Rorke Denver - Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior

Heres tae us.W has like us?Damn few,And theyre a deid. Early Scot tish toast 048-52378_ch00_4P.indd vii 12/6/12 8:23 AM Introduction: Seal Time The Sunni fi ghters had learned to mount three- prong mortar tubes on the beds of Toyota Hilux pickups. These little trucks were scooting around western Iraq like homicidal go- karts. They would pull up to a spot, and thoomp, thoomp, thoomp the mortar operator would launch three fast rounds, powerful enough to fl ip a Humvee or dispatch half a dozen U.S. Marines to the hospital or the morgue. Then the driver would slam on the gas and, pedal to the metal, theyd screech right out of there. Once they got profi cient, no amount of reconnaissance or technology could pinpoint where these roving thugs would turn up next.

By the time my SEAL teammates and I arrived in Anbar Province in the spring of 2006, the mortar boys were certifi ed pros. My fi rst night at Combat Outpost COW BOY outside Habbaniyah, a mortar round came fl ying over the con certina wire and landed thirty feet from me while I was in the head. Message received. How can we help impact the battle space? I asked the Marine lieutenant col o nel who was in charge of the outpost. How can we protect the base and help the Marines get after the enemy? 048-52378_ch01_4P.indd 1 12/6/12 8:25 AM 2 | DAMN FEW He didnt have an immediate answer, but I could tell he hated how things stood. We could defi nitely use some help here, he said.

These were the dark days before the Sunni Awakening, when the major tribal leaders fi nally got sick of the senseless violence of Al Qaeda in Iraq and turned noticeably more sympathetic to the U.S. cause. Back then, the area around Habbaniyah was one of the bloodi est in Iraq, truly one of the most lawless places on earth. Improvised explosive devices, rocket- propelled grenades, random sniper fi re from hidden alleys and rooftops the dangers seemed to lurk everywhere. The way the insurgents saw it, the Americans had invaded their country and so deserved to die. troops. troops.

Conceiving an effective counterstrategy wasnt proving any easier than tracking down Saddam Husseins weapons program. The SEAL platoon we were replacing had been training Iraqi Scouts, the Iraqi version of our special forces, though the comparison was almost laughable. The Iraqis were mostly willing soldiers. Mostly willing. But Im pretty sure Iraq had Boy Scouts with more fi eld ex perience. Thanks to the efforts of SEAL Team One, the Iraqis had made some progress on the combat basics how to plan a mission, how to communicate, how to shoot more effectively, and, if at all pos sible, how not to get themselves or their American trainers killed.

Still, these budding special operators hadnt seen much action at all. Theyd been going out on night patrols with our guys, which was standard procedure and would have kept them busy in some other war zone. But western Iraqs tribal region was almost entirely dead at night. The camel spiders and the feral dogs never seemed to sleep. Ev eryone else was in bed by 8:30, including the pickup- truck mortar boys and their many violent cohorts. Then, as soon as the sun came 048-52378_ch01_4P.indd 2 12/6/12 8:25 AM INTRODUCTION: SEAL TIME | 3 up, the truck tires were squealing again and the mortar shells were raining down.

I knew we had to fi nd a way to get the SEALs into the middle of the fi ght and somehow shift the balance in this lopsided battle zone. First thing the next morning, I sat down with my se nior guys from SEAL Team Three. We gotta get outside in the daytime, I told them. We have to make ourselves visible to the enemy. Well beg them to fi re on us. Well be like human bait.

But our snipers will be waiting in the palm groves. Our heavy gunners will be out there, too. Well have to show some nerve here. We might have to dodge some sniper fi re and some mortar shells. Well just have to outshoot em, I guess. Anyone up for that? It wasnt really a question.

I had been with these guys for more than two years already. Id gone through SEAL training with some of them. It didnt matter that theyd barely had time to unpack the gear yet. These were real- deal, ready- for- action American warriors, as impatient as I was to fi nd some action, just itching to test their training and preparation in a hot battle zone. I knew what those evil grins meant. This will get us fi ghting? one of our heavy gunners asked.

No doubt, I told him. Then, yeah, he said, as the others nodded and smiled. Were good to go. Three hours later, all sixteen of us snipers Rolex and Ro, heavy gunners Big D and Bakes, communicators Lope and Cams, assistant offi cers Nick and John, and the rest of the platoon backed by six teen Iraqi Scouts, were on our feet, taking a late- morning stroll be yond the perimeter wire of Combat Outpost COWBOY and into the pockmarked outskirts of Habbaniyah. This was a banged- up neigh borhood of high- walled houses, open sewers, and potholed streets. Cars and trucks zoomed past us.

When bullets are fl ying, no one 048-52378_ch01_4P.indd 3 12/6/12 8:25 AM 4 | DAMN FEW likes to drive slowly. Garbage burned in piles on the corners. One whiff of that could sap your appetite for the rest of the day. Most of the local people tried to stay inside. The blocks were eerily quiet until they were ferociously loud. Every block or two had another mosque, some modest, some grand, all of them sending out calls for prayer fi ve times a day.

In full kit and body armor in the 110- degree heat long pants, long shirts, boots, gloves, battle helmet, weapons, ammo and water, probably sixty pounds of gear per man we did not exactly blend in. We might as well have carried a giant banner as we walked along: Go ahead. Take your shot. The SEALs are here. With the desert sun directly overhead, I took an overwatch position on a rooftop with our snipers. My assistant offi cers were positioned in a nearby palm grove with our heavy- weapon gunners, a perfect L-shaped ambush layout, when the fi rst Toyota rolled up.

I dont think the Iraqi mortar team had a clue what was coming next. Given the free- fi re zone Habbaniyah had become, they had no reason to expect anything at all. Standing on the truck bed, the mor tar operator wasnt even looking our way. He was staring at what must have seemed like another easy target for an over- the- wire mor tar attack. Maybe hed hit the next American taking a bathroom break. But he never got a chance to launch.

On the rooftop, Rolex and Ro put their scopes to their eyes. They tucked their chins tight and squeezed off round after round after round. Their weapons erupted like tightly held jackhammers pop- pop- pop- pop- popthe shots were fl ying that fast. At almost exactly the same moment, Big D fi red his ferocious Mk 48 from the grove. That let off more of a low bass rumble. The in stant D fi red, Nick and John directed the rest of the line to fi re, too.

All of them erupted immediately. Fast rounds and big rounds, loud 048-52378_ch01_4P.indd 4 12/6/12 8:25 AM INTRODUCTION: SEAL TIME | 5 and hard, caught the mortar gunner from several different angles, milliseconds apart. His body spun around like a jacket in a clothes drier one, two, almost three full spins, before he tumbled from the bed of the pickup and onto the ragged concrete below. Plunk. From where I stood, I had a straight- on view of the driver. He looked frozen in terror, almost white. His eyes made bulls-eye circles and his hands jumped three inches off the steering wheel.

Without glancing one way or another or once touching the brake, he dove out the side window with the truck still rolling forward. As the drivers body was still in the air, one of my snipers swung around and nailed him squarely in the side of his head. The drivers body splattered to the concrete just as the truck careened into a ditch on the left and fi nally came to a stop. Our platoon had been on the ground less than a day by then. The guys were bleary from travel and smacked by the heat. But already we were doing what we had come for.