbeat. No problem. I felt my finger against the trigger. Breathe out … focus … squeeze … pop. It would be that easy.

  But if I did, it would certainly complicate the situation. If I shot the guy and it turned out he was innocent, we’d have quite a scene on our hands. On the other hand, if I didn’t and he wasn’t innocent, the team could be in danger. Even if these guys had more arms stashed close at hand, Cassidy and our guys would clearly outgun them, but you don’t want to let things get so far that the question of who outguns whom is your determining factor.

  Shit!

  What do I do? I had all the information I was going to have. There was no more intel to weigh, no path of logic to make the wiser choice. It came down to pure instinct. Do I take the shot, or not?

  I breathed out … focused … squeezed …

  I decided not to take the shot.

  A moment later Cassidy and the guys were there, talking to these Afghan farmers—and suddenly I caught a glimpse of movement way off to my left. Some character in Arab dress, clearly not Afghan, was hightailing it out of there, tearing along a little goat trail up the mountain toward Pakistan for all he was worth.

  Motherfucker!

  This guy could have been out there on his own, but I didn’t think so. They’d been hiding him. That’s what I’d been sensing. The Afghan farmer I’d been targeting had been standing sentry, trying very hard not to look like that was what he was doing. They were covering for this al Qaeda dude or whoever he was, and the moment they had Cassidy and his team engaged in conversation, one of them had told him to take off.

  I switched to my binos and caught him scurrying up the mountain, closing in on a kilometer away. I couldn’t get an accurate shot off in time, and I couldn’t go after him, because to do that I’d have to leave my hiding spot and would no longer be supporting Cassidy and the team. I didn’t have the radio resources to call in close air support, and in moments that son of a bitch would be over the border.