The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi (33 page)

It caught me a little off guard and I found myself struggling to digest the moment.

“Roger that.”

I got off the plane and saw Guy and a handful of newguys from Team FIVE on the flight line, waiting for us. Guy had left Ramadi a month earlier to care for his wife while she battled Hodgkin’s lymphoma. One of his duties while he was stateside was to help with casualty assistance duties. It was good to see another familiar face. I needed that.

The scene outside the plane looked, to me, like a shot from Todd Heisler’s Pulitzer Prize–winning photo story, “Final Salute.” It shows
a team of Marines pulling one of their fallen from the belly of a commercial plane in the middle of the night while the passengers watch from the windows inside. Like the Marines in the photo, all of us wore dress blues. And like the civilians in the photo, everyone watched us.

I stood rigidly at attention, calling cadence for the guys carrying Marc toward the waiting hearse. I fought my voice as it started to waver and struggled to hide the emotions brought on by the scene. I tried to ignore all the faces glued to windows, hoping they couldn’t hear my choked-up cadence. I wondered if the people had any idea what the scene they were watching really meant, particularly what it meant to me.

The transfer took less than a minute. Guy and his team placed the casket carefully in the back of the hearse and shut the door. Our job was done. I wouldn’t see Marc again until the funeral a few days later.

The transition from combat to normalcy began when I landed in San Diego. In the nights before Marc’s funeral, I practically lived at Danny’s Palm Bar—a big Teamguy hangout in Coronado—with a few of the guys I’d gone to BUD/S with. They were close friends from Team SEVEN. Tanner and BDub were pipe-hitting Frogmen from my tadpole years. They had been to Iraq before, but hadn’t had the experiences I had. They were willing to listen. I was ready to talk.

Fortunately, Teamguys know how to read situations and how to pick up on cues. They were acutely aware of what had happened on August 2. Our after-action reports were circulating the West Coast constantly. They already knew what happened and didn’t pry. They knew I’d tell them what I wanted to. We talked about our war and the killing in Ramadi. We talked about winning and how there was more work to be done. Mostly, we raised a lot of glasses, many in salute to Marc and Biggles. We drank because Teamguys like to drink, and I hadn’t
been allowed to for five months. We drank to feel free because there wasn’t a lot of freedom in Ramadi and we wanted to get it while the getting was good.

Eventually, I told Tanner and BDub the story of August 2. I didn’t need to, but I wanted to. I felt comfortable among my brothers. I realized that there wasn’t a possibility of moving on, but there was a need to move forward. I couldn’t communicate the same with someone who has never been a part of the brotherhood. They wouldn’t understand why we fight, why we drink, or why we don’t share that part of ourselves with anyone and everyone. SEALs understand. The more I spoke about the good times and the bad I’d had with Marc and Biggles, the more tired—yet at peace—I felt.

On the day of Marc’s funeral, barely a week had passed since I worked on Marc under the stairs in that dingy house. The slow buildup to that day had me emotionally fatigued. I was ready for the “Are you okay?” phase to be over, and Marc’s funeral was the last step.

I stood outside the church at Naval Station North Island, watching all the people filter inside. I saw Maya and Debbie and the droves of Marc’s friends and family, and I wished that I knew them better. I wanted to tell them about the Marc I knew, the warrior and brother. I wanted to tell Maya everything I knew that she probably didn’t, how he’d talked about her constantly in Ramadi, how she was his center. I wanted to tell her and Debbie how I’d wanted so badly to save him, how I knew I couldn’t, but tried anyway. As the last of the attendees filtered in, I was about to head inside when a guy from Team TWO materialized in front of me.

“Hey, man, you relieved us in Iraq, in Ramadi. Sorry about your loss, dude, but yo, you guys are killing it out there!”

I wanted to punch him.

“Back the fuck off,” I
said, pushing past him.

Yes, we had a reputation as one of the most lethal Teams in Iraq. Yes, we’d killed almost two hundred insurgents. Yes, we were like rock stars in the Teams.

No, five minutes before my buddy’s funeral starts is not the time to talk to me about that stuff. I had no sympathy for him.

I walked inside the church and tried to clear my head of the Team TWO asshole. I wanted my last few hours with Marc. I needed to spend that time and say a final goodbye. The church was packed—standing room only—so I found a spot on the side and stood by to watch the ceremony by myself. I was one of the few Team THREE guys in attendance. Biff, Ned, Bro, Guy, and Bob were all sitting. I felt tired. Bob, with his bandaged-up knee, caught my attention from his seat near where I stood.

“Dauber, come over here and sit down,” he said in a hushed tone. He and his fiancée sat together, and they scooted over to make room for me. I was glad to be sitting with a Teammate. Afterward, the procession moved to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, which sits on a hill overlooking San Diego.

I don’t know what it is about bagpipes, but they always bring back the special memories I have for my brothers. My wife wanted them at our wedding and I had to say no. It was the bagpipes that got me that day. Not the flag presentation to the next of kin, not the rifle volleys, not the bugler playing Taps. I made it through all of those. The bagpipes at Marc’s funeral tempered every BTF molecule I had, and to this day the sound of one puts me right back in that cemetery. Two weeks before, Marc was full of life and we were killing bad guys together. Three weeks before, he had smoked his first insurgent. It was another flood of too many thoughts, and I had to get a handle on them. I just needed to keep it simple: I lost a buddy. It’s just one of those things. It’s just war. These things happen—even to SEALs.

I will always regret the fact that I never pounded a trident into Marc’s casket. They put him in the ground that day after Debbie and Maya held a small, intimate ceremony at the grave site that was reserved for close friends and family. I barely knew Maya or Debbie or any of the Teamguys Marc had gone to BUD/S with who were in attendance. I watched it from a distance, and didn’t go over because I didn’t want to intrude. I even watched Marc’s buddies pound their tridents onto his casket. There are times that I look back at that day and regret not putting a bird on his casket. However, I remind myself that I was fortunate to have truly lived with Marc when we were working in Ramadi.

I paddled my board quickly to get up and over the outside set of waves that was about to clean out the lineup. The frigid Pacific Ocean water sent a chill down to my toes and I turned my head to spit some out. The Imperial Beach ocean water is supposedly some of the most polluted in the country. I didn’t bat an eye after having been in the Euphrates. I turned as I crested the wave and gazed back at the lineup. It was a yard sale of boards, asses, and elbows. I chuckled to myself. A Frogman always returns to the water.

The water felt like a baptism, rinsing away all the fatigue I’d been wading through for the last two weeks. Imperial Beach never felt so clean and perfect as the warm Santa Ana winds buffered the chill of the ocean. As the waves swayed me calmly, I felt a deep serenity, and a peace that had been denied me for a long time.

“Okay,” I said to myself. “Time to get back after it.”

“Brave men have fought and died building the proud tradition and feared reputation that I am bound to uphold. In the worst of conditions, the legacy of my Teammates steadies my resolve and silently guides my every deed. I will not fail.”

—SEAL Creed

A
FEW DAYS BEFORE
Hell Week began, a couple of BUD/S instructors pulled me aside. “Lacz,” they said. “We have some bad news. Your grandfather passed away. We’re really sorry, man. You have the option of going home for the funeral and rolling back to the next class to do Hell Week with them, or staying here with 245. No one would think less of you if you went home for the funeral.”

I was very close to my grandfather, and the news was hard to take. Of course I thought about going home and being with my family, about saying goodbye to him one last time. I also thought about the commitment I’d made to get through BUD/S and to become a SEAL. My grandfather had joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor and served in the Pacific. I thought about what he would want me to do and I decided to stay and endure a winter Hell Week. I don’t think he would
have wanted his death to interrupt my dedication to my class and my training; rather he would have appreciated that when I needed to dig deep and push through the tough evolutions, I thought of him. I think he would have wanted me to see my commitment through, and I believe he would have understood my decision.

I saw that Biff was lost in his thoughts. We all had something to think about. But there was also only a twenty-minute Black Hawk ride between us and the ground in Ramadi. Twenty minutes to get your head in the game. It seemed like part of Biff’s mind was still back stateside. The images of Bethesda, our last stop stateside before we flew out, were sharp in our minds.

Less than twenty-four hours earlier, Biggles had woken up and begun dealing with the reality of traumatic brain injury and life without sight. His face was still swollen and bruised. He personally shed the bandages so we could see the extent of his injuries. Admiral Eric T. Olson, the deputy commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, was there checking in on his Frogmen. The admiral was well liked within the community and that never changed, no matter how high he climbed. Olson was a big deal, a Frogman officer who had commanded at every level. I was eager to meet the man and personally glad to be there with Biggles and Biff. After the admiral said a brief introduction, Biggles spoke.

“Hey, Admiral,” he said loudly, turning his bandaged head in Olson’s direction.

I always admired Biggles’s boldness. He was never one to mince words or back down. Missing an eye, blind, and laid up in a hospital didn’t deter him.

“You ever hear about the SEAL in Ramadi who lost a KYK?”

I passed a wide-eyed look to Biff. He stared at Biggles, incredulous.

“Yes, I did hear about that,” Admiral Olson replied.

“Well, he’s standing right next to you,” Biggles said, laughing sort of maniacally through his damaged jaw.

Biff looked down and shook his head.
Fuck, Biggles.
Olson helped us ease the tension and laughed off Ryan’s awkward jab. Biggles’s frontal lobe had been severely injured from the sniper round. He admitted candidly that he had little power to control his emotions. Later on that same day, he joked cruelly about how my only real patient as a combat medic—Marc—had died. “You’re a terrible corpsman, Dauber,” he said with a shitty laugh. I knew he didn’t mean it, but the comment hit home. It hurt. Still, that’s what I appreciated about the Teams. These guys will shoot it straighter to you than your family will.

Teams and shit.

Years later, long after Ryan had recovered and rebuilt his life, he apologized to me. He remembered the incident and felt terrible about it.

Our flight from the East Coast back to Germany left me feeling like there was something more to be said, but Biff was never a big talker. Marc’s death and Ryan’s wounds didn’t change that. He just swallowed everything and stuffed it down. As newguys, we grumbled often about the decisions that led up to August 2, but those thoughts always led to the same end. And the wrong thoughts can quickly become a liability if you indulge them too much. Operating in the night was our outlet. We talked about wanting payback and how we had a month to get some.

When we touched down at Camp Ramadi, it was game time.

The head shed had understood the impact of August 2 on the platoon and had walked back the Punishers’ op tempo while we were
gone. The illusion of invincibility was long forgotten. Daytime patrols stopped not because Teamguys were averse to patrolling in the daylight, but because there was true resentment in the ranks toward the reckless nature of the decision-making process.

We got back to our bread and butter. Despite these concessions from our higher-ups, morale among the sled dogs wasn’t great. Residual animosity lingered toward the head shed in the aftermath of August 2. Tension in our op briefs was always palpable. Everyone was focused on finishing our deployment without further casualties.

We all knew we had to keep taking the fight to the enemy. The war didn’t stop because a couple of Teamguys became casualties. We didn’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for ourselves, but our resolve came with a new risk calculus. With less than a month left, you want to take fewer chances. Best not to tempt death when you can see the finish line. We kept our body armor and helmets buttoned up and were a lot more cautious in general. War is a cruel reaper.

I was determined to get some payback for Marc and Biggles before I left Ramadi. I’m not the kind to stay on the canvas when I get knocked down. I’m more the explode-with-a-Polack-haymaker. On every overwatch mission, that’s what I was looking for—the haymaker. Scanning with my scope, I was sharper than I had been before August 2. You might say I was trying to will a target into my crosshairs. That’s about the gist of it. The quiet surf of Imperial Beach was light-years away.

Our hide was in a building near the end of Baseline, not far from where Marc was killed and probably nearer to where Marc got his kill behind the rifle. The three-story structure looked out east toward the remainder of the muj-controlled space within Ramadi. The fifth anniversary of 9/11 was less than a week away. I lay prone, looking out a loophole of four missing bricks. My target window was close to the
floor of my bedroom hide. I was a good distance back from the hole, but I could see down Baseline and into the Ma’Laab for at least a thousand meters. My target area covered all main arteries into the area. Squirrel was with me, splitting time on the gun, and Tony mirrored our setup across the hall in another room twenty meters away.