Chapter 14: Sniper School Wednesday 12 September 2007

Khudabah, Pakistan — Evening of day fourteen

Fucking perverted motherfucking towelheads. I'm still nauseated and reeling. I thought that I'd seen everything, but what the rat bastards did today ... I couldn't believe it.

They brought in a young boy who looked to be about ten years old, tied him up on the bed, and raped him. I yelled at the perverted motherfuckers and called them names. I fought so hard against my restraints that my wrists and ankles are raw now and look like hamburger. I yelled so loud and so long that I lost my voice, but they just laughed at me. Once again, I think the whole town showed up. Shit, even some women came.

I'll never get that boy's screams out of my mind. The worst of it is that he didn't pass out or go into shock; he's still tied to the bed and whimpering. It will be dark soon, and the rats will come out, with or without the lights, when they smell the blood.

They tie me up to the ceiling and turn out the lights tonight. I steel myself against the cries of pain and terror I know I will hear and hope that the boy's death comes quickly.

My jaw clenches. I'm going to kill these fucking camel jockeys. Helpless to do anything for the bastards' latest victim, I try to escape into my mind and block out what's happening a few feet from me.

Kaneohe Bay Hawaii — Wednesday Day Eleven

It took me awhile to figure out the buzzing that woke me. "Wake up, my fiancée. Your phone's ringing," I kissed Jens awake.

"Damn, I need to get that. It's probably Daddy." She yawned, rolled over, and pulled out her phone. "Hi, Daddy. Sorry it took so long to get to the phone; we were sleeping."

They talked a bit longer while she was checking the computer, then she motioned me over to sit beside her. She hit a button on the phone and it became a speaker phone.

"Good morning, Son. Can you hear me?" The general asked.

"We can both hear you fine, Daddy," Jens replied.

The general continued, "I have some intel for both of you, and this doesn't break the rules of engagement. It's important, so listen closely. First, I chewed Brigadier General Thompson's ass for about two hours last night after we talked. What he did yesterday was reprehensible and came close to dishonoring the Corps. I made him understand that the shit he pulled yesterday would stop and he wouldn't use any non-Marine forces.

"Now, I have some orders for you. First, you two need to call Brigadier General Thompson on the radio and make up. Second, and this is unfortunate, you two are on your own and will not be resupplied, so use your resources wisely. Third, Brigadier General Thompson is going to try his best to beat you two, and he's sending in everything he can to accomplish his mission. And finally, keep all radio communications professional and without any swear words. This exercise has gotten bigger than anyone expected and has become a major priority for the Corps. I'd tell you more, but I don't want to distract you from your mission.

"You have two hours until Brigadier General Thompson launches his assault. Use the time wisely. Do you understand my orders?"

We replied together, "Yes, Sir!"

The General finished, "I still expect that you'll win this exercise. I'm proud of both of you. Don't let me and the Corps down. Semper Fi, Marines."

"Orraaahhh!" we replied.

I called the BG on the radio. "Brigadier General Thompson, this is Unit Bravo Juliet checking in and letting you know that we're ready for today's mission. Thank you for the opportunity to train your troops."

The BG replied, "I want to thank both of you for this exercise. It'll be a shame when it is over today."

That damned cocky bastard. I wanted to say something that would really tweak his nipples, but I had my orders. "Yes, Sir, that would be a shame. We hope to at least give you some challenges."

Jen was looking at the computer, "Shit, there are so many troops at the entrances I can't even count them."

"Looks like a 'target rich environment.'"I replied.

She continued, "BG knows about bravo location and has probably guessed where alpha location is, but they have no idea about location charlie. I think we should move all the heavy gear to Charlie, set up a few traps, plan an escape route, and wait for them to find us. One thing we'll have to be thinking about is other snipers. BG hasn't used them yet, but I bet they'll be here now."

I agreed. Location Charlie should be perfect for this. We would be high up on a hill with our backs to the edge of the training area. It was shielded from other hills so the counter-snipers couldn't see us, was surrounded on all sides by a large open field, and one bunch of trees ran to the north for our escape route.

I asked Jens, "Do you think they'll have IR-blocking ghillie suits like ours?"

"I bet they will," she answered. "But unless they have tactical radios without built-in GPS, we can track them. Let's get moving and haul all the gear here."

We headed out, resetting all the traps on the way. I let Jens get the ones nearest, while I took the ones farther out. While I was gone, she started setting the perimeter traps for defenses and the ones to make sure that our escape route was clear.

On my last trip in, I called to Jens. "Jumpin' Jens, this is my last trip in. Please come out and lead me through the traps."

She replied, "I'll be right out. Hey, when did I become Jumpin' Jens?"

"I figured you needed a nickname too, and you do seem to jump around quite a bit when you're happy. And it sounds good together: Banzai Ben and Jumpin' Jens."

She walked up to me, grinning. "Yeah, I do like that. Thanks, my love. After we're married you'll be calling me Jumpin' Jens because I'm going to be jumping your bones all the time." She gave me big hug and kiss. "I missed you."

I released her and took stock of our supplies. "That's everything other than some food caches and two ammo caches for the M4s. You do realize that we're going to run out of ammo and have to start taking some normal M4s off the kills?"

"I ran some scenarios and figured that out," she said. "But the good news is unless we really fuck up, we should be able to survive until Friday and twenty-four hundred. Come on, let's get set up and have some food. It might be a long time before we can take a break and eat again."

We set up both M107s and 98 Bravos and also a spotting scope for each of us, made sure that all the ammo was out for each rifle, and had our MREs. We then ranged some distinctive spots in the field so we wouldn't have to take time to range when the action started. After we were done, there was nothing to do but wait for the ghosts to find us.

Jens was cuddling with me and said, "You think you could hit a man at twenty-five hundred meters with the M107?"

"I have before when the conditions weren't too bad," I answered, and she gave me a big kiss.

"I figured that you could. One minute." She rolled over to the computer, took a look at the display, and typed in some commands. "Well, our guess was right; we have counter-snipers today." She entered some more commands. "There. I've set up the computer to warn us when a sniper is within three thousand meters and when normal troops are within twenty-five hundred meters. It looks like they've been to both alpha and bravo locations, and now they're executing standard search routines. I think we have about twenty more minutes of peace."

Our plan was really quite simple. We were going to sit at the top of this hill and wait for the targets to show up, shooting them first with the M107s at about 2000m until we ran out of ammo, then with the 98 Bravos at about 1500m until we exhausted their ammo, then the M4s at 500m. When large enough groups got to the 400m mark, we had a whole bunch of claymores waiting for them that could be set off separately or together, and we'd set a second bunch at 300m. We couldn't let the troops get any closer, so when they reached 300m we would make our escape.

I really wasn't nervous; it was a nice day and I was holding Jens. The computer started playing the funeral dirge.

Jens said, "Shit that's a sniper," and looked at the computer. "I guess they figured like we did that this hill would make a great place to wait for action. Let's take them out."

I looked at the display and slowly slid over to my M107. Jens moved to her scope. "Range me, my love."

"Wait a second." She pushed a button on her radio. "Now they can't transmit. Let's get the sniper first. He's on the left. Range, twenty-four eighty-nine; elevation, minus twenty-five; wind, oh-one at one eighty-two."

I tweaked the scope and lined up the shot, and Jens tweaked her scope and lined up hers. "On three," I said.

"One, two, three." both M107s barked, and the sniper and spotter were dead. "Is there anyone close to the area?" I asked Jens.

"I'm sure some heard the shots, but they won't be here for at least fifteen minutes."

"I'm heading down and taking their weapons," I told her. "We can use all the help that we can get." I knew this would really piss off the sniper and the spotter, but we were in a "war," and I would take good care of their rifles.

Ten minutes later, I was back with the rifles and all the ammo. Jens asked, "So, what did you score?"

"They were pretty pissed. I had to promise them that we would take good care of their rifles. We got an M40 in .308 with a hundred rounds of ammo, and two standard M4s each with fifteen mags. The M40 will be good to about eight hundred meters. That's when the .308 goes subsonic. I'm setting it up between us. I'll put the M4s by ours for when we bug out. We might as well use their M4s and leave our suppressed ones for later," I answered.

"Wow, that's a good haul, and it's really going to help — especially the M4s. Now we can just take mags off of our other kills," Jens said with a smile.

The computer played Addams Family. She looked at it. "Well, it looks like our shots attracted some attention. We have three platoons approaching the hill. Let's wait till they get within two thousand meters this time."

The platoons stopped at the edge of the woods and were glassing the top of the hill. I wasn't worried because I knew they couldn't see us.

I whispered to Jens, "I have a better idea; let's wait until they all come into the clearing. You get on the 98 Bravo and take the close ones. I'll be on the M107 and take the far ones."

"Yeah, I like that plan better." She slid over to her 98 Bravo.

They sent a couple scouts into the field towards the top of the hill, but we held our fire. Finally, when they were about a thousand meters from the top of the hill, the rest of the platoons came out and the two scouts stopped to wait for them. "How stupid can you be?" Jens gaped. "They're just waiting for us to shoot them."

I slid over to my 98 Bravo. I didn't even need the cannon for this one. "When they get within twenty-five meters of the scouts, we start shooting. Go for the back ones first," I said.

When the platoons got close to the scouts, all hell broke loose. First Jens pushed the button on her radio and jammed their communications. Then we started firing as fast as we could and the platoon members were all "dying." There was no cover other than the trees about a thousand meters behind them, and it was easy to pick off the ones running for the trees. They were firing towards us, but a thousand meters is too far for a .223 to reach. It was a pretty intense firefight for about five minutes, and then it was over.

We both slid over to the computer. Jens said, "Well, they didn't get out a radio call, but all the noise attracted more platoons. You have about ten minutes until they reach here. I'll cover you. Go and get us some more gear."

Seven minutes later, I came running back up the hill carrying a heavy load. "Damn," Jens said, "You hit the jackpot. You even have a M249 SAW — A machine gun's gonna come in handy — and two more M4s and two M1014 shotguns. Oh," she all but squealed, "and the best of all, a 60mm mortar. What are we going to do with all of this?"

"Plus, my pack is filled with M4 mags and mortar rounds. It must weigh a hundred kilograms," I said. "I don't really like the idea of indiscriminately spraying the training area with ammo from the SAW and shotguns, but I thought you could put that devious little mind of yours to work and figure out some sort of way to turn this shit into a trap."

"What, me? Devious?" She batted her violet eyes. Then she was back to business. "First we have a couple more platoons to deal with."

Two minutes later the platoons showed up. Jens was watching them on the computer. "Well, one platoon isn't coming up the middle; it looks like they want to flank us. I guess that platoon is in for a surprise."

I grabbed the M40 we took off the sniper and moved it to the side to watch the other platoon. "I think I want to use this. I'll let them get about three hundred meters from us before I start firing."

Jens jammed the communications and was watching the group in our escape route on the computer. When they were in the right spot, she pressed the detonator and we heard a big boom. It echoed loudly, for a fake.

"Bubye, boys. Have a good trip back to the entrance," Jens said with a laugh. "It's amazing what you can do with a M183¹ satchel charge." The noise had been so loud that the platoon I was watching stopped and dropped to the ground.

I figured, "What the hell — they're close enough," and opened up with the M40. With the minimal kick of the .308, I was able to acquire my targets much faster. It wasn't long before this platoon broke rank and started running down the hill. I kept on reloading and firing until I hit the last one at about 850m.

"Son of a bitch," I said. "I missed a shot. There goes my perfect record." I'd known it would happen sooner or later, but I didn't like it.

Jens smiled at me, "Don't worry, you're still perfect for me."

The computer started playing the funeral dirge. "Shit. Looks like we have some more snipers to deal with," Jens said, "Two units this time."

I looked at the computer. "Damn, Lassie is doing a great job."

"Lassie?" Jens asked.

"Well, I told you that I named everything. I figured that this computer was a hell of a watchdog, keeping us safe just like Lassie used to do for Timmy. I was going to name it Pit Bull, but it seems more like a woman to me, so Lassie is better," I said with a laugh.

"Why is my computer a woman?" She asked.

I laughed, "Well because you can work miracles with both by gently using your fingers if you only know the proper code."

Jens started laughing. "That was really funny. You can work miracles on me anytime; I'll be glad to teach you the code."

By then, the first bunch of snipers were close enough that we needed to pay attention. "They know we're up here," Jens said. "I don't think they are going to get in range."

"Well, let's see if we can persuade them to either leave or get closer. Please range them for me."

"I don't know what you're going to do; even the M107 can't reach that far. Range, thirty-two fifteen meters; elevation, minus thirty-five; wind, three at one eighty-five." Jens said.

I crawled out the back of the camo net and started messing with the mortar.

"Shit, I forgot about that," Jens said. "It looks like they were sent here to make us hold our position until the rest of the troops get here. Hurry up, we only have about five minutes," she urged.

I'd never screwed with a mortar before, but they're fricken simple to use. All you do is aim them, adjust the angle, drop a round in the tube, and duck.

Jens said, "Wait a minute, let me figure out what angle you want on that thing." She switched to a different program on the computer and typed in some commands. "Try a sixty-two degree angle first."

"Okay, my love. Spot where I hit. Fire in the hole!" I dropped a round down the tube. It hit the bottom and went thunk, flying towards the enemy.

"Wow," Jens giggled. "You hit behind them and scared the crap out of them. Adjust the angle up to sixty-four and try it again."

I did. "Fire in the hole."

This one hit in front of them. They knew what was coming next and took off.

"Damn," Jens said. "They left before we could get them. Let's see where the others are."

Well, the other snipers figured out that they were next and they were moving off, too. I would have done the same thing.

"Hey, let's use this on the platoons. We might as well get rid of all the rounds. I don't want to carry that crap when we bug out." Jens said. "Move it about ten degrees to the left, change the angle to fifty-five, and let it rip."