Sniper One

by Roy F. Chandler

"Fine idea. Seeing that it worked, the story is worth hearing."

  Waiting for Staff Sergeant Bell, they talked military in comfortable agreement. The Iraqis were making nasty noises, and they concluded that there was serious danger there that ought to be put down so hard everyone would get the message loud and clear.

  They expected that if it came to fighting, President Bush had the guts to turn the troops loose and let them do whatever had to be done without micro-managing from the White House.

  The Marine explained the presence of the ninety-two pound 155mm projectile placed center in his office.

  "That projectile, Colonel, demonstrates my feelings about females in the Marine Corps. Anyone who cannot load a gun ought to be in some other service, and I haven't found a woman yet who can feed those rounds on and off a truck or into a cannon breech at a satisfactory rate."

  Colonel Greg Maynard agreed one hundred and ten percent, but he also recognized that such politically incorrect speech and opinions was probably going to doom any chances the Lieutenant Colonel had for promotion. These days, commissioned ranks fled from facing even the most obvious of facts when it came to females.

  They agreed that—but Staff Sergeant Bell arrived to end their speculating.

  First, Bell told his version of how the stalk had gone.

  "What I did, Colonel, was get ready yesterday. I studied the field thoroughly, and I hid my secret weapon out where I thought it would do the most good."

  "Secret weapon?"

  Bell chose to ignore Maynard's question and continued.

  "You will see in a moment that I am specially dressed for this stalk." Bell slung his Unertl scoped sniper rifle on a handy peg, and Maynard wished for the thousandth time that the Army would quit fiddling with the barely maintainable M14 rifle and adopt a decent weapon for their snipers. The Marines were so far ahead of the Army in all of their sniping from doctrine through training, and especially in weaponry, that it was embarrassing.

  Bell began with his hat. "Thermal is, of course, heat detection. So, I buzzed over to Cherry Point and talked with a buddy who fiddles with reducing aircraft thermal signatures. They got me a couple of yards of this stuff." Bell handed over his boonie cap, and Maynard saw that it was lined with a thickish, gray material.

  "What is this stuff, Sergeant?"

  "Don't know, exactly, Colonel, but it has a lot of asbestos in it, and the environmental people would hate it. Asbestos is still about the best insulation there is, so it gets used when nothing else works quite right."

  Bell shrugged out of his ghillie suit. "Heat rises, of course, so we lined the ghillie with the same asbestos cloth with particular attention to the shoulders—which would lead a crawling sniper—and the back, from which heat would rise." Bell showed a glove. "Flaps of the material are sewed over my glove fingers in case I had to reach with one hand or the other."

  Bell raised a boot for viewing. "I also took special care to insulate my heels because they stick up, and heat will rise from them."

  The sniper's face was now clear of camo paint, but Bell scrubbed at his features. "Do you recall the movie, Predator, Colonel?

  "In that movie the hero could not be seen by the space hunter because he had gotten covered with mud. Who knows, maybe Hollywood had something, so my face paint was clay mixed with lanolin to hold it together and make it stay on."

  Maynard laughed, "Who thought that one up, Staff Sergeant?"

  N. A. Rock sounded proud. "That was my scheme, Colonel. I loved that movie. Real man kicks the crap out of everybody and everything. My kind of show.

  "Think it worked, Clicker?"

  "Beats me, Colonel Rock, but everything together worked, which was what we were after."

  Bell continued. "When we got down-range in the stalking area I took a careful look at everyone near the trucks. I saw they were still milling around, so when we got the word to go, I went like a snake in front of a brush fire.

  "Hell, I covered the first three hundred yards before anyone began to even look down range.

  "My idea was that the technician would begin scanning far out, and the closer I was to begin with the better my chances would be of being looked right over."

  Maynard remembered. "Well, you had it right, Bell, that's just what he did, and he began to pick up your teammates almost immediately."

  Clicker nodded agreement. "By the time he got behind his machine, I was moved well along and using my own special weapon."

  "Which was?"

  This time, Bell was ready to answer. "At this stage of development, Colonel, the thermal detectors do not look through things very well. If you can get something between you and a detector it apparently throws the machine out of focus.

  "So, I used a German Shield."

  He saw the Army Colonel's confusion and explained.

  "A German Shield is simply a sort of half-round twig arrangement properly garnished with leaves and small branches to disguise its presence. The idea is to push it ahead of you, sort of creating your own hide as you go. German snipers began using the shields in World War I and still use them, I am told.

  "I figured that the detector would blank out on the shield and not pick up my body heat behind it. Guess it worked because I crawled straight up the middle, where I figured the detector operator would least expect anyone, and as you saw, I could have picked his pocket."

  "I didn't see the shield when you stood up."

  "Nope. He got busy telling how wonderfully he had done, quit looking, and was announcing his victory. I abandoned the shield and crawled fast. By the time he got told I was still out there, I was in so close that his machine could not look down and see me."

  "Damn, Bell, when you rose up behind him we all nearly collapsed. That ... that was about perfect."

  Rock chuckled. "Now I wish I had gone out to observe. I always miss the good stuff."

  "That Corporal, what was his name? The one who was bitching. He said you always had a gimmick."

  "Corporal Gilroy, Colonel. I hope he is right. It would be great to believe that you could always find an angle."

  "Gilroy? Who is Gilroy?" Rock's voice was a little cold. Maynard wished he hadn't mentioned the bitching part.

  "I called the Provost for a sniper, Colonel. I figured it would widen our experience base, and they sent Corporal Gilroy."

  The Staff Sergeant hastened to ease his colonel's mind. "Gilroy went through the scout sniper school before I came on board, but he is one hell of a fine shot. Shoots on some of the teams off and on and would like to be here as an instructor."

  "Do we want him, Clicker?"

  "I don't, Colonel Rock. Gilroy is a complainer who thinks he is the best when he isn't really qualified for the first team. His attitude is a pain in the ass, and I haven't seen any teaching skills at all."

  Bell pondered a moment. "Gilroy is one of those competition shooters who thinks because he can punch a lot of bulls eyes he is therefore a sniper. I have seen him work on other demonstrations, and he does not practice good techniques in scouting or intelligence gathering. On top of not being a team player, I don't see any future for him in our business."

  Rock dropped Gilroy, and they spoke of other things. His part done, Staff Sergeant Bell left to rejoin his snipers.

  Colonel Maynard mused a little. "I wonder if I could have Bell for a couple of weeks at our sniper school at Fort Benning. It could give our people a shot in the arm, and we need it right now."

  "You involved with the sniper school, Colonel?" The Marine thought a full colonel was pretty high even for the army to use in a school.

  "Not directly, but I happen to be the ranking bull colonel in the entire US Army, so I get a suggestion through once in a while."

  Maynard's laugh was rueful. "Knowing that I am not going to get a star probably embarrasses some of my old friends who made general, so they throw me an occasional bone."

  Maynard again chuckled. "Won't matter much longer, anyway. I'm due to retire during this coming winter, and in some wa
ys I am looking forward to it"

  The drive back to Washington would consume about eight hours, but Greg Maynard had much to consider. He doubted anyone would even read his short report on the defeat of the thermal unit, but that set him to thinking along familiar lines.

  Suppose the Marines landing at Tarawa, back in the big war, had faced a couple of hundred dug-in marksmen like Clicker Bell, or even that Gilroy? Men who could kill with virtually every shot they fired. Could the landing have succeeded when each rifle took down a Marine each time it fired? Horrendous!

  Those who believed that snipers could not change battles relied on history—where, if facts were faced, well trained and properly equipped snipers had never been employed or used in significant numbers.

  Maynard reviewed all of the battles that came to mind. Nope, no army anywhere or at any time had ever made full and proper use of scout snipers. Hell, no army had ever had enough trained snipers to employ if they had so chosen.

  Interesting. Here he was, the senior Colonel in the United States Army, still discovering the usefulness of snipers. That demonstrated how little emphasis had been placed on sniping.

  Well, the Marines knew and were doing something about it. It was time the army caught up.

  That Clicker Bell. The Marines would probably move Bell into a warrant program, or at least they should. The Marines commissioned people out of the ranks, and Greg Maynard had followed that route in the army. He believed having former enlisted men as commissioned officers was good for the service.

  Sniper One they had tagged Clicker Bell. Catchy phrasing.

  The Marines were good at PR. During the Vietnam War it was claimed that the Marines had a photographer assigned to every squad.

  When they read the papers, the army sometimes wondered if they were even in-country. It seemed as if the Marine Corps got all the headlines.

  Well, in the sniping field the Marines had deserved credit. Although the army had ferried a couple of high ranking non-coms hill-to-hill to run-up high kill records, it was recognized that those shooters got confirmation about every time they pulled a trigger whether they hit anybody or not. Marine snipers had been the real deal in Vietnam.

  Sniping occupied Greg Maynard's thoughts most of the way to the Pentagon. He submitted his report and wrote a lengthy opinion piece, but nothing came of it.

  Chapter 2

  February 1991

  The Western Iraqi Desert

  The five man team had been in place for two weeks. Their hide, dug into a convenient earth mound, overlooked an Iraqi installation a short mile and a half away. A dirt air strip that continued into infinity baked two miles to the south, but no aircraft had landed since the team's arrival.

  The Marines' M-49 spotting scope could handily determine the activities of the soldiers manning a primitive radar set-up. The observers watched them kick their soccer ball and visit their pit latrine.

  As there were only eight Iraqis, most of them had been given nicknames for handy identification. One whose sloppy dress was clear even from great distance was called "Rags." A soldier whose carriage was so erect that he seemed to lean backwards was known as "The Back," and a figure that made repeated trips to the latrine was, of course, pegged as "The Bowel."

  Interesting to the Marines was that the Iraqi officer in charge was a major. The only individual who was saluted, the commander's rank had been determined by a careful, close-in recon where the leader's shoulder boards could be read. Far too much rank for such an insignificant outpost, the Marines believed.

  To the best of the team's knowledge, there were no other Iraqis within a hundred miles, and the only vehicle arriving or departing was a single truck that humped water and rations to the radar site. The truck arrived, unloaded, and departed. The round trip consumed three days.

  The Marines located the Iraqi radio band, but none could speak the language, so although they occasionally tuned in, they did not listen. They could hope to detect increased chatter that might indicate something unusual, but so far there had been nothing. Batteries were conserved by limiting listening.

  The Marines took no chances on the Iraqis triangulating their radio signal, and the only calls out were the mandatory, once-a-day check-in reports. Occasionally, the radio was switched to air traffic, and the team was able to glimpse at least a small part of what the military world was doing.

  The team had been dropped off nearly ten miles to the south during the darkest of night. They had hustled north to the general area of their objective and had stayed hidden within the hard sand hills during daylight. Beneath their individual camouflage they rested as best they could in the killing heat while their leader determined where to establish permanent residence.

  Team leader, Staff Sergeant Clicker Bell, had spent the least torrid hours of the first day finding what he wanted. Then he explained in detail what they would do.

  Bell's plan was simple. He had chosen a knobby hill among hundreds of others that overlooked the site they had come to watch. Bell's hill provided covered approaches from the rear and a wind-scrubbed hollow which could store a lot of dirt that would not be noticed unless stepped upon.

  The team tore into the back of the mound with their entrenching combination tools. The earth was covered by a thick layer of drifted sand, but then the ground became sand that had apparently packed itself for a thousand or so years, and the pick end of the tools were used to chop it free.

  The hollow intended for dirt storage was prepared by carefully removing the surface sand and storing it to one side. That sand would later be used to disguise the alterations of the natural contours. Excavated earth was muscled to the hollow and dumped in.

  There was little conversation, and one man rested while acting as security for the team. The hole went in swiftly, and someone chuckled when a digger noted that there were no stones and no roots. If compared to the clay of Camp Lejeune, not bad digging.

  The night was bitter cold, and the Marine rotated to security was pleased to return to the digging and carrying, but when the sun again crept above the horizon the heat returned with fury, and there was no longer any comfort. The diggers swore and plugged away.

  Except for Corporal Todd Gilroy, there was little complaint. Gilroy twice commented that they should rest during the day or they would get too worn out.

  Clicker Bell ignored the first comment. Gilroy always complained. Listening to Gilroy's "better ways" went with having him along. When Bell had been assigned his men, he had requested Gilroy's replacement by someone more tolerable for long periods of close living, but trained men were in extremely short supply, and Gilroy was included.

  Bell did not overlook the Corporal's second remark. He halted the work and gathered the workers close. The security remained at his post.

  Bell said, "I don't intend to explain most things, but I want this team to function as a unit without a lot of this-and-that back and forth."

  Bell looked directly at Corporal Gilroy.

  "The situation is that we are tearing up ground. Anything flying over might notice. If the people we are to watch send out patrols, they might stumble onto what we are doing. What we have to do is get underground as fast as we can and disguise everything we have done the best we can.

  "In case anyone did not understand what I explained last night, here is what we are going to do just as fast as we can do it.

  "We are going to punch a hole clear through this mound of dirt. Then we are going to enlarge the inside by going sideways and down until we have room for everybody and all of our gear.

  "Next, we will smooth out all of our dirt spoil and make it look like the rest of this desert. We will do that by re-spreading the surface sand on top of our landfill, which is different in color and texture than the hard stuff we are digging out."

  The Staff Sergeant paused to study his group. "Now, I don't intend to repeat this gathering. Move dirt, and move it fast. We will rest when we have room inside."

  Four men digging in firm sand made rapid pro
gress. Part way through the mound, Bell decided that it would be easier to enlarge the inside before punching on through. The hole facing the Iraqi installation would be small, barely large enough for viewing, and getting that just right could use a little extra consideration.

  Work became clumsy in the dark, and they rested more often. It was far warmer within their enlarged tunnel than it was outside, and when Bell ordered sleep they chose to collapse on their work. All slept like stones, one man being wakened by the Marine on security to serve a two hour guard tour before waking his relief. Staff Sergeant Bell took his turn and knew with certainty that Corporal Gilroy was hoping he would not, so that the Corporal could mutter darkly—out of Bell's hearing—that in these conditions the guy in charge should pull his share of guard duty.

  Since completing their hide, the team had watched the Iraqis. They had discovered nothing. The Iraqis poked around, and the old fashioned radar antenna swept the sky. The team's radio kept them in touch with the progress of the campaign dubbed Desert Shield, and they all believed that very shortly the might of the allied forces would be launched against Iraq. Then, maybe something important would happen.

  Every fourth day, three of the team returned to their original drop point for resupply. The hike was an easy ten mile walk in the dark and the dawn followed by a brutal daylight slogging return bogged by all that they could carry. Traveling in daylight held danger, but the team's full strength could be needed at the radar site, and so far the trackless desert had remained empty.

  Water was the main cargo. Each man packed a full five gallon can on his back, and each pack included one case of Meals Ready to Eat. Fresh batteries were tucked here and there.

  Among them, the Marines managed two more extra water cans. The trick was to walk abreast with the middle man gripping a water can handle in each fist. The outside men each grasped the other handle on a water can, and off they went. Corporal Gilroy went once and complained that without security scouting they were sitting ducks for anyone wanting to take them out.