seemed to happen, until finally Middleton had tried to cashier Swanson out of the Marines. As the news reader droned on, Kyle’s mind rolled back to his first clash with Middleton years ago during Desert Shield, in the abandoned town of Khafji, on the border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
It had been two days into the new year of 1991, and there was something happening in the black desert night. The growl of engines and the clank of tank treads, out where there was supposed to be nothing but sand. “Multiple heat signatures, Sergeant. More than ten vehicles. Hard to say with this piece-of-shit night vision gear,” the spotter said quietly after looking hard and long through his thermal imaging glasses. “Lots of movement, though.”
Kyle Swanson pulled the ten-power Unertl scope of his M40A1 sniper rifle to his eye. Nothing but darkness across the border between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. “Call it in. Tell ‘em it sounds like more than just a recon.”
Iraq had overrun Kuwait, and the Iraqis were not sitting still while an American and international coalition of forces was building up to take it back. Kyle had been a scout-sniper sergeant at the time, heading a two-man observation team hidden between the floorboards of a building at the edge of town. Several other OPs were scattered throughout other buildings, but until now, Saddam Hussein had kept his people out of the area. Boredom had been the biggest enemy.
A chill crawled up the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the cold temperature. All that noise meant armor. Saddam was about to expand the playing field, and the OPs were right in the path, with the closest friendlies about thirty minutes away, a very long time in a firefight.
They remained motionless as the mumble of impending battle moved closer, and the first light of dawn brought the startling truth. The sun outlined Iraqi T-62 tanks and a herd of other alphabet armor-MBLTs, tracked personnel carriers on the main chassis of a battle tank; BDRM recon scout vehicles; and the BMPs with anti-armor cannon. A bit of everything. This was no probe, but the advance guard for an entire armored division, and they were already on the outskirts of town, moving closer by the minute. Dismounted Iraqi troops hustled around the vehicles, darting like a swarm of ants going after a picnic basket as they cleared the abandoned houses. The spotter called in radio reports while Swanson ran a final check of his rifle, ammo clips, the clackers for the Claymore mines, and grenades.
To try to leave would be suicide; a tank and the supporting infantry would make quick work of anyone they saw. Swanson glassed potential targets with his scope, and his mouth watered with anticipation. Behind the troops coming into the town there were guys riding atop the vehicles, talking in groups and moving in the open, lacking discipline as they pressed forward, for they expected no opposition. Careless ants. He put the crosshairs on an officer wearing a red beret and standing in the turret of a tank, gripping a handle so he could get a better view of Khafji. He had a big thick mustache, a pressed uniform, and a pistol on a polished belt of brown leather. Kyle thought:
“Mike Tango three niner, this is Hunter One. Fire mission. Over.” The spotter had headquarters on the net and was quietly lining up an artillery strike. He pinned his finger on an exact spot on the plastic-covered map folded before him. “Grid. Six two niner four. Niner eight seven six. Direction: five niner one one. Twenty to thirty Iraqi tanks and APCs in the open. Fire for effect.”
Swanson tracked the officer, waiting for a sound louder than that of his rifle. The first 155 mm artillery rounds came in like loud zippers in the sky, and when they exploded, throwing dirt and debris into big mushrooms of destruction, he finished squeezing the trigger. His bullet took the Iraqi officer in the throat and knocked him from the tank. Soldiers were scrambling for cover and paid no attention to the fallen officer, thinking he had been hit by the artillery. Kyle fed a fresh round into his rifle and looked for a new target, found one, and waited for another big round to explode and mask his shot.
The Iraqis opened up with everything they had, shooting wild. There was no enemy visible, but the artillery salvo had been so precise, it was obvious that someone was watching them. Their entire line surged forward, firing as they came, and violent explosions blew walls apart. The soldiers rushed to find shelter from the artillery, and Swanson and his spotter shrank back into the shadowy hide. A squad of Iraqi infantrymen ran into the main floor of the small building for cover. One came up to the second floor but could not see them between the floorboards, and stomped back downstairs to the rest of the squad, which moved on to clear another building. “Sloppy,” Kyle whispered.
The Iraqi tanks and armored personnel carriers prowled the streets, unleashing cannon and machine-gun fire on anything suspicious, and small-arms fire rattled on both sides and to the rear of the observation team. The bad guys had the town, and Kyle, his spotter, and the other Marines were trapped inside it.
The situation was beyond serious, and Swanson made the decision without conscious thought. If they were going to survive, they needed help in a hurry, because those enemy soldiers soon would be prowling about in a more thorough search for the observation teams. He grabbed his spotter by the shoulder. “Call Broken Arrow!”
The emergency signal meant that U.S. forces were being overrun. Every warplane in the sky that morning diverted immediately from its mission and accelerated toward Khafji, afterburners thundering to pour on more speed. The spotter started guiding them in, while other OP lookouts adjusted the artillery strikes. Nearby buildings vaporized with concussion blasts that shook them like a couple of gerbils in a cage.
Swanson cleared away debris that fell in the front of their hide and got back to work, taking targets of opportunity whenever an artillery round came in or a plane made a bombing run.
It was all now in slow motion. The chaotic sounds and sights passed through his mind only as parts of the mathematical equations he needed to figure out the next shot. He was an emotionally empty vessel, without fear, mentally shutting out any personal feelings for the targets-not men, but targets-and became an extension of the rifle. He wasn’t counting, he was killing, and hoping to avoid getting killed in turn.
The morning grew brighter and the allied planes circled like fast vultures to pounce on the exposed Iraqis. Kyle’s world shook and burned as bombs rocked the city, and the artillery punished the Iraqi infantry troops who had taken cover in some of the same buildings in which the Marine observers were hidden.
Finally, U.S. and coalition ground troops and armor showed up. A Saudi National Guard unit was allowed to roll into the town first, for symbolic reasons, but the big chase was conducted by a Marine light recon battalion that roared through the broken town like it was Saturday afternoon at the Daytona Speedway. TOW missiles and 25 mm Bushmaster cannons obliterated any Iraqi vehicles that were too slow.
Kyle and his spotter climbed from their hide like filthy moles, covered with dirt and debris. Only then did he realize that a big splinter had punched into his left bicep. Blood stained his uniform. He had been too busy, and the adrenaline was pumping too hard, to notice when it happened.
A medic yanked out the splinter, cleaned the puncture, and tied on a quick bandage. “You’ll get another Purple Heart for that one, Sar’nt,” the medic said.
“Forget it,” Kyle responded, rubbing the sharp piece of wood, about three inches long, between his fingers, then tossing it away. “Ain’t worth nothing.”
As the other teams emerged, similarly battered and bruised, Kyle walked off to get some water and find a quiet place to be alone.
It was part of his routine that let his mind disengage from the combat mode and come back into the real world. He found a cool, dark room in one of the empty houses and sat down as his body began to quiver. He thought of that big gaping hole he had blown in the throat of the first officer. Of the infantryman who believed he was safe behind a wall until Kyle shot out his liver in splash of blood. Of the driver of the armored personnel carrier who popped out of his hatch and caught Kyle’s bullet through the left eye. Sights of inflicted death paraded before him, and he knew that in future months, those Iraqis would visit in his dreams. Kyle Swanson, exhausted, curled into a fetal position and grabbed his knees tightly while his mind dealt with the carnage of his trigger finger. Tears streaked the dirt on his cheeks.
A hand touched him on the back. “S’arnt Swanson? You hit?” A Marine major had found him, saw the bloody shirt, and thought he was wounded.
Kyle relaxed. His eyes were still unfocused. “No, sir. I’m okay.” He swiped a hand across his dirty face, the sweat and tears leaving muddy tracks. “Just catching my breath. It got kinda intense out there.”
It took a few moments for Kyle to recognize the face of Major Bradley Middleton, the executive officer of the Force Recon battalion. The major was a veteran but had little experience with snipers, and had never seen one personally deal with the aftermath of a day of battle. Ordinary soldiers shoot almost anonymously and seldom see what they hit. Pilots never view the bodies blown away by their bombs, and tankers have limited visibility. But with a powerful scope, a sniper sees every strand of hair in an enemy mustache, the color of an eye and the movement of a finger. They also see the gory holes they make in a man, and after the battle is over, that has to be dealt with.
