Sometimes previous stalkers leave a trail. The advantage of using their trail is that they already smashed down vegetation, saving precious seconds of easing each bush or blade of grass down.
Within three to four hours, we had to stalk a distance of 800 to 1,200 yards, arriving within 200 yards of the Observer in an OP. If the Observer spotted us with his spotter scope before we got within two hundred yards of our position, we only got forty points out of one hundred—failure.
If the Observer saw a bush move, he’d call one of the Walkers on the radio. “Walker, turn left. Go three yards. Stop. Turn right. One yard. Stop. Sniper at your feet.” Any sniper within a one-foot radius of the Walker was busted. Those who were busted usually hadn’t made it within 200 yards of him. The sniper stood up with his gun and walked to the bus. Fifty points—failure.
Upon reaching our final firing position, within 200 yards of the Observer, we had to set up our weapon and fire a blank at the Observer. If the sniper couldn’t properly ID the Observer, give correct windage or elevation, or shoot from a stable shooting platform, sixty points—failure. If we could do all that, but the Observer spotted the muzzle blast, he’d talk the Walker to our position and bust us. Seventy points—a minimum pass.
If the Observer didn’t see the shot, the Walker shouted out to the general area where he believed the sniper to be, “Fire the second shot!”
Most people got busted because the Observer saw brush movement from the muzzle blast on the second shot. Eighty points.
The final part of the stalk was to see if the sniper could observe a signal from the Observer. If the blast of the second shot moved the medium being shot through, such as twigs, grass, or whatever, and the sniper couldn’t see the Observer’s signal—ninety points.
“Target is patting himself on the head,” I said.
The Walker radioed the Observer, “Sniper says you’re patting yourself on top of the head.”
“Yep, good stalk. Stand up. Go to the bus.” Perfect stalk—one hundred points. We needed at least two perfect stalks out of ten, in addition to an overall average of 70 percent or better.
Even in fall, at 70 degrees, Quantico was still hot as hell while under the sun wearing a ghillie suit, pulling gear in a drag bag, and painstakingly creeping low on the ground. People dehydrated. After finishing the stalk, we had to go back and beat the bushes to find those who had passed out. We carried them back to the barracks.
Casanova and I stayed in a hotel room off base, while the marines stayed in the barracks across the street from sniper school. We were still on call. If our pagers went off and we had to bug out, we could leave without a lot of people wondering what was going on. Boy, we were prima donnas, having the best of everything—flying first class and renting a car for each pair of men. In our hotel room following a stalk, I had to check Casanova on the places he couldn’t check himself for ticks, which might cause Lyme disease. Left untreated, Lyme disease attacks the central nervous system. Casanova did the same for me. Nothing more intimate than having your buddy use tweezers to pull a tick out from around your anus.
It took me three or four stalks before the lights went on in my brain: Now I see what they’re trying to get me to do. Keep my overhead movement down. No shine, glare, or glitter. During one of my earlier stalks, I crept through a field of new wheatgrass. A kid came flying past me.
“Man, you’re moving too fast,” I whispered.
“I saw the Observer in my binoculars. He hasn’t had time to set up yet. I’m going to sprint up here and make up some distance before he starts looking for us.”
Dumb-ass.
He cut right in front of me—moving way too fast in a low crawl.
Damn.
“All snipers, freeze,” a Walker said.
We froze.
The Observer talked the Walker within a foot in front of me.
The kid was five feet ahead of me because he’d moved so fast.
“Sniper at your feet,” came the voice over the Walker’s radio.
“Yep. Stand up, Wasdin.”
You sonofabitch. What could I do? Go whining back to the instructor and say, “It really wasn’t me”?
Forty points. That hurt. Especially for the early stalks, every point mattered. I considered the possibility that I might fail because of this. It didn’t please me to imagine showing up at Dam Neck, Virginia, saying I failed sniper school.
Although the kid’s tactic was theoretically sound, doing it at my expense was unwise. Needless to say, I had a meeting with the kid back at the compound. “If you think that’s a good call because you see the instructor is not ready, you make it, but don’t you ever come crawling up beside me or in front of me like that again. If you get me busted again, we’re going to have a different type of conversation.”
He never made the same mistake again, and he graduated sniper school with my class.
Even after a sniper had enough points to pass, if he got busted on the same thing over and over, the instructors would fail him regardless of his score. Some guys failed because they couldn’t make their ghillie suit blend in with the environment around them.
Dude, we’ve had this class for a month now. We’ve been working on these suits since before we got to this course. Why can’t you go out there and look at the terrain and make your suit match it?
Some guys could make their suits match the environment but couldn’t stay flat. I saw so many asses in the air. Guys would crawl up next to a tree and think that the tree made them invisible. The instructors called it “tree cancer.” Their eyes would follow a tree down—linear, linear, bump at the bottom. What’s that tree got—a cancerous nodule there? Fail.
There was a lot more to sniping than just making a long-range shot. An Olympic shooter who could make the shot but couldn’t make the stalk wouldn’t be a sniper. At around stalks seven, eight, and nine, the instructors called out certain people. Even if those students could’ve made perfect scores on their final stalks, they wouldn’t have enough points to pass sniper school. We never saw them again.
I ended up with a total of eight hundred to eight hundred and fifty points out of one thousand—including the points I lost for the kid’s impatience.
Phase Three, Advanced Field Skills and Mission Employment, included a final op. Regardless of how well we did on the shooting range, sketches, KIM games, or stalks, we had to pass the final three-day op. The instructors expected a high level of maturity and independence from us. Snipers often work in pairs without direct supervision. They must be capable of making decisions themselves, which includes decisions to adapt in a fluid environment.
Under cover of night, during the final op, Casanova and I arrived at our FFP and made our sniper hide. First, we dug down four to six inches, carefully removed the topsoil and grass, and laid it to the side. Next, we dug a pit approximately 6' × 6' wide and 5' deep. At the bottom of the pit, Casanova and I dug a sump about 2' long, 1.5' wide, and 1' deep, sloped at 45 degrees to drain any rainwater or unwanted grenades. Also, to prevent the rain from caving in our hole, we lined the top rim of the pit with sandbags. Then we cleared away an area near the top of the hole where we could rest our elbows while spotting and sniping. After that, we covered our hole with logs, rain ponchos, rocks, dirt, and the sod we had placed to the side earlier. Finally, we created a rear exit hole, camouflaging it with fallen tree branches. Inside the exit hole, we placed a claymore mine to welcome any guests.
We kept a log of everything that went on at the target area, a house in the middle of nowhere with vehicles around it. A patrol walked over us but couldn’t see us. At one-hour intervals, Casanova and I alternated between spotting and sniping. We ate, slept, and relieved ourselves in the hole. The hard part was keeping one of us awake while the other slept. At night, we had to get out and go take a look at the back of the house. Listening to our radio at the designated time, we received a shoot window—the time frame for taking out the target: “The man in the red hat will appear at oh two hundred on
November 8. Take him out.” A man with a blue hat showed up. Wrong target.
Before the op, Casanova and I prepared a range card, shaped like a protractor, of the target area. Upon arrival at our FFP, we modified it by adding details such as dominant terrain features and other objects. We divided the card into three sectors: A, B, and C. Using prearranged arm and hand signals, Casanova motioned that our target had arrived in Sector B, 1200 on a clock face, 500 yards away. Then he pointed at the location on the range card.
I acknowledged with a thumbs-up, having already dialed in my dope. My crosshairs rested on the chest of the mannequin with a red hat standing in front of a window. If I missed, I wouldn’t graduate sniper school. Casanova would still get his chance to make the shot, but I would fail. I calmly squeezed the trigger. Bull’s-eye. After taking the shot, we stealthily exfiltrated to our pickup point, which required land navigation with a map and compass—no GPS.
Back at the schoolhouse, Casanova and I gave a brief about what we saw on the way in, what we saw on the way out, and when we saw it. We used photographs and field sketches in our presentation. The possibility of failing sniper school still loomed over us.
The major told us, “You two gave an excellent brief. Your FFP was outstanding—one of the better ones I’ve seen. I personally walked on top of it. Your briefing technique was superb.” We breathed a sigh of relief. Of course our briefing technique was outstanding—we’d been doing it since BUD/S.
Unfortunately for the other sniper students, we were first, and ours was a tough act to follow. I looked around the room, and the marines were not looking forward to giving their briefs. One young marine was an excellent marksman, but the major reamed him so much that I felt bad for him. He had reenlisted to become a sniper. Both he and his partner were caught sleeping at the same time instead of keeping at least one awake in shifts. The lane graders busted them on their exfil. Their briefing technique showed no delivery skills. If a sniper can’t communicate what he saw, his information is useless. In the world of snipers, we call men like the two young marines “great trigger pullers.” Lots of people can pull a trigger. He and his partner would not be attending our graduation.
Dressed in our BDUs, we had an informal graduation. One at a time, our names were called to receive the diploma and the patch our class had designed. Until that point, we couldn’t have the patch, let alone wear it. Ours was cool: a skull with a hood and sniper crosshairs in the right eye—silver on black. In script on the bottom it read: THE DECISION IS MINE. A sniper decides the time and place for his target’s demise. The major awarded me my diploma. It wasn’t the diploma I wanted so much. Just give me my patch. He gave it to me. Our class also gave certificates of appreciation and copies of our patches to each of our instructors. They really earned them.
* * *
After sniper school, I returned home to Red Team, but I would only have a little time to spend with my family. At work, I immediately started learning how to shoot the .300 Win Mag with the Leupold 10-power scope. Going from shooting the marine 7.62 mm sniper rifle to shooting SEAL Team Six’s .300 Win Mag was like going from racing a bus to racing a Ferrari.
The KN-250 was our night-vision scope for the same weapon. Night vision amplifies available light from sources like the moon and stars, converting images into green and light green instead of black and white. The result lacks depth and contrast but enables the sniper to see at night.
Then we took a trip to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and began learning how to shoot the sound-suppressed CAR-15 while strapping ourselves outside helicopters on special chairs, like bar-stool swivel chairs with backs, attached to the helo’s skids. Getting up to speed on everything took a lot of time. This extended to communications—learning how to use the LST satellite radio with a special keyboard for sending encrypted burst transmissions.
* * *
Casanova, Little Big Man, Sourpuss, and I flew Down Under to train with the Australian Special Air Service. The flight took forever. We flew commercial, business class, from America’s east coast to the west coast. Then we flew to Hawaii. From Hawaii, we landed at Sydney Airport on Australia’s east coast. From there we flew across the continent to arrive in Perth, on the west coast. It was the longest flight of my life—worst jet lag I ever had.
In Perth, outside the Campbell Barracks, home of the Australian SAS, stood a monument to every Australian SAS soldier killed in the line of duty during training or combat—nearly forty names, many of them killed in training accidents. Inside the barracks, we stored our weapons in their safes, and they gave us a tour. In the evening, we stayed in town at a hotel on the Swan River. Although Sydney was the more popular destination, Perth cost less, had fewer tourists, and was prettier.
The Australian SAS sand-colored berets each bore a patch showing a metallic gold and silver winged dagger overlaid on a black shield. The major responsibilities of the Australian SAS—similar to the British SAS, which heavily influenced the creation of SEAL Team Six and Delta—included counterterrorism and reconnaissance (sea, air, and land). SEALs have a history of working with the Australian SAS that goes back to the Vietnam War.
When we hit the shooting range, the Australians focused on fast-moving targets at distances of 200 yards. We had trained more on longer-range static targets. They had semiautomatic .308 sniper rifles, while we used our bolt action Win Mags. When sets of four targets whipped past us, we manually operated the bolt-action to load each new round in our rifles, only able to take down half of our targets. Meanwhile, the SAS just kept pulling their triggers, the gas operation automatically loading each new round, as they knocked down all their targets. We sucked booty. I realized that in a fast-moving environment like urban warfare, it’s a good idea to have someone with a semiautomatic .308 for the 200- to 400-yard range. Our automatic CAR-15s were maxed out at the 200-yard range.
When we went out to 500 and 700 yards, it was the Aussies’ turn to suck booty. Their semiautomatics lost accuracy at longer range, while our bolt action rifles retained accuracy. We also had better optics.
I drilled a target at 725 yards. The SAS guy behind me called on the radio, “Did he hit that one?”
“Yes.”
I fired again.
“Did he hit that one?”
“Yes.”
Again and again and again … He shook his head, and that evening we went to a bar where he bought me a Red Back beer, an Australian wheat beer named after the infamous Australian female spider that eats the male while mating—and has been known to bite humans, injecting them with its neurotoxic venom. It’s a popular beer among the Australian SAS. “Excellent rifle, mate,” he said.
Days later, with ammo locked and loaded in our sound-suppressed CAR-15s, we ventured into the outback for ten days. One night, on a 20,000-acre ranch, we loaded onto the SAS assault Range Rovers. Each vehicle had a special ram over the front grille where a shaped explosive charge could be attached to blow open a door on contact. Then the operators could jump off of the vehicle’s rails and assault the building—an impressive assault to watch. The Range Rover could also drop smoke from the rear to cover its escape. While driving, we shot moving targets: kangaroos. The kangaroos would graze on the rancher’s land, threatening to destroy the fragile landscape, leaving little for his livestock to eat, and spreading disease. In contrast to cuddly stuffed kangaroos, especially when provoked or cornered, a wild kangaroo can grab a human with its front claws and disembowel him with its powerful rear claws.
Casanova, Little Big Man, Sourpuss, and I used NODs and Insight Technology AN/PEQ series infrared lasers mounted on our CAR-15s. Shooting from a moving vehicle at running targets is tough. I moved my laser with the kangaroos. From the SEAL vehicle, our guns went pow-pow-pow-pow-pow-pow.
Four SAS guys rode in their Range Rover. Pow.
The SEAL Range Rover sounded like the American Revolution. Pow-pow-pow-pow-pow-pow.
The Australians went Pow.
We fired six times for every one of their sho
ts. Pow-pow-pow-pow-pow-pow.
The SAS thought we did a lot of spraying and praying—until we surveyed the damage, and they saw the carcasses surrounding us. For every kangaroo they killed, we killed six. “Wow, you SEALs have some good toys.”
The next day, the rancher came out and saw the carnage. “You boys did excellent work. Thank you!” He looked ready to give us an Australian high five.
Back at their headquarters, we sat in a beautiful meeting room. The operators poured us some of their own SAS-regiment-label port wine from their SAS winery. Over drinks, one of the soldiers told us that he’d operated out of the same camp during the First Gulf War as the British SAS unit Bravo Two Zero, which was an eight-man team sent to operate in enemy territory to report enemy positions and destroy targets such as fiber-optic communication lines. During the second day of their operation, a farmer driving a bulldozer spotted them. The SAS let him go instead of detaining or killing him.
Over the next few days, Bravo Two Zero survived several firefights before becoming separated. Iraqi civilian fighters killed Robert Consiglio. Vincent Phillips and Steven Lane died of hypothermia. The Iraqis captured Andy McNab, Ian Pring, Malcolm MacGown, and Mike Coburn (New Zealand SAS), who were later released. Chris Ryan evaded Iraqi troops for eight days, trekking over 200 miles to Syria, the longest escape and evasion by any soldier. During the thirty minutes of telling us the story, the SAS operator became teary-eyed, seeming to know one or more of the operators who died. His main message to us was, “If you’re ever compromised, it’s better to kill or tie up the person who sees you than to let him go.”
The Australian SAS treated us well. They taught us some stuff, and we taught them some stuff. We were all better for it—which is why exchanges are so beneficial. As General George Patton once said, “Thorough preparation makes its own luck.”
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