American Sniper: The Autobiography Of The Most Lethal Sniper In U.S. Military History Part 10

Somehow, I managed to slip as well. My elbow flew out and landed straight on his face.

A couple of times.

That pretty much took the fight out of him. I rolled him over and cuffed him.

Boarding and searching s.h.i.+ps-officially known as VBSS, for Visit, Board, Search, Seize-is a standard SEAL mission. While the "regular" Navy has specially trained sailors to handle the job in peacetime, we're trained to handle the searches in places where resistance is likely. And in the lead-up to war during the winter of 200203, that meant the Persian Gulf off Iraq. The U.N. later estimated that, in violation of international sanctions, billions of dollars of oil and other items were smuggled out of Iraq and into the pockets of Saddam's regime.

Smuggling took all sorts of forms. You'd find oil being carried in wheat carriers, hidden in barrels. More commonly, tankers took on thousands and thousands of gallons in excess of what they were permitted in the U.N. Oil-for-Food program.

It wasn't just oil. One of the biggest contraband s.h.i.+pments we came across that winter were dates. Apparently they could fetch a decent price on the world market.

It was during those first months of my first deployment that I became acquainted with the Polish Wojskowa Formacja Specjalna GROM im. Cichociemnych Spadochroniarzy Armii Krajowej-Special Military Formation GROM of the Dark and Silent Parachutists of the Polish Army-better known as GROM. They're the Polish version of the Special Forces, with an excellent reputation in special operations, and they worked on the takedowns with us.

Generally, we worked off a big s.h.i.+p, which we used as kind of a floating home port for our RHIBs. Half of the platoon would go out for one twenty-four-hour period. We would sail to a designated spot and drift in the night, waiting. With luck, a helo or a s.h.i.+p would radio intel about a s.h.i.+p coming out of Iraq sailing pretty low in the water. Anything that had a cargo would be boarded and inspected. We'd go out and take it down.

A few times we worked with an Mk-V boat. The Mk-V is a special operations craft that some people have compared to World War IIera PT boats. The craft looks like an armored speedboat, and its job is to get SEALs into harm's way as quickly as possible. Built out of aluminum, it can haul serious a.s.s-the boats are said to hit sixty-five knots. But what we liked about them were their flat decks behind the superstructure. Ordinarily, we would load two Zodiacs back there. But since the Zodiacs weren't needed, the whole company would board from the RHIBs and stretch out to grab some sleep until s.h.i.+ps were spotted. That beat leaning across the seat or twisting yourself around to rest on the gunwale.

Taking down s.h.i.+ps in the Gulf quickly became routine. We could take dozens in a night. But our biggest takedown didn't come off Iraq; it was some fifteen hundred miles away, off the coast of Africa.

SCUDS

In late fall, a SEAL platoon in the Philippines snuck alongside a freighter. From that point on, the North Korean s.h.i.+p was literally a marked vessel.

The 3,500-ton freighter had an interesting history of transporting items to and from North Korea. According to one rumor, she had transported chemicals that could be used to create nerve weapons. In this case, though, the s.h.i.+p's papers declared that she was carrying cement.

What she was really carrying were Scud missiles.

The s.h.i.+p was tracked around the Horn of Africa while the Bush administration decided what to do about it. Finally, the President ordered that the s.h.i.+p be boarded and searched: just the sort of job SEALs excel at.

We had a platoon in Djibouti, which was a h.e.l.l of a lot closer to the craft than we were. But because of the way the chain of command and a.s.signments worked-the unit happened to be working for the Marines while we were directly under a Navy command-we were tasked to take down the freighter.

You can imagine how happy our sister platoon was to see us when we landed in Djibouti. Not only had we "stolen" a mission they considered theirs, they had to suffer the indignity of helping us offload and get ready for action.

As soon as I got off the plane, I spotted a buddy.

"Hey!" I shouted.

"f.u.c.k off," he answered.

"What's up?"

"f.u.c.k you."

That was the extent of his welcome. I couldn't blame him; in his place, I'd have been p.i.s.sed myself. He and the others eventually came around-they weren't mad at us; they were mad at the situation. Grudgingly, they helped us prepare for the mission, then got us aboard a mail-and-resupply helicopter from the USS Na.s.sau, an amphibious a.s.sault s.h.i.+p out in the Indian Ocean.

Amphibs, as they're called, are large a.s.sault s.h.i.+ps that carry troops and helicopters, and occasionally Marine Harrier attack aircraft. They look like old-fas.h.i.+oned aircraft carriers with a straight-through flight deck. They're fairly large, and have command and control facilities that can be used as forward planning and command posts during a.s.sault operations.

There are several ways to take down a s.h.i.+p, depending on the conditions and the target. While we could have used helicopters to get to the North Korean freighter, looking at photos of the s.h.i.+p we noticed that there were a number of wires running above the deck. Those wires would have to be removed before we could land, which would add time to the operation.

Knowing we'd lose the element of surprise if we went in with helos, we opted to use RHIBs instead. We started doing practice runs off the side of the Na.s.sau with boats that had been brought out there by a Special Boat Unit. (Special Boat Units are the SEALs' dedicated taxi service. They run the RHIBs, Mk-Vs, and other SEAL-related vessels. Among other things, the units are equipped and trained to make combat insertions, braving fire to get SEALs in and out of trouble.)

The freighter, meanwhile, continued sailing toward us. We geared up as it came within range, preparing to hit it. But before we could board the boats, we got a call telling us to stand by-the Spaniards had moved in.

What?

The Spanish frigate Navarra had confronted the North Korean s.h.i.+p, which had been fooling exactly n.o.body by sailing without a flag and with her name covered up. According to later reports, Spanish spec-op troops went in after the freighter failed to comply with the frigate's orders to stop. Of course, they used helicopters, and just as we had thought, were delayed by having to shoot out the wires. From what I've heard, that delay would have given the captain aboard the vessel time to get rid of incriminating paperwork and other evidence, that's what I think happened.

Obviously, there was a lot going on behind the scenes that we weren't aware of.

Whatever.

Our mission was quickly changed from taking down the s.h.i.+p to going aboard and securing it-and uncovering the Scud missiles.

You wouldn't think missiles would be hard to find. But in this case, they were nowhere to be seen. The s.h.i.+p's hold was full of bags of cement-eighty-pound bags. There must have been hundreds of thousands.

There was only one place the Scuds could be. We started moving cement. Bag after bag. That was our job for twenty-four hours. No sleep, just move bags of cement. I must have moved thousands myself. It was miserable. I was covered with dust. G.o.d knows what my lungs looked like. Finally, we found s.h.i.+pping containers underneath. Out came our torches and saws.

I worked one of the quickie saws. Also known as a cut-off saw, it looks like a chain saw with a circular blade on the front. It cuts through just about anything, including Scud containers.

Fifteen Scud missiles lay under the cement. I'd never seen a Scud up close before, and to be honest, I thought they were kind of cool-looking. We took pictures, then waved the EOD guys-"explosive ordinance disposal," or bomb disposal experts-in to make sure they were inert.

By that point, the entire platoon was completely covered with cement dust. A few guys went over the side to clean off. Not me. Given my history with dives, I wasn't taking any chances. That much cement, who the h.e.l.l knows what happens when it touches the water?

We handed the freighter over to the Marines and went back aboard the Na.s.sau. Command sent word that we would be pulled out and returned to Kuwait in "the same expedient fas.h.i.+on you were brought in."

Of course, they were full of s.h.i.+t. We stayed on the Na.s.sau for two weeks. For some reason, the Navy couldn't figure out how to free up one of the umpteen helicopters they had sitting on the flight deck to get us back to Djibouti. So we played video games and pumped iron, waiting. That and slept.

Unfortunately, the only video game we had with us was Madden Football. I got pretty good at it. Up until that time, I hadn't been much for playing video games. Now I'm an expert-especially at Madden. That was probably where I got hooked. I think my wife still cusses my two weeks aboard the Na.s.sau to this very day.

A footnote on the Scuds: the missiles were bound for Yemen. Or at least that's what Yemen said. There have been rumors that they were part of some sort of a deal with Libya involving a payoff to take Saddam Hussein into exile, but I have no idea whether that's true or not. In any event, the Scuds were released and went on to Yemen, Saddam stayed in Iraq, and we went back to Kuwait to get ready for war.

CHRISTMAS

That December was the first Christmas I'd ever been away from my family, and it felt a little depressing. The day kind of came and went without a memorable celebration.

I do remember the presents Taya's folks sent that year, though: remote-control Hummers.

They were small, radio-controlled toys that were just a blast to drive around. Some of the Iraqis working on base had apparently never seen anything like them before. I'd drive a vehicle toward them and they would scream and bolt away. I don't know if they thought it was some sort of guided missile or what. Their high-pitched screams, coupled with sprints in the opposite direction, had me doubled over. Cheap thrills in Iraq were priceless.

Some of the people we had working for us were not exactly the best of the best, nor were all of them particularly fond of Americans.

They caught one jerking off into our food.

He was quickly escorted from the base. The head shed-our commanding officers-knew that as soon as everyone found out what he'd done, someone would probably try and kill him.

We stayed at two different camps in Kuwait: Ali al-Salem and Doha. Our facilities at both were relatively bare-bones.