SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Author’s Note

  PART ONE

  1

  Reach Out and Touch Someone

  2

  One Shot, One Sill?

  3

  Hell Is for Children

  4

  Russian Sub and Green Hero

  5

  The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday

  6

  SEAL Team Two

  7

  Desert Storm

  PART TWO

  8

  SEAL Team Six

  9

  Born-Again Sniper

  10

  CIA Safe House—Hunting for Aidid

  11

  Capturing Aidid’s Evil Genius

  12

  Eyes over Mogadishu Mission

  PART THREE

  13

  Battle of Mogadishu

  14

  From the Ashes

  15

  Ambassador Death Threats

  16

  Fish out of Water

  17

  Healing

  Epilogue

  Special Operations Warrior Foundation

  Acknowledgments

  References

  Index

  Glossary

  Copyright

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Some names, places, times, and tactics have been changed or omitted to protect operators and their missions.

  PART ONE

  I like shooting, and I love

  hunting. But I never did

  enjoy killing anybody.

  It’s my job. If I don’t get

  those bastards, then they’re

  gonna kill a lot of these

  kids dressed up like Marines.

  —Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock,

  MARINE CORPS SNIPER

  1.

  Reach Out and Touch Someone

  When the U.S. Navy sends their elite, they send the SEALs. When the SEALs send their elite, they send SEAL Team Six, the navy’s equivalent to the army’s Delta Force—tasked with counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, occasionally working with the CIA. This is the first time a SEAL Team Six sniper’s story has been exposed. My story.

  Snipers avoid exposure. Although we prefer to act rather than be acted upon, some forces are beyond our control. We rely on our strengths to exploit the enemy’s vulnerabilities; however, during the war in the Persian Gulf I became vulnerable as the lone person on the fantail of an enemy ship filled with a crew working for Saddam Hussein. On yet another occasion, despite being a master of cover and concealment, I lay naked on an aircraft runway in a Third World country with bullet holes in both legs, the right leg nearly blown off by an AK-47 bullet. Sometimes we must face what we try to avoid.

  * * *

  In the morning darkness of September 18, 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia, Casanova and I crept over the ledge of a retaining wall and climbed to the top of a six-story tower. Even at this early hour there were already people moving around. Men, women, and children relieved themselves in the streets. I smelled the morning fires being lit, fueled by dried animal dung and whatever else people could find to burn. The fires heated any food the Somalis had managed to obtain. Warlord Aidid knew fully the power of controlling the food supply. Every time I saw a starving child, I blamed Aidid for his evil power play that facilitated this devastation of life.

  The tower we were on was located in the middle of the Pakistani compound. The Pakistanis were professional and treated us with great respect. When it was teatime, the boy in charge of serving always brought us a cup. I had even developed a taste for the fresh goat milk they used in the tea. The sounds and scents of the goatherd in the compound reached my senses as Casanova and I crawled onto the outer lip at the top of the tower. There we lay prone, watching a large garage, a vehicle body shop that had no roof. Surrounding the garage was a city of despair. Somalis trudged along with their heads and shoulders lowered. Helplessness dimmed their faces, and starvation pulled the skin tight across their bones. Because this was a “better” part of town, multilevel buildings stood in fairly good repair. There were concrete block houses instead of the tin and wooden lean-to sheds that dominated most of the city and countryside. Nevertheless, the smell of human waste and death—mixed with hopelessness—filled the air. Yes, hopelessness has a smell. People use the term “developing countries,” but that is bullcrap. What developed in Somalia was things such as hunger and fighting. I think “developing countries” is just a term used to make the people who coined it feel better. No matter what you call them, starvation and war are two of the worst events imaginable.

  I calculated the exact distances to certain buildings. There are two primary considerations when making a sniper shot, windage and elevation. Because there was no significant wind that could throw my shot left or right, I didn’t have to compensate for it. Elevation is the variable considered for range/distance to the target. Since most of my potential targets were between 200 yards (garage) and 650 yards (intersection beyond the target garage), I dialed my scope in at 500 yards. This way I could just hold my rifle higher or lower depending on range. When the shooting began, there would be no time to dial in range corrections on my scope between shots.

  We started our surveillance at 0600. While we waited for our agent to give us the signal, I played different scenarios over in my mind: one enemy popping out at one location, then another popping up at another location, and so on. I would acquire, aim, and even do a simulated trigger pull, going through my rehearsed breathing and follow-through routine while picturing the actual engagement. Then I simulated reloading and getting back into my Leupold 10-power scope, continuing to scan for more booger-eaters. I had done this dry firing and actual firing thousands of times—wet, dry, muddy, snowbound, from a dug-in hole in the ground, from an urban sniper hide through a partially open window, and nearly every which way imaginable. The words they had drilled into our heads since we began SEAL training were true, “The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in war.” This particular day, I was charged with making sure none of my Delta Force buddies sprang a leak as I covered their insertion into the garage. My buddies’ not bleeding in war was every bit as important as my not bleeding.

  Our target for this mission was Osman Ali Atto—Warlord Aidid’s main financier. Although Casanova and I would’ve been able to recognize the target from our previous surveillance, we were required to have confirmation of his identity from the CIA asset before we gave the launch command.

  The irony wasn’t lost on me that we were capturing Atto instead of killing him—despite the fact that he and his boss had killed hundreds of thousands of Somalis. I felt that if we could kill Atto and Aidid, we could stop the fighting, get the food to the people quickly, and go home in one piece.

  It wasn’t until around 0815 that our asset finally gave the predetermined signal. He was doing this because the CIA paid him well. I had learned firsthand while working with the CIA how payoffs could sway loyalty.

  When we saw the signal, Casanova and I launched the “full package.” Little Bird and Black Hawk helicopters filled the sky. During this time, the Delta operators literally had their butts hanging out—the urban environment provided too much cover, too much concealment, and too many escape routes for the enemy. All a hostile had to do was shoot a few rounds at a helo or Humvee, jump back inside a building, and put his weapon down. Even if he reappeared, he was not considered hostile without a weapon. Things happened fast, and the environment was unforgiving.

  Delta Force operators fast-ro
ped down inside the garage, Rangers fast-roped around the garage, and Little Birds flew overhead with Delta snipers giving the assault force protection. Atto’s people scattered like rats. Soon, enemy militia appeared in the neighborhood shooting up at the helicopters.

  Normally, snipers operate in a spotter-sniper relationship. The spotter identifies, ranges the targets, and relays them to the sniper for execution. There would be no time for that on this op—we were engaged in urban warfare. In this environment, an enemy could appear from anywhere. Even worse, the enemy dressed the same as a civilian. We had to wait and see his intention. Even if he appeared with a gun, there was a chance he was part of a clan on our side. We had to wait until the person pointed the weapon in the direction of our guys. Then we would ensure the enemy ceased to exist. There would be no time for makeup or second shots. Both Casanova and I wielded .300 Win Mag sniper rifles.

  Through my Leupold 10-power scope, I saw a militiaman 500 yards away firing through an open window at the helos. I made a mental note to keep my heart rate down and centered the crosshairs on him as my muscle memory took over—stock firmly into the shoulder, cheek positioned behind the scope, eye focused on the center of the crosshairs rather than the enemy, and steady trigger squeezing (even though it was only a light, 2-pound pull). I felt the gratifying recoil of my rifle. The round hit him in the side of the chest, entering his left and exiting his right. He convulsed and buckled, falling backward into the building—permanently. I quickly got back into my scope and scanned. Game on now. All other thoughts departed my mind. I was at one with my Win Mag, scanning my sector. Casanova scanned his sector, too.

  Another militiaman carrying an AK-47 came out a fire escape door on the side of a building 300 yards away from me and aimed his rifle at the Delta operators assaulting the garage. From his position, I’m sure he thought he was safe from the assaulters, and he probably was. He was not safe from me—300 yards wasn’t even a challenge. I shot him through his left side, and the round exited his right. He slumped down onto the fire escape landing, never knowing what hit him. His AK-47 lay silent next to him. Someone tried to reach out and retrieve the weapon—one round from my Win Mag put a stop to that. Each time I made a shot, I immediately forgot about that target and scanned for another.

  Chaos erupted inside and outside of the garage. People ran everywhere. Little Birds and Black Hawks filled the skies with deafening rotor blasts. I was in my own little world, though. Nothing existed outside my scope and my mission. Let the Unit guys handle their business in the garage. My business was reaching out and touching the enemy.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d killed for my country. It wouldn’t be the last.

  A few minutes passed as I continued scanning. More than 800 yards away, a guy popped up with an RPG launcher on his shoulder, preparing to fire at the helicopters. If I took him out, it would be the longest killing shot of my career. If I failed …

  2.

  One Shot, One Sill?

  A year earlier I’d been stationed at SEAL Team Six in Virginia Beach, Virginia. While on standby, I wore my hair longer than standard navy regulations, so I could travel anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice without being marked as military. Usually I stayed clean-shaven. When I deployed with SEAL Team Two to Norway, I wore a beard, but normally I didn’t like wearing facial hair.

  Waiting for a callout, I practiced my skills in a building called the “kill house,” used for urban counterterrorist training, and on the shooting range.

  After standby would come three months in individual training phase, when we could go off to school: Bill Rogers’s shooting academy, driving school, free climbing, or whatever we put in for. The great thing about being at SEAL Team Six was that I got to go to almost any of the best schools anywhere I wanted. Training phase was also a good opportunity to take leave, maybe a vacation with the family, especially for those returning from an overseas deployment. Then came three months of getting together for Team training: diving, parachuting, and shooting school—each part of training followed by a simulated operation using the skill recently trained in.

  * * *

  One night I was sitting in a pizza place called the Ready Room (the same place Charlie Sheen and Michael Biehn stood outside of arguing in the movie Navy SEALs) talking about golf with my seven-year-old son, Blake, and a playful grizzly bear of a guy nicknamed Smudge. In the background, a Def Leppard tune was playing on the jukebox. We inhaled a pepperoni, sausage, and onion pizza—my favorite. When on standby, I wasn’t allowed to drink more than two beers. In SEAL Team Six, we took the limit seriously.

  Our drink was Coors Light. Whenever traveling in groups, my Teammates and I used the cover story that we were members of the Coors Light skydiving team—our explanation for why thirty buff guys, most of us good-looking, would walk into a bar wearing Teva flip-flops, shorts, tank tops, and a Spyderco CLIPIT knife in our front pocket. Every time we walked into a bar, the men started changing their drinks to Coors Light. Then the women would begin drinking Coors Light. Coors should’ve sponsored us. The cover worked well because if people asked us about skydiving, we could answer any question. Besides, our story was too preposterous not to be real.

  At around 1930 hours, before I finished my pizza and Coors Light, my pager went off: T-R-I-D-E-N-T-0-1-0-1. A code could mean “Go to the SEAL Team Six compound.” Or a code might tell me which base gate to use. This time, I had to go straight to the plane.

  My bags would meet me on the bird. Each bag was taped up and color-coded for its specific mission. If I didn’t have everything packed up correctly, I just wouldn’t have it. On one op, a guy forgot the ground liner to put on the outside of his sleeping bag to keep the water from getting in. His good night’s sleep wasn’t very good.

  During standby, we were on a one-hour leash. No matter where the heck I was, I had one hour to get my tail on the plane and sit down ready for the brief. Now, time was already ticking. Blake and I hopped into the car, a silver Pontiac Grand Am, and I drove home, just down the road from the Ready Room. Inside the house, my wife, Laura, asked, “Where you going?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Don’t know.”

  “Is this the real thing?”

  “Don’t know—and if I did, I couldn’t tell you. See ya later.”

  That was another nail in the coffin for our marriage: leaving at any time and not knowing when I’d be back. Who can blame her? I was married to the Team way more than I was married to her.

  Smudge picked me up at home and dropped me off at Oceana Naval Air Station’s airfield. My eyes scanned the special blacked-out C-130. Some have jet-assisted takeoff (JATO) bottles on them for taking off on short runways and getting in the air a lot quicker, a good thing to have when people are shooting at you. If I’d seen JATO bottles, I would’ve known our destination wasn’t going to be good, but there were no JATO bottles this time.

  I boarded the plane well before my 2030 drop-dead time. The inside was darked out. Under a red light, I made sure my bags were there, made sure they were the right ones, and made a mental note of where they were so I knew where to return when I needed to start gearing up.

  Three SEAL snipers joined me: Casanova, Little Big Man, and Sourpuss. In the Teams, many of the guys went by nicknames. Some guys called me Waz-man. Others had tried to call me Howie, but that didn’t stick because I wouldn’t answer to it. Sometimes a guy gets his nickname for doing something really stupid—there’s a reason a guy gets named “Drippy.” Other times a difficult name like Bryzinski becomes “Alphabet.” A Team Two friend of mine was called “Tripod.”

  Casanova was my shooting buddy. We’d been together since sniper school in Quantico, Virginia. He was the ladies’ man. More panties were thrown at him than onto a bedroom carpet. Little Big Man had a bad case of the small man complex, which is probably why he always carried that big-ass Randall knife on his hip. Everybody teased him, “Little man, big knife.” Sourpuss, the senior man, had zero personality—the one guy in the grou
p who wasn’t a cutup, fun-loving type of guy. He was too interested in getting back home to “Honey,” his wife, and didn’t seem to care about the op or what any of us had going on. He whined a lot, too. None of us really liked him.

  We sat down in front of a flip chart near the cockpit. Just the four of us. Probably a real-world op. The guy giving the brief was someone I’d never seen before—someone from Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He was all business. Sometimes in the Teams there’s a little chuckling during a brief. The SEAL briefer might crack a joke about the guy with the weak bladder: “OK, we’re going to patrol in here about two clicks. This is where Jimbo will pee the first time. Then, over here, this is where Jimbo will pee the second time.” Now, there were no jokes. We kept our mouths shut.

  After the 1980 failed attempt to rescue fifty-three American hostages at the American Embassy in Iran, it became clear that the army, navy, air force, and marines couldn’t work together effectively on special operations missions. In 1987, the Department of Defense grafted all the military branches’ special operations onto one tree—including tier-one units like SEAL Team Six and Delta. SEALs and Green Berets are truly special, but only the best of those operators make it to the top tier: Team Six and Delta. JSOC was our boss.