As John Starr lay beside his camp fire, in the Canadian wilderness, he flashed back to his time in Iraq. Captain Starr and his Special Forces team had been inserted at night by means of a Halo (high altitude low opening) night jump from thirty thousand feet. Their mission was to remain undetected and to observe and report on troop and armor movements. Several days into their mission, they had been detected and forced to move. We pick up the story at that point.
First Contact:
“Captain, you need to see this,” said Cooper who had been scanning the valley with 20 power binoculars since dawn. It was now mid-morning and the sun had crested the ridge behind them. The team was still in the shade and until the sun bore down upon them, drying out the excavated soil deposited from their new dig, the team felt exposed. Cooper handed the powerful binoculars across to Starr in his nearby hole.
“Check out the spot that we left last night, Sir.” Starr
pivoted the glasses to that location and frowned. Far away and below them, he
could clearly see six green-clad soldiers. They
were gesturing to the spot where their holes had been, but which were no longer
there.
As Starr continued to watch, several of the soldiers began to
walk along the ridge, looking for any sign of the passage of men. After twenty
minutes, it became evident that they had picked up sign of their passage. The
soldiers were slowly coming their way. They were still more than four miles away, but as the morning wore on, they would slowly but surely, draw closer. There had been no way during a night traverse of the ridge to completely obliterate signs of their passing. Starr had counted on the wind and weather to erase all signs of their movement, but it was not to be.
The enemy patrol had disappeared into one of the many large
folds in the earth which bisected the path his team had taken and Starr knew it
would be an hour before they reappeared, now three miles distant.
Gathered together in the command hole, Starr spoke.“We’re still above them and they haven’t seen us yet. With their noses to the ground, they may not see any sign of our hide until they’re within range. I see no radio and I don’t think they are in contact with anyone else. That’s one bit of good news. They’re all carrying AKs, nothing long range. No mortars and no RPGs, so in the short term, we have the advantage. Concealment, surprise and long range capabilities.”
With this last comment, he glanced at Driscoll who nodded in agreement.
“I want Driscoll set up in the hole with the best line of
sight to a point a thousand yards in front of us. Cooper, take the binoculars.
You’ll be his spotter.”
All eyes were fixed on Starr.“Singer, set up the SAW where you have the best field of fire. I don’t plan to allow them to get close enough for you to do your work, but we need to cover every possibility.”
The excitement in Lieutenant Zarkowi was growing with the rising sun. How far can they have traveled? he wondered. The path they were following appeared to be flat, but in reality, had many undulations which caused great exertion for his men.
Zarkowi could see nothing but the barren hillside in front of him, with a little scrub brush and a few scattered rocks here and there to break the monotony. Over every rise he expected to see the enemy ahead, running from his men. “We will kill them all,” he thought. Several miles ahead of the patrol lay a jumble of large boulders, but nothing there appeared to be unusual or out of place.
“So we go on.” he thought.
"Be alert,” said Zarkowi and shook his head at the sorry condition of his young recruits. They hadn't been well-trained: there had been no time for training and they were not in good physical condition for this kind of work. Except for one, they were conscripts, all called up to prepare for the American attack. None wanted to be here including his one experienced Sergeant.
“Driscoll,” said Starr, now speaking softly, “I want to wait until they’re a thousand yards out, heading down into that shallow draw. Take the officer who's leading first, the one with the sidearm. They won’t know where we are and will likely just mill around like sheep. They’ll have no cover there and if they turn back, their progress back out of the draw will be slow. Next, take anyone who begins to shout orders. That will be the NCO.”
“I don’t want any of them to get away. Without a radio and if we get them all, it'll give us time.”
Driscoll nodded from
his nest and settled in. The Barrett MRAD firing the Finnish .338 Lapua magnum shot with laser-like trajectory and had a
recorded kill at 2,450 yards scored by a Brit sniper in Afghanistan.
Driscoll relaxed and took a weld with cheek-to- stock as he
watched the Iraqis approach the killing zone. He began the process of becoming
one with the rifle and controlling his breathing until he appeared to be in
suspended animation. He lay at a fifteen degree angle to his target, bipod set,
forearms and elbows fixed beneath the stock. The rifle would fire itself
without conscious effort. Lieutenant Zarkowi continued to struggle onward, followed by Sergeant Abdallah. The four young soldiers grumbling and straggling along behind. Their objective of locating the enemy was long since forgotten in their struggle.to keep up. The terrain, which at first glance appeared to be an easy walk, could now be seen to contain endless folds and draws. At each draw they slid down the face and struggled up the opposite slope, only to be confronted with another identical obstacle.
Finally, a shallow draw which would give them all a break.
The Lieutenant called a halt and they all sat down, pulling out canteens
containing tepid water in the mid-day heat.
As Zarkowi who remained standing, lifted the canteen to his
lips, his head exploded with the sound of a ripe melon being struck. A shower
of pink spray washed over all the others, followed by the soft report of a
rifle. In shock they looked at each other and at their unfortunate commander,
stunned for a moment into paralysis. After seconds which seemed like minutes, Sergeant Abdallah reacted. He jumped to his feet, “Up, Up! Take cover, we are being fired upon!” As he began to turn to look for the source of the shot, Abdallah was blown backward, off his feet, his chest turning red, his eyes rolling to the sky, Another distant report followed. The remaining soldiers had no idea where the shots were coming from nor where to go to avoid them. They were shouting, whimpering and crying.
Beside the boulders, a thousand yards away, Driscoll was
working the bolt rapidly as Cooper fed him reports of his hits, since his view
was lost to recoil.
"Two are down. Wait for a moment until they settle a bit.
Slight wind drift, one click left, one click up,” advised Cooper. Driscoll
dialed it in.
With no more fire being taken, the recruits squatted, huddled
together hoping they were out of sight at the bottom of the shallow draw,
trying to decide what to do. “Which way do we go? Where are they?”
Their indecision was interrupted by the smallest of them
simply crumpling to the ground where he sat followed by yet a third report.Now they all ran madly, two retreating back the way they had come, both taking shots in the center of their backs as they attempted to climb out of the draw. The last stood motionless and wet his pants as he sobbed, knowing his fate. He decided to meet Allah here. The last shot tore the left side of his chest open, spinning him around and slamming him face first into the ground.
“Good job Driscoll, Cooper…. We have no time to lose, we bury
everything and move again.”
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