Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

for nighttime operations, the report came over the radio: “We’ve got
armed enemy fighters on top of a building. Appear to be snipers.”
A single enemy bullet had struck Ryan Job, severely wounding him,
leaving him blind, and eventually leading to his death. A young Marine
from 2nd ANGLICO, whom we frequently worked with, had been shot
and killed by a single rifle shot just a few weeks before. Many others had
been wounded or killed by a single round. Just as our snipers struck fear
into the hearts of our enemy, an enemy sniper was a nightmare scenario
for us: shooting accurately from unseen positions, inflicting casualties,
and fading away. So now this report across the net that enemy snipers
had been spotted caused everyone’s defenses to spike and escalated the
tensions in their trigger fingers.
Charlie and Delta Platoons, in their separate overwatch positions,
heard the report on their radios and were also amped up by the call.
Perhaps one or more of these enemy snipers were the culprits
responsible for shooting Ryan and our Marine comrade. Any one of our
SEALs would gladly eliminate the enemy snipers with lethal force. But
despite the romantic vision of a sniper-versus-sniper stalking and
shooting match, our preferred contest was a much more lopsided affair:
enemy sniper versus the massive firepower of a U.S. M1A2 Abrams
Main Battle Tank. An enemy sniper might barricade himself in a room
behind sandbags and concrete. While this made for a difficult rifle shot,
it was no match for the tanks’ electronically enhanced optics and giant
120mm smoothbore cannon fired from behind the safety of heavy armor.
We all hoped for a quick engagement by the Bradley that had spotted the
enemy sniper.
Of course, I wanted as much as anyone to see an enemy sniper or,
even better, multiple snipers eliminated. But this was a complex