Shooter_ The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper - Jack Coughlin [34]
The warning turned out to be another false alarm, but it was a sobering reminder that this was no joyride.
We had encountered only some occasional mischief from the Iraqis so far, and by the time the distant skyline of Basra rose out of the flat landscape, the intelligence guys had determined that the fearsome Medina Division was nowhere about. Then things began to get serious.
Rocket-propelled grenades swooshed past the lead tanks, and minor fighting sprang up with some enemy soldiers who were trying to blow up an oil well. They did not last long under withering fire from the armored column.
We soon what we found what we had come for, the 51st Mech, and we set about destroying it. Our Abrams tanks opened up with their 120 mm main guns on enemy tanks, which returned fire, and the Amtracs and artillery were engaging whatever they could find. The deep-throated anvil chorus of explosions was joined by the stutter of heavy machine guns and the thump of grenades. Cobra helicopters viciously roared in with rockets and guns to attack targets we could not see.
The sky was black with smoke as we moved our Humvees among burning hulks of freshly destroyed enemy tanks and armored vehicles. Our tanks were bellowing thunder only about a hundred meters to the west, TOW wire-guided missiles pounded a target fifty meters to the east, and the nearby explosions convulsed the air, shook the ground, and made concrete buildings vibrate like tuning forks.
Casey and I temporarily parked the main battalion headquarters’ trucks about six hundred yards to the rear of the major fighting and then drove forward in our Humvees to find a more permanent site. Before leaving, we gave Officer Bob firm instructions to hold there until we came back to get them. But as the battle moved forward, and Normy was away for a moment to check on a problem, Bob decided to push the Main up another two hundred meters, and suddenly the thin-skinned trucks, containing the incredibly valuable men who ran the brain of the battalion, and their important communications equipment, came under fire.
“Hotel Seven! Hotel Seven! They’re firing at me! I need you back here!” My radio call sign was no longer “Gabriel” but “Hotel Seven,” and the panicky words of Officer Bob cut through the crashing of battle. People, tanks, and armored vehicles were getting smoke-checked all around us, and now the Main was under attack! The Panda Bear, driving my Humvee, stomped the accelerator, and we roared away to find Bob, with me yelling for Casey on the radio, although I knew that the surrounding noise might prevent him from hearing me. I stripped the sniper rifle out of the drag bag and checked the loads.
As the old, familiar sniper rhythms kicked in, the Panda skidded to a stop and we piled out of the Humvee. The Main was strung out like a disjointed worm over about two hundred yards near a cluster of refinery buildings, and Marine infantrymen were already out of the vehicles but could not see who was shooting at them. They could have countered by spraying the entire area with heavy machine gun fire, but that would have risked unacceptable civilian casualties, and nobody wanted to start the war off by whacking a bunch of civilians.
Bob saw us and pointed to one of the multistory buildings. I braced against the front hood of the big vehicle, leaned into the stock of my rifle, brought the scope to my right eye,