Shooter_ The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper - Jack Coughlin [80]
Moving fast, to get him before he could open fire on the Marines, I painted a quick laser on his position, dialed in exactly 343 yards, and planted my crosshairs right on his chest. All the while, my mind was unconsciously wheeling through the sniper’s mantra of S—Slow, Smooth, Straight, Steady, Squeeze—and the rifle seemed to fire on its own. My bullet bored perfectly into his chest, and its heavy mass penetrated his major blood-carrying organs, crushing and destroying tissue. That created a hole that is called the “permanent cavity,” and then the bullet exploded, sending small, jagged fragments spinning off in erratic paths that shattered his organs. Had to hurt. I watched him slump into a fetal position. Although his body might twitch for another few seconds, this guy was dead.
I was in my zone. The protective presence of Casey, Newbern, and Tracy around me, and the advancing Marines and armor down in the streets, allowed me to concentrate totally on being a pure shooter, an ethereal feeling of being untouchable and able to reach out and control the destinies of other men.
McCoy was off somewhere ramrodding the entire battlefield, with enough radios to talk to anybody on the fucking earth. The company and platoon commanders were making sure where the rifles were pointing, platoon sergeants were hollering orders, and fire team leaders were pushing Marines into exact positions and kicking butts to make them run faster. Casey had binos at his eyes and a radio glued to his ear to guide our little team. Tracy and Newbern were in nearby protective positions. These were all well-trained military personnel who understood the grand plan of battle unfolding that morning as we bashed into the river town. The great dance was in full swing.
I didn’t have to worry about that shit. I was merely a destroyer of men.
I pulled the bolt back and reloaded, oblivious to what was going on around me. That was someone else’s job, and if I needed to know something, they would tell me. As Casey later explained, “Unless I absolutely had to get into his zone, I left him alone. You don’t want to fuck with a man’s zone, especially when he’s killing people and doing good things.”
My eyes seemed to magnify things even without using the scope, new smells drifted to me over the rooftops, and my hearing gathered all kinds of sounds while my brain filtered out the noise and turned down the volume, distinguishing one type of explosion from another or the whine of a passing bullet. Things seemed to slow down, and the adrenaline helped me move and think five times faster than normal. It is an inexplicable feeling that comes to warriors in the heat of a fight, and it has been described since the dawn of man. It is a cliché, it is mystical, and it makes no sense at all, but, by God, it is true.
Four minutes after taking out the sniper, Daniel Tracy called, “Boss, I got something out to the northwest.” He verbally walked me across the rooftops, like a stranger in town giving directions to another stranger. See that funny-looking building with the blue flower box? Up above that, the open window with the green curtain? Look left to the doorway. I found the gunman Daniel had spotted, did a range check, squared up on the target, who was crouched half-seen 411 yards away, fired, and watched my bullet strike home and efficiently do its grim job at the far end of its parabolic flight. Another enemy soldier lay dead. I reloaded.
Casey was a different man. All of the apprehension and curiosity that preceded his first firefight were gone, replaced by the calmer mien of someone who had smelled the smoke, heard the bullets, and knew what do to. In the warrior’s world, we called dramatic change “seeing the elephant.” Once you saw it, you never forgot it. He listened to the position reports over the radio as India Company’s grunts continued clearing the west part of the city. “Let’s go,” he ordered, stuffing his maps into his pack. “We stay up here any longer,