Modern American Snipers (40 page)

And there are reports that ST6 operators ventilated bin Laden's corpse, unloading more than a hundred rounds into him.

The raw and relentless nature of an unending war has unsurprisingly pushed many to (and beyond) their breaking point. Home lives have been destroyed and far too many friends and comrades have given all.

Whether Red Squadron is an out-of-control outlier, an example of wider trends, or merely an innocent victim of inaccurate allegations and genuinely the virtuous champions portrayed by the mainstream media is an intriguing if unanswerable question at this point.

*   *   *

Delta's recce troop hasn't escaped the SOF grapevine completely unscathed either.

Army Special Forces have sometimes found themselves marginalized during the Global War on Terror—brushed aside by JSOC's long reach and tip-of-the-spear-sharp elbows.

Despite its sterling start in the early days in Afghanistan in 2001, SF's unconventional warfare capabilities have not always been as prized as the direct action talents of the Joint Special Operation Command's special mission units in what has often been a largely kinetic conflict—at least in the headlines.

There were reports that opportunities to kill or capture Mullah Mohammed Omar and Ayman al-Zawahiri were missed because of JSOC's refusal to allow nearby SF ODAs to take on the hits, instead insisting they wait for strike teams from Delta Force or DEVGRU to arrive from hours away.

On another occasion, “one of the most senior Taliban leaders” was located and SF attempted to go in pursuit—but they were never given permission to utilize the helicopters necessary to take up the chase.

CJSOTF-A has lacked sufficient organic lift aircraft, and the 160th SOAR's 3rd Battalion—which was specifically stood up to support white SOF—came to be just another asset monopolized by JSOC. The Command's breakneck OPTEMPO continually tied up all available birds and its national-level priority status trumped all others competing for those assets.

Even as the wars have shifted, Special Forces has been frustrated by JSOC's ability to throw its weight around—even in SF's own arena.

Delta recce operators have reportedly pushed their way in to claim some of the more fancied FID (foreign internal defense) missions, snatching them away from SF.

However, with the Unit increasingly stocked with operators who came straight up from the Ranger Regiment, not every one of them has the necessary background or training to execute the mission, at least not at a Special Forces level.

A former SF soldier explained, “You'll have Delta recce guys doing FID and it turns into a bit of a mess in some ways. Some of them came from SF but a lot of them came from the Rangers. So some guys have previous experience and understand FID and some guys have not a clue.”

He continued, “Those guys were doing FID with their element in Afghanistan and, like, six of those recce dudes got fired because they got caught removing firing pins from the Afghanis' weapons. I guess they didn't want to get shot in the back or something. So they got canned.

“And then in Libya, a SF guy said, ‘Can you believe these fuckin' guys? They can't even use a compass. They don't know how to read a map. What the fuck?' Yeah, I know that. No shit. It's a completely different mind-set and these guys just don't have that experience.

“These recce guys definitely do some pretty hard-core stuff behind enemy lines. But I think they also get swiped into all sorts of other different stuff.”

 

15

End of the Beginning

By 2011, the Joint Special Operations Command's terrorist network disassembly line was decelerating in Afghanistan as it had before in Iraq, but for different reasons.

With the successful assassination of Osama bin Laden and the latter-day impotence of the central al-Qaeda organization, conditions were ripened for America to declare victory—accurate or not—and remove itself completely from an intractable situation. Instead, it remained heavily engaged in Afghanistan, gradually drawing down its forces. The endgame remains murky and the means to achieve it even murkier.

In 2012, after more than a decade of the heaviest SOF usage in military history, the nation's black and white SOF were put under a unified command structure—Special Operations Joint Task Force–Afghanistan (SOJTF-A)—to better coordinate their operations in country.

The SOJTF-A commander also was placed in charge of NATO Special Operations Component Command–Afghanistan (NSOCC-A), further streamlining the hydra-like effort.

However, that effort had become progressively stymied. The rules of engagement (ROE) were made restrictive to the point of handcuffing assault teams. Worse still, they were known to, and actively manipulated by, the insurgents.

Mission approvals were no longer instantaneous nor did they necessarily drive the next or the one after that. And those stealthy takedowns in which DEVGRU SEALs slinked into compounds while their targets slept were ruled out altogether. “Tactical call-outs” had evolved naturally in Iraq due to the extreme danger associated with suicide bombers and booby-trapped homes. However, they were forced upon even Tier 1 assets in Afghanistan.

Perhaps most frustratingly, Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai demanded an end to night raids—further handicapping the powerful tools JSOC had pioneered.

The nation's (and SOF's) relationship with Karzai had been an interesting one to say the least. Fluid almost by nature, it grew increasingly antagonistic in the later years of his presidency.

Shortly after 9/11, Karzai was hand-selected by the United States to lead the new regime following the defeat of the Taliban. He was ushered back into Afghanistan and watched over by Army Special Forces ODA-574 and CIA Special Activities Division Paramilitary Officers as the first wave of the invasion rippled throughout the country.

Installed as the nation's leader before 2001 was even out, Karzai's life was spared when a DEVGRU VIP Security Detail element foiled a close-up assassination attempt on the then-interim president with overwhelming force.

However, as the war steamrolled forward and JSOC implemented the rapid-pace CT system it had developed in Iraq, civilian casualties—particularly those linked to special operations raids—had become a fracturing point. While the United States placed immense value on JSOC's ability to surgically target its enemies, the practices by which it did were considered invasive by the local populace and Karzai played on those sentiments.

There is no doubt that JSOC's raids resulted in civilian casualties. The sheer number of raids—missions that are inherently violent and chaotic—practically demands that be the case. The real question is if those numbers were being minimized to an “acceptable” degree.

There is also no doubt that the genuine statistics were less than those claimed by the Taliban and related groups, who imagined, inflated, or created civilian death tolls as central strategies in their propaganda campaigns.

And Karzai too treated the claims—even dubious ones—as political grist to further his standing and leverage.

By the time Karzai was set to leave office following thirteen years in power, he offered no thanks to the United States—which had paid for Afghanistan's continued development with $100 billion in aid and two thousand lives. Rather he claimed the U.S. had no desire for peace in Afghanistan and warned his successors to be cautious in their dealings with the West, perhaps one final attempt to publicly cut any strings in the eyes of those who viewed him as a puppet.

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.”