Modern American Snipers

by Chris Martin

  The two Delta recce operators killed an estimated twenty-five assailants before making the ultimate sacrifice. With no one left to protect him, Durant was beaten savagely, but taken hostage rather than murdered. He was later released and lived to tell the tales of the heroism he saw that day.

  Despite being in different Sabre Squadrons, retired Delta Force assaulter Larry Vickers—who took part in A Squadron’s successful rescue of Kurt Muse a few years earlier—knew both Gordon and Shughart from their shared time in the Unit together.

  Vickers said, “Gary was more of a hard charger while Randy was a real quiet, reserved guy. They were both well-liked dudes. The thought process was always—no one will ever know this for sure because they are both dead—but Gary was kind of the one who would jump first and ask questions later and that’s almost possibly what got them in the situation they were in with Durant. That’s neither here nor there, that’s speculation.

  “But the reality is, that’s just an example of the kind of courage and sacrifice you’ll find inside the Unit. It could have been any two guys to go down there, but those guys actually did it. They saw what was going on and they saw that things were going sour and made the request three times.”

  After Gordon and Shughart were on the ground and battling to save Durant, Super 6-1 too was hit with an RPG. Brad Halling—the Delta sniper who remained aboard the Black Hawk to man its minigun after a crew chief was injured—had his leg torn off in the resultant explosion, which also rendered Captain Francis Yacone unconscious. CW3 Mike Goffena somehow managed to set the Black Hawk down in a controlled crash in the safety of a nearby port facility.

  * * *

  Ultimately, eighteen American servicemen were killed and another seventy-three wounded in the day-long clash. Additionally, a Malaysian soldier was killed and a handful of Malaysian and Pakistani troops were wounded in the QRF rescue.

  Estimates place the enemy losses anywhere from five hundred to three thousand.

  The American public—the vast majority of whom were unaware of any military action taking place—were aghast to turn on CNN and see images of the mutilated, naked corpses of Delta snipers Gordon and Shughart dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

  The hunt for Aidid was promptly canceled and the men returned home soon afterward.

  While a Delta Force assaulter who took part in the battle considered it an overwhelming victory (“one of the most one-sided battles in American history”), it only served to cement the United States’ unwillingness to proactively use its most elite troops.

  General Peter Shoomaker, a onetime Delta Force squadron commander who succeeded Gen. Garrison as JSOC commander just months after the Battle of Mogadishu, lamented, “It was like having a brand-new Ferrari in the garage, and nobody wants to race it because you might dent the fender.”

  Meanwhile, the fallout also emboldened emerging terrorist networks, who termed the nation a “paper tiger” that would shirk whenever its nose was bloodied.

  According to The 9/11 Commission Report, President Clinton openly dreamed of sending JSOC after bin Laden ahead of the September 11 attacks. Speaking to Gen. Hugh Shelton, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Clinton said, “You know, it would scare the shit out of al-Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into the middle of their camp.”

  He was right, although the United States was institutionally unwilling to take such bold action with its world-leading collection of “ninjas,” still haunted by the failures of the past. Even as America fell under an increasing threat, not once during the ’80s or ’90s was Delta Force or DEVGRU sent to hunt down terrorists.

  It would take a massive occurrence to change that mindset.

  That something massive came on September 11, 2001.

  * * *

  Delta Force snipers Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the first recipients since the Vietnam War. They also both had naval vessels, the USNS Gordon and USNS Shughart, named in their honor.

  Captain James Francis Yacone was awarded the Silver Star for braving intense enemy fire to Super 6-1 so that Gordon and Shughart could fast-rope to the rescue of Super 6-4.

  Unit sniper Brad Halling was fit with a prosthetic left leg. He mastered his new leg sufficiently to return to active duty, resuming his role as operator in one of the most physically demanding military units to ever exist. Halling left the Army with eighteen years of SOF experience under his belt to become a prosthetist. He now serves as president of Innovative Prosthetic Solutions.

  All four DEVGRU snipers were awarded the Silver Star for their actions in the Battle of Mogadishu.

  Sniper team leader Richard Kaiser returned to the fray after their three-vehicle convoy made an early return to base to race the wounded back for immediate care. That team—the so-called relief convoy—was joined by SEAL officer Eric Thor Olson, who was in Somalia merely to observe a JSOC task force in action in anticipation of taking command of DEVGRU in the following months. Olson borrowed body armor and a CAR-15 and braved the erupting city to come to the aid of the dozens who were trapped and under heavy fire. For that, Olson was also awarded a Silver Star.

  Kaiser had entered the Navy at the tender age of seventeen and served in the SEAL Teams from 1980 to 1990, the last five with DEVGRU. He took some time away while in the Enlisted Education Advancement Program (EEAO) and earned a bachelor’s degree before rejoining SEAL Team Six as a sniper in ’91.

  The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native served as the training chief for DEVGRU from ’93 to ’95 before assuming the role of DEVGRU sniper cell leader in 1997. And in that capacity he deployed to Bosnia to hunt down PIFWCs (Persons Indicted for War Crimes).

  Kaiser retired in August of 2000 following twenty-two years of active duty. However, he continued as a civilian government employee with DEVGRU, serving as ST6’s deputy operations officer from 2001 to 2012. He’s now the executive director of the Navy SEAL Museum.

  John Gay was spared serious injury when a bullet fired from an AK-47 deflected off his trademark oversized Randall Bowie knife. The blade shattered but Gay was only left with superficial wounds. He hoped to cash in with a knife endorsement but was denied—much to his teammates’ amusement. Gay continued with SEAL Team Six long past Operation Gothic Serpent, serving well into his forties.

  Howard Wasdin recuperated from his serious leg injuries and returned to DEVGRU, but he medically retired a short while later. Besides becoming a bestselling author of titles such as SEAL Team Six and The Last Rescue, Wasdin also found a second life as a chiropractor.

  “People always ask how you go from being a SEAL sniper to being a chiropractor,” he noted with a laugh. “I tell them it’s the exact same job; I just put people out of their misery in a different way now.”

  3

  Ground Truth

  The wisdom gleaned by Homer Nearpass in Somalia was directly called upon as the Joint Special Operations Command was at last sicced upon its enemies following the devastation of 9/11 and the nation’s requisite monumental shift in mentality.

  This did not occur as quickly as one might assume. Jawbreaker—an initial advance team of Central Intelligence Agency officers sent to Afghanistan in the weeks following the attacks—requested a JSOC component; however, that request was denied. Much to Delta Force’s dismay, military leaders deemed the assignment lacking in clarity and overly risky.

  The CIA, joined later by Army Special Forces, took the reins to spearhead a classic (if technologically sophisticated) unconventional warfare campaign that toppled the Taliban. Meanwhile, Delta operators waited for weeks to at last receive orders to set off after Osama bin Laden and his chief associates (and DEVGRU even longer than that).

  JSOC, then commanded by Gen. Dell Dailey, finally established an HVT-hunting presence known as Task Force Sword, at the recently seized and converted Bagram Airfield in late October 2001.

  Initially fronted by Delta’s B Squadron, Dailey’s strategy was to prestag
e the bulk of Task Force Sword’s direct action forces at the base so that they could be immediately launched for kill-or-capture missions in the event of an HVT spotting.

  However, there was a much smaller component of the task force, known as AFO (Advance Force Operations), that actively attempted to root out these targeted elements.

  AFO actualized the leadership philosophies of its commander, Lt. Col. Pete Blaber. “Imagine the unimaginable,” “when in doubt, develop the situation,” and “always listen to the guy on the ground,” were among AFO’s central tenets in 2001 as it scoured hundreds of thousands of square miles with a force of less than fifty men divvied up into six teams.

  The amorphous, proactive initiative was a bespoke effort meant to exploit the unique strategic reconnaissance skill sets contained within the rank of JSOC’s sniper teams. AFO was only loosely defined and each team was adaptable and independent—self-organized and then self-operated to best suit its particular set of circumstances.

  Nearpass was Blaber’s right-hand man as these recce teams sprawled across Afghanistan. Now close to forty, the venerable DEVGRU sniper still regularly flashed the same fearless grin he displayed to his enemies in Mogadishu. His unflappable attitude and dedication proved to serve Blaber well in offering up his no-nonsense advice and counsel … well, maybe with just a touch of nonsense at the appropriate times.

  “Homer is tireless and dedicated in his attention to detail,” recalled Wasdin. “He’s never going to stop. After the day was done, Homer would still be working on his field sketches or redoing his DOPE notes. He would get up at three o’clock in the morning and go for an eight-mile run … I never did that. You’ve got to respect that.”

  Effusive in his praise, Nearpass’s former shooting partner continued, “You never had to worry about him being thorough and sniping is an exact science. Some guys get to be snipers by busting their hump and putting in the work. There are others that just have a lot of talent. I was probably more talent than busting my hump to be honest. And then there’s that combination, guys who have the talent and who put in the work to be an elite sniper. Homer had equal measures of both.”

  And Nearpass’s USMC Scout Sniper Course schoolmates got a small preview of his ability to keep on smiling when the world is falling apart around him.

  Following an especially difficult day in which almost the entire class failed their stalk, the class collectively hung their heads in the film room, readying for a United States Marine Corps–caliber browbeating from the instructor. The projector kicked on and threw light up onto the screen at the front of the class. On it appeared Nearpass’s silhouette, which suddenly broke into full Flashdance mode.

  “We all busted out laughing,” Wasdin recalled. “It really lightened the mood and then everybody got themselves squared away. It was one of those things you just can’t plan. You have to be in tune to when to do it and when not to and that was Homer’s gift. He could keep it light. If there was a tense situation, Homer always had a good way of dissipating it.”

  * * *

  In December 2001, an high-value target worthy of the larger task force was thought to be pinpointed. And not just any HVT, HVT-1—Osama bin Laden himself.

  “UBL” in military parlance, bin Laden was believed to have taken refuge in Tora Bora, the cave complex stronghold in the White Mountains that had served the Mujahideen so well in their long existential struggle against the Soviets.

  Delta’s B Squadron had just been rotated out of country to make room for A Squadron, which readily accepted the challenge of bagging bin Laden.

  While JSOC was in country and on the hunt, it was still hampered by risk-averse decision making. While the public, the politicians, and military generals demanded results, the men they expected to actually deliver them were not consistently afforded the full authority or support required to make that a reality.

  Though an overwhelming tactical victory, the Battle for Tora Bora ultimately failed in its chief goal of neutralizing bin Laden, foiled by mechanisms well above the pay grade of the men on the ground.

  Multiple operational plans made by the Unit were rejected, including a brazen scheme to scale the fourteen-thousand-foot peaks that border Pakistan in order to shock a trapped al-Qaeda from behind.

  Too much faith was placed on the efforts of ambiguous allies—some local (Afghani tribal militias more concerned with their own power struggle than the elimination of al-Qaeda or the Taliban) and others international (Pakistan was gifted the princely sum of $1 billion in new economic aid in exchange for sealing off the border, which was later judged to have been executed in a halfhearted fashion—at best).

  Finally, according to Senator John Kerry’s 2009 report, “Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today,” the critical—and repeated—request that the campaign be rounded out with the addition of a 75th Ranger Regiment battalion was denied by order of JSOC commander Dailey and CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks.

  Despite these crippling limitations, A Squadron managed to kill scores of al-Qaeda fighters and send the terrorist network into disarray. It did so following the same underlying game plan that Blaber’s AFO put into practice: leveraging the abilities of Delta’s recce snipers.

  Augmented by CIA paramilitary officers and contractors, a small team of British Special Boat Service (SBS) commandos, and Army SF soldiers, the Delta Force snipers assumed the lead role in executing devastating terminal guidance operations (TGO), i.e., directing air strikes via laser and GPS guidance.

  Multiple snipers made crucial contributions to the campaign. This was largely made possible by their advanced mountaineering training, as they conquered the terrain to identify observation posts and then utilize them to locate entrenched enemy positions and rain down death in the form of hundreds of thousands of pounds of ordnance over three consecutive days.

  They took a more hands-on approach as well. Recce operators led multiple surveillance missions up the mountain to close in on their adversary’s ranks, while also delivering precision fire of their own; one Delta sniper made a (unconfirmed and previously unreported) kill with a .50-caliber sniper rifle at an astonishing range of twenty-five hundred yards—among the longest in the history of warfare.

  * * *

  Among the recce operators who demonstrated proficiency and bravery beyond any realistic expectation was sniper team leader Sean “Scrawnee” Walker.

  Walker’s legend inside the world of special operations had been secured more than a decade earlier.

  In December of 1989, he may have already seemed like an old hat by most standards with seven years of service with the 75th Ranger Regiment under his belt, but he was still a relatively inexperienced operator, less than a year removed from OTC—Delta Force’s initial half-year-plus Operator Training Course that takes accomplished soldiers and transforms them into world-class commandos.

  That night the young assaulter was assigned a position on a roof alongside the Unit’s snipers. Their task was to provide overwatch security while an element breached the Carcel Modelo prison in Panama City to rescue imprisoned American citizen Kurt Muse.

  Inserted by a 160th SOAR MH-6 Little Bird and armed with an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (the fire-breathing machine gun’s first real test in combat), Walker proceeded to unleash nine hundred rounds and two grenades to decimate a heavy reinforcement force as Muse was pulled from his cell. In less than six minutes, Walker racked up fifty-five confirmed kills, earning himself the apt nickname “the Punisher” in the process.

  Four years later, Walker would join the snipers again—this time as a member of the recce troop himself, having traded in the M249 for an M14 (and later, an SR-25). There he would remain for the next eleven years, adding significantly to that invaluable unbroken continuity of experience.

  During that time he would deploy to Somalia, Bosnia, and elsewhere—adding Operation Just Cause, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Fervent Archer, and Operation Relentless Pursuit to his résumé while ear
ning multiple Bronze Stars with “V” devices for valor in little-known operations—before finally arriving in Afghanistan as one of the recce troop’s most seasoned operators.

  Alternately dubbed “Scrawnee” despite boasting the shredded physique of a professional bodybuilder, Walker distinguished himself yet again during the Battle of Tora Bora.

  As part of Jackal Team, Walker and two other snipers negotiated a seemingly impassable vertical rock cliff to claim a superior vantage point of the mountainous battlefield—among the closest Task Force Sword would attain throughout the clash. Once in position, he called in precision air strikes old-school-style, using just a compass and his experience to obliterate DShK heavy machine gun and al-Qaeda (AQ) personnel positions over the following two days. When an AQ patrol narrowed down on their prime location, Scrawnee and the other snipers scrambled over the side of the cliff to its rock walls to avoid discovery.

  Ultimately, his actions at Tora Bora would earn him another Bronze Star.

  The intensity of the overwhelming firepower was seemingly too much for bin Laden, whose frantic communication with his followers was intercepted by the DoD’s SIGINT wizards at the Intelligence Support Activity. Wounded and desperate, an apologetic bin Laden was heard granting his followers permission to surrender while he expected his death was fast approaching.

  As it turned out, he would escape that fate for almost a decade. After the battle, bin Laden’s condition and whereabouts were unknown for years. His death at Tora Bora was deemed a distinct possibility until he put an end to the mystery with the resumption of AQ’s propaganda campaign, praising America’s enemies and taunting his pursuers.

  Tora Bora turned out to be the last, best chance the United States had at vengeance for the entirety of the ’00s.

  * * *

  Following the frustrations of Tora Bora, Delta’s A Squadron’s deployment came to a premature halt. General Dailey replaced Delta’s Task Force Green with DEVGRU’s Task Force Blue. This made Red Squadron the primary direct action component of Task Force 11 (formerly Task Force Sword) and bypassed the Unit’s C Squadron in the process.