Shooter_ The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper - Jack Coughlin [83]
In the American military structure, we are trained to react even at the lowest levels, so if an officer goes down, someone else immediately takes over. The Iraqi army was structured so that no one automatically assumed the responsibilities of a fallen leader.
He was ready to fight, with a pistol on his hip and an AKM, the cut-down version of an AK-47, in his hands, but the only thing he was going to be doing now was dying. Without hesitation, I popped a round through his chest. It flew out of his back, and the bloodstained officer fell face first into the roadway. He would never issue another order, and if you cut off the head of a snake, the whole reptile dies. More confusion.
Two minutes later, I saw an Iraqi soldier jogging down a street and estimated the distance at slightly more than three football fields. A moving target requires new math for speed and distance; such shots have a minimum 90 percent success rate, so I decided to take it. I aimed at a point on a wall ahead of the guy and when he jogged across a specific dot engraved on the lens of my scope, I squeezed the trigger smoothly. The conscious mind can focus only on one thing at a time, and I was watching the runner, but my body was simultaneously making sure that I did not lose trigger control in my rush to take this target. The trigger must be pulled back exactly straight, because any side pressure can affect the flight of the shot ever so slightly, enough to cause a miss. A sniper learns to pull the trigger straight back, every time, so he can hold the necessary sight alignment.
My bullet hit the running soldier at kidney level. He tumbled down, his death fall tracked by a dark crescent of his blood on the wall. Kidney shots should be taken only as a last resort, since both of the organs have to be destroyed for a quick kill. There were a lot of variables, but this guy didn’t have a hope in hell from the second I first saw him. I couldn’t miss today, and I had to rein in the confidence that grew with every successful shot.
The hunting had been good so far, but the bridge was the decisive point of this battlefield, not individual soldiers, and we were still a good distance away. We were exhausted by the running and gunning and were sweating like pigs in the heavy MOPP suits as the sun beat down without mercy. Casey decided to get us over to Kilo Company, which was closing on the bridge under vicious enemy fire.
That meant we had to move across about five hundred yards of uncleared territory, where the chances of getting shot by Iraqis and Americans were about equal. But my rifle could help take that bridge, which was what this day was all about. “Pack up and let’s go,” Casey ordered, and we all took a quick drink of water and staggered to our feet, much like Boston Marathon runners who are all out of gas with Heartbreak Hill looming just ahead. This was where our intense physical conditioning paid off, because we could reach deep and find the extra energy we needed.
Casey set off at a slow trot; I came next, then the photographer, with Newbern and Tracy in the rear. Everyone knew that getting separated was probably certain death, but putting one foot in front of another was huffing-and-puffing work. Tracy was humping along, cursing, at the back of the line and warning the panting photographer not to quit. “You stop and that fucking old man’ll leave you here,” he said. I heard somebody puke, but we didn’t stop running. I grinned and kept pushing as hard as I could. We were doing the Baghdad Two-Mile at a full gallop.
We linked up with Kilo, steadily made our way forward, and finally got our first look at the double bridge that was causing so much trouble. It was a mess.
The Iraqis had blown the supports of the fifty-foot center section of the big bridge and dropped