Lethal Warriors by David Philipps

Author:David Philipps
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The scout platoon often had to do normal infantry missions as well as set up small kill teams of snipers to watch problem roads for IED planters, which meant they shared the same stresses of the ordinary line troops. In one particularly bad run of luck, Humvees from the platoon were hit by IEDs four times in two days.7

Jomar Vives was picked as the SAW gunner in a sniper team because his big frame allowed him to carry the thirty-pound gun and lots of ammo. His job was to pull security for the snipers with his machine gun in case something went wrong. In several instances, something did.

“He saved our asses a number of times,” said Paris Taylor. “He did some shit. Nothing illegal, but he grabbed his balls and did his job.”

The insurgency was just as vicious as it had been in the Sunni Triangle, but the American response was much more controlled. Since the beginning of the war, the U.S. military’s rules of engagement—the conditions under which soldiers can use deadly force—had tightened considerably, even if Al Qaeda’s had not. In Al Anbar in 2004, the Band of Brothers could legitimately shoot anyone they perceived as a threat, even if the target was armed with nothing more than binoculars. Under the new rules in Baghdad in 2006 and 2007, an Iraqi had to be holding a weapon in a threatening manner. Otherwise soldiers were required to detain the suspect, collect witness statements and photo evidence, and draw up lengthy reports with sketches of what happened. Basically, they were required to behave as police. The command saw the tightened regulations as the vital first step in winning over the locals. After all, soldiers can’t establish trust with a family whose son they have just killed.

But many grunts in the Warriors felt hamstrung. The enemy they faced intentionally avoided direct attacks and focused on surreptitious sniper fire, surprise grenades, and concealed IEDs. The terrorists employed young unarmed “watchers” to report on the Americans’ positions from rooftops so they could coordinate the attacks. They often hired kids to throw grenades. Everyone in the city, armed or not, seemed to be in on the attacks. Locals even sold each other DVD copies of insurgents detonating IEDs on the Americans.8 This left the Warriors with a feeling that the whole town was targeting them when they had no way to respond or even defend themselves. Some soldiers felt like they had no recourse but to start breaking the rules.

“I believed, and still do, in the war, that we need to be there and there are a lot of Iraqis there that need to be killed,” Robert Forsythe, a medic newly assigned to Eastridge’s platoon, said after the tour. “We also believed no one there was innocent; they were all guilty of either helping the enemy or staying out of their way. I was happy to make up for their lack of will, their lack of fight.”

Forsythe had already been through one combat tour.

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