Modern American Snipers (41 page)

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 clich
é
d ‘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 trained 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.

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.

Delta operators corralled the vehicle of Abu Anas al Libi—an AQ planner with alleged ties to the 1998 embassy bombings—and snatched him off the streets of Tripoli in October 2013. They then nabbed Ahmed abu Khatallah—a ringleader of the Benghazi attacks—in another low-vis operation June 2014.

And in July of 2014, the Unit mounted a complex hostage rescue attempt of journalist James Foley, descending on a remote ISIS-held oil facility near Raqqah, Syria. The operators neutralized a large terrorist contingent but found it to be a dry hole and extracted.

Despite the mission's execution being described as “flawless” and “magic,” it failed to rescue Foley, who is believed to have been moved just days before the operation. He was viciously beheaded in the sort of unspeakable act typical of ISIS, further amping up the already stoked tension.

With ISIS tempting the repowering of JSOC's industrial killing machine, and precision, clandestine operations dotting the globe in response to the continued scourge of terrorism, the nation's elite snipers are destined to remain as valuable as they've ever been.

They are tide-turning human weapons custom fit for this new age of warfare—men who can operate unseen or undercover. They are uniquely capable of operating both in preparation for larger forces or with unilateral lethality.

There will be no shortage of work for America's special operations snipers in the foreseeable future. In fact, despite making the most outrageously disproportionate contributions of any troops throughout the Global War on Terror to date, this exceptional breed of warrior may very well prove even more critical in the next phase than it was the last.

 

Acknowledgments

First of all, I want to thank my girlfriend, Kristin, who showed immeasurable patience and offered endless support despite all the weeks of my coming to bed at 4
A.M.
to complete work on this book. I'd also like to thank my writing assistant, Koda, for reminding me that it's necessary to take a break every now and then.