Guardians and Devils
Ninety-six Americans were killed during the battle of Ramadi; countless more were wounded and had to be taken from the battlefield. I was lucky not to be one of them, though there were so many close calls I began to think I had a guardian angel.
One time we were in a building and we were hosed down by the insurgents outside. I was out in the hallway, and as the shooting died down, I went into one of the rooms to check on some of my guys. As I came in, I jerked straight back, falling backward as a shot came in through the window at my head.
The bullet flew just over me as I fell.
Why I went down like that, how I saw that bullet coming at me—I have no idea. It was almost as if someone had slowed time down and pushed me straight back.
Did I have a guardian angel?
No idea.
“Fuck, Chris is dead,” said one of my boys as I lay on my back.
“Damn,” said the other.
“No, no,” I yelled, still flat on the floor. “I’m good, I’m good. I’m okay.”
I checked for holes a few dozen times, but there were none.
All good.
IEDs were much more common in Ramadi than they had been in Fallujah. The insurgents had learned a lot about setting them since the beginning of the war, and they tended to be pretty powerful—strong enough to lift a Bradley off the ground, as I’d found out earlier in Baghdad.
The EOD guys who worked with us were not SEALs, but we came to trust them as much as if they were. We’d stick them on the back of the train when we went into a building, then call them forward if we saw something suspicious. At that point, their job was to identify the booby-trap; if it was a bomb, and we were in a house, we would have gotten the hell out of there fast.
That never happened to us, but there was one time when we were in a house and some insurgents managed to plant an IED right outside the front door. They had stacked two 105-mm shells, waiting for us to come out. Fortunately, our EOD guy spotted it before we moved out. We were able to sledgehammer our way out through a second-story wall and escape across a low roof.
A Wanted Man
All Americans were wanted men in Ramadi, snipers most of all. Reportedly, the insurgents put out a bounty on my head.
They also gave me a name: al-Shaitan Ramadi—“the Devil of Ramadi.”
It made me feel proud.
The fact is, I was just one guy, and they had singled me out for causing them a lot of damage. They wanted me gone. I had to feel good about that.
They definitely knew who I was, and had clearly gotten intelligence from some fellow Iraqis who were supposedly loyal to us—they described the red cross I had on my arm.
The other sniper from my sister platoon got a bounty on his head as well. His ended up being more—well, that did make me a little jealous.
But it was all good, because when they put their posters together and made one of me, they used his photo instead of mine. I was more than happy to let them make that mistake.
The bounty went up as the battle went on.
Hell, I think it got so high, my wife may have been tempted to turn me in.
Progress
We helped set up several more COPs, and meanwhile our sister platoon did the same on the eastern side of the city. As the weeks turned into months, Ramadi started to change.
The place was still a hellhole, extremely dangerous. But there were signs of progress. The tribal leaders were more vocal about wanting peace, and more began working together as a unified council. The official government still wasn’t functioning here, and the Iraqi police and army were nowhere near capable of keeping order, naturally. But there were large sections of the city under relative control.
The “inkblot strategy” was working. Could those blots spread over the entire city?
Progress was never guaranteed, and even when we succeeded for a while there was no guarantee things wouldn’t go backward. We had to return to the area near the river around COP Falcon several times, providing overwatch while the area was searched for caches and insurgents. We’d clear a block, it would be peaceful for a while, then we’d have to start all over again.
We worked a bit more with the Marines as well, stopping and inspecting small craft, going after a suspected weapons cache, and even running a few DAs for them. A few times we were tasked to check and then blow up abandoned boats to make sure they couldn’t be used for smuggling.
Funny thing: the SBU unit that had blown us off earlier heard about how much action we were getting and contacted us, asking now if they could come up and work with us. We told them thanks but no thanks; we were doing just fine with the Marines.
We got into a certain rhythm working with the Army as they continued cordoning off areas and searching them for weapons and bad guys. We’d drive in with them, take over a building, and go up on the roof for overwatch. Most times there would be three of us—myself and another sniper, along with Ryan on the 60.
Meanwhile, the Army would move out to the next building. That taken, they’d work their way down the street. Once they reached a certain spot where we couldn’t see to provide them security, we’d come down and
