by Chris Martin
But in a bit of serendipity, those skills actually got Kyle thrown into the fight ahead of his platoon. The rest of CHARLIE was sent off to the Philippines to pull some foreign internal defense duty before heading back to the war. However, Kyle was recalled early to flex those newly acquired PowerPoint and map-reading muscles.
Awaiting him in Baghdad in September of ’04 was a temporary assignment with Task Unit Thunder. GROM’s early success in Iraq had made it a valued contributor to CJSOTF-AP and a popular dance partner for coalition special operation units.
Retired GROM operator Naval said, “Modern war requires more precision and special units are the answers. The level of engagement has increased, obviously. It wasn’t only the counterterrorism, but also to combat the most important enemies, such as personality identification playing cards [the Deck of 55]—the most-wanted members of Hussein’s government. I think GROM became more versatile in that sense.”
During this time, GROM also developed a close working relationship with the U.S. Navy SEALs. “I started working with the SEALs during the Second Persian Gulf War in spring of 2002, before the invasion of Iraq,” Naval explained. “We were part of the MIF—Multinational Interception Forces. We were responsible for taking over weapons and oil. At that time both GROM and SEALs had two boarding teams that during one night could take over as many as eleven ships. This was, I feel, the time when a strong kinship between GROM and Navy SEALs was born. That was also great training that enabled both sides to work together smoothly at the start of the Iraq War.
“The next time we worked together was for over a year in Iraq. The GROM and SEALs lived together in Compound Pozzi, named after the oldest SEAL then, and we were one task force.”
While Kyle worked alongside GROM on his first deployment, it wasn’t until this assignment that he was actually integrated into the unit. He was assigned to Combat Team B—technically the naval section of GROM, although in practice, the distinction that separates Combat Team B from its land-centric counterpart, Combat Team A, is somewhat fluid.
This could have been viewed as an outstanding opportunity to run with some of the most highly trained gunfighters in the world as they took down targets in Mosul and Sadr City—that is, if he wasn’t confined to the vehicle, mapping out escape routes while the assault team was crashing through doorways and gunning down terrorists.
After a week on the job, however, the Polish operators invited the big Texan to join the stack. And for the next three weeks, he was clearing rooms as an honorary member of GROM.
“I met Chris briefly in September of 2004,” the GROM assaulter said, while noting their interaction was somewhat limited because “snipers prefer their own company.”
“He wasn’t known then yet as the best American sniper. But like any SEAL operator, Chris was highly professional, and like any good sniper, incredibly precise. From the moment you met him, you had a feeling he could be your best friend and he never let you feel inferior. I think we all had that impression of him.”
The fact that he was not just welcomed by GROM to share some post-op vodka, but actually given a spot in their stack during raids, spoke highly of their confidence in the SEAL, as life and death under those conditions are separated by millimeters and milliseconds.
“Only the best were introduced to join the other group,” Naval says. “You can say that meant Chris’s work was of the highest standard. He wouldn’t be asked to join the team otherwise.”
* * *
In late 2004, even with the nation at large erupting into anarchy and hellish violence, there was no pit worse than Fallujah.
Following the First Battle of Fallujah, it’s estimated another 170,000 occupants fled the city as they sought to escape the even more apocalyptic showdown heading in their direction. This reduced its population to around a tenth of the 320,000 who had called the city home some months earlier, leaving only the most ardent and fanatical of the resistance.
After Operation Vigilant Resolve had been halted following a partial advance, a truce was called and the town council agreed to contain and eliminate its population of insurgents. However, the newly erected Fallujah Brigade meant to uphold this promise crumpled almost immediately.
Months later, Fallujah had only grown more foul, which demanded a more definitive conflict to retake the city. Operation Phantom Fury was set to sweep the city, building by building, in an attempt to root out and decimate the city’s insurgent presence, which included the suspected headquarters of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
By this time Zarqawi had become an even more highly prioritized target than Osama bin Laden, tagged with a $25 million bounty on his head.
A total of 13,500 coalition troops, consisting of two USMC Regimental Combat Teams (assembled around the 1st and 7th Marine Regiments), the Army’s 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division and 1st Squadron, 124th Cavalry, 36th Infantry Division, and a collection of British and Iraqi forces encircled the city in late November.
Some four thousand of the most fanatical, self-medicated, and well-prepared terrorists imaginable awaited the advance. The city had been rendered little more than a battleground in waiting. With the residents gone, the insurgents transformed the city into a mammoth den of traps, turning entire buildings into remotely detonated IEDs, building rat tunnels between rooms, and generally setting the conditions to kill as many poor Marines and soldiers brave or foolish enough to set foot inside the city.
The result would be the bloodiest battle America has waged since the Vietnam War.
During the First Battle of Fallujah, Marine platoons were augmented by the inclusion of a small number of Delta Force snipers, whose skill and leadership significantly enhanced the team’s combat effectiveness.
A similar approach was taken for the Second Battle of Fallujah, this time with SEAL sniper elements. Snipers from Teams Three, Five, and Eight were called upon to integrate with the Marine assault group and were let off the leash at last.
By this time, Kyle had already seen combat. He took part in a handful of notable operations during his first deployment and came to Fallujah fresh off a month of on-the-job training, hitting buildings in Sadr City with some of the world’s preeminent practitioners of CQB.
However, he had never seen anything like this. Few had.
* * *
As Operation Phantom Fury opened, Kyle and his small joint SEAL/USMC sniper element set up a hide in an apartment tower complex to serve as overwatch for the Marines below.
Looking down from on high, a sniper can influence the outcome of a battle without firing a shot. Kyle explained, “You’re their eyes and ears. You’re their early warning system. And you’re feeding them the intel. There’s no embedded intel out there, so you’re telling them all the details. When your boys roll up, it’s like they’ve been practicing on it because they know it inside and out. Most times as a sniper you don’t take a shot. It’s for your boys to come in, do their hit, and get out without a shot being fired and you’re just covering them. If they get in and get out, you sneak back out. Your job’s been done outstandingly.”
Of course, “most times” in Fallujah weren’t exactly representative of “most times” elsewhere. Here, plenty of shots would be fired.
As the battle took shape, Kyle and his fellow snipers gradually moved deeper and deeper into the city. First they traded their apartment view outside the city proper for buildings just behind the front lines. And then they started sneaking out in front of the Marine advance.
The SEAL snipers would routinely take down a building in a prime location and then transform it to a combination sniper hide/defensive position.
While considerably more dangerous, this scheme also presented a great deal more opportunities, as they took the insurgents attempting to maneuver into fighting positions completely by surprise.
Unlike his first deployment, Kyle was well and truly in it now. He found himself involved in multiple pitched battles and dropped numerous targets. At one point, he even stood f
ace-to-face with an equally surprised enemy combatant when a wall that had separated them was erased by an explosion. Not surprisingly, the big Texan won the pistol draw at high noon.
On another occasion, in an act of bravery that would seem painfully clichéd by Hollywood standards were it not the real deal, Kyle rushed through a hail of gunfire, laid down cover so two embedded reporters and a Marine could escape, and then dragged a gravely wounded Marine to safety. All the while, bullets and shrapnel tore through the air around them, including a grenade fragment that struck Chris’s leg.
For that selfless display he would be awarded one of the five Bronze Stars for valor he would ultimately earn, in addition to two Silver Stars, by the time his SEAL career came to an end.
* * *
Left at that, Chris Kyle was a certified hero of the Second Battle of Fallujah. However, in reality, he had barely begun to fight.
With the insurgents digging in—both in order to prepare for the Marine assaults and to avoid the continued sniper onslaught—Kyle offered his room-clearing talents to the Marines.
Without informing his commanding officers, the SEAL pulled himself from overwatch and slotted in with the Marines. The infantrymen had been engaging in some of the most vicious, harrowing urban combat since Operation Gothic Serpent went south in Mogadishu in 1993, and they could use all the help and expertise they could get.
In Iraq, operators from Delta Force had found their calling doggedly hunting down the most dangerous men in the world, men like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who, incidentally, had slipped out of Fallujah shortly before the battle and proved an elusive target for some time afterward).
Kyle, meanwhile, found his purpose serving as an unwavering protector of his fellow servicemen no matter the odds. Whether they were SEALs, soldiers, or Marines, the Texan was relentlessly—arguably recklessly—selfless in risking his own life to come to the aid of others. But no matter how ill-conceived it may have seemed in the moment, he proved time and time again that he had the skills to back up that unlimited courage.
He traded his .300 Win Mag for a Marine-issued M16 (and later, an M4 he borrowed from another SEAL), and for weeks, he trained up the Marines whenever they had a breather. And then, when they were back on the clock, he led them through the breach and to the absolutely brutal close quarters combat that awaited them.
When the tide of the battle turned, he placed himself back in overwatch. And he later reinserted himself with the team on the ground when he deemed it the best place to watch over the guys he placed under his care. Wherever he could issue the most damage on the insurgents while best defending the troops—that’s where he was going to be.
Considering his experience in the aforementioned Battle of Mogadishu, Howard Wasdin’s words carry serious weight on the matter. Reflecting on Kyle’s actions in Fallujah, Wasdin said, “Chris pulling himself from overwatch is one of the most selfless things I’ve ever heard of. My knowledge of the way urban warfare was in Somalia … I assume it was every bit as bad in Fallujah. That’s definitely going above and beyond, giving up an overwatch position like that. That goes right back to the fact that people don’t become SEAL snipers to be tough guys; they do it for love and country. For Chris to do that, that exemplifies exactly who SEALs are.
“He didn’t have to do that. That’s not just showing love for your country, that’s showing love for those guys that need your help.”
Eric Davis, Kyle’s SEAL sniper mentor, said, “I could have argued, ‘Chris, you’re risking your life and you’re going to take a sniper off the battlefield, and a sniper is much more valuable.’ But then you have Chris Kyle going, ‘No, this is the way it is.’
“My argument holds up for 99 percent of the population, but for a guy like Chris—again, not arrogant but confident—Chris knows who he is. He knows he’s not 99 percent of the SEAL Teams. He is who he is. ‘I can do this, therefore, I should do this.’ That’s out of the box. He’s existing on a plane that other people don’t exist at.
“I think that’s down to him being clear on his ultimate purpose. When you understand why you’re doing something, it’s different. When he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go with you Marines—let’s go kick down doors and train together,’ he was not there to be famous. He was not there to get the most kills. He was not there because he’s bloodthirsty. He was there to save Marines’ lives, and he was going to do whatever he needed to do to do that. Most people would have been like, ‘Yeah, you guys have got it—I’m out—I’m going to get lunch.’ But that’s the difference between a story and a legend.”
* * *
Chris Kyle’s exploits during the Second Battle of Fallujah served as the basis for his nickname, “the Legend.” It was initially meant in a mocking fashion to keep his ego in check, but he would come to embody it so thoroughly that it stuck.
He wasn’t alone in his heroism. During the Second Battle of Fallujah three servicemen were awarded the Navy Cross, the second highest award for military valor.
Delta’s snipers were silently back in the hunt. So too were GROM’s snipers whom the CIA reportedly found particularly useful for the lowered threshold their rules of engagement allowed—a mere cell phone and a broken curfew were enough for the Polish marksmen to engage according to Priest and Arkin’s Top Secret America.
Kyle’s Navy SEAL brothers certainly acquitted themselves well, playing a significant role in the victory despite their limited numbers. That sort of courage under fire—especially the unflinching bravery demonstrated by the Texan day after day—is never a certainty until put to the ultimate test.
Even some SEALs fail when their very survival is in doubt. In his memoir, American Sniper, Kyle harshly described one such case, a SEAL he refers to as “Runaway.” According to Kyle, Runaway fled from combat three times, leaving the Texan in the lurch each time.
American Sniper also tells a very different sort of tale—myriad stories involving hazing inside the Teams. These range from humorous to horrifying—and usually more than a little of both.
While they may seem unrelated, Kyle claimed that while rituals may seem cruel and sophomoric on the surface, they are done for the genuine betterment of the Team. Even if not every “Runaway” can be identified and weeded out before they put their fellow SEALs in jeopardy, the bulk of them are, in fact, run off by a necessarily ruthless pack.
“No matter what unit you’re in, there’s going to be turds,” Chris said. “There’s going to be turds in Six. There’s going to be turds in Delta. In every unit there’s going to be a turd.…
“We kicked one out my first deployment. He was a turd. He was a turd all through BUD/S. He was a cocky, arrogant guy, and he struggled. He almost quit several times. He cried during BUD/S but always came off like, ‘Oh, BUD/S was easy.’ It’s like, ‘Dude, you’re the guy that was crying in the corner. We stopped you from quitting. I should have let you do it.’
“Looking back at BUD/S, they’re trying to push teamwork. So you’re all like, ‘Oh, don’t do it, man.’ In BUD/S, I should have gone, ‘Yeah, go do it. Go right over there. Please.’ I should’ve been pushing him. We kicked him out when we got to the Team because he was an underachiever, couldn’t perform. So the platoon kicked him. [Last I heard] he was pumping gas in Norfolk.
“We’re all like the sharks in the water. As soon as you smell blood, you find a weakness on somebody. Even if he’s a good guy, you find a weakness on him, you’re going to harp on it. But if you find a guy who is just weak, then everybody starts circling because you want to get rid of him. He’s going to kill you downrange—so shit-can him.
“But it’s good because it also makes you tougher. You’re not only getting it, but you’re giving it. You’re part of a tough love family.”
* * *
A total of 107 coalition troops were killed in the Second Battle of Fallujah and another 613 wounded. Estimates place the number of insurgents killed in the neighborhood of twelve hundred or more.
In his first significant utilization a
s a sniper, Chris Kyle accounted for forty of those enemy KIAs himself (which doesn’t take into account his time spent “in the shit,” exchanging lead at high speed across contested living rooms).
While the Iraq War presented warfighters and politicians alike with an impossibly complex reality to suss out, the SEAL had no problem mentally simplifying it. It was beautifully black-and-white as far as he was concerned.
Ba’athists, Salafi jihadists, Sunni nationalists, Shia death squads, what have you—however different their backstories and motivations may have been according to the historians and the politicians, to Kyle, as long as they were actively attempting to kill American troops, they were the enemy. They were “savages.” And they would all be dealt with in the same manner.
The resolute Texan also had precious little difficulty rationalizing or justifying his actions. Chris fired his weapon with absolute conviction. He not only admitted to being rather good at this grim occupation, he loved it.
He was not without feeling; he felt the losses of friendly forces all too deeply and was plagued by crippling guilt at times. However, that guilt was reserved for those he couldn’t save—not for those he sent to the grave. That he did with an unclouded conscience.
It’s nearly impossible for most—especially those who have not been in combat—to put themselves in the place of a man who has taken so many human lives—guilty, innocent, good, evil, or otherwise—and gauge how they’d deal.
The daily struggles of those who have endured the horrors of combat are painfully apparent in today’s society. Post-traumatic stress is increasingly recognized as a crisis reaching epidemic proportions—the fallout absorbed by those who have served a nation that has now been at war for nearly fifteen years in succession. On any given day, an average of twenty-two veterans take their own lives, irrevocably destroyed by their time spent in combat.
