Posted on 09/11/2004 6:49:48 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
Specialist James Wilks, 25, from Fort Worth, Texas, sits in the searing sun outside his barrack block in Camp Eagle, smoking a menthol cigarette. Beyond the blast walls, sentry towers and barbed wire lies Sadr City, a Baghdad suburb where throughout the summer fighters loyal to a radical Shia Muslim cleric have fought running battles with the American troops based here. A day earlier, fighting had flared again in the narrow, rubbish-strewn alleyways that for months have been Wilks's hunting ground. Wilks is a sniper and is proud of the three 'kills' he has notched up in the first six months of his year's tour of duty. The first came in early April, during an assault on a position held by Shia militiamen.
'It was night and low visibility,' Wilks said. 'But I saw a guy with an AK-47 lit up by the porch light in a doorway about 400 metres away. I watched him through the sights. He looked like just another Iraqi. I hit him low in the stomach and dropped him.'
The second kill was in July. Camp Eagle has been hit by more than 700 mortar rounds, usually fired at night.
From the roof of the barracks block, Wilks picked out a group of men behaving suspiciously nearly 700 metres away.
'We watched them for an hour. When I was sure one guy had a weapon on his back, I squeezed a shot off and he went down.'
Killing from long distance is 'weird', says Wilks, who joined the army after six years as a poorly paid waiter. 'It's not like in a firefight, when it is really scary and you don't think about it. When you are looking down the scope and no one knows you are there, it gives you a sense of power. You get an adrenalin rush, though I'm not sure if it is in a good way.'
Wilks's comrades are proud of his success. Almost all the men of the First Cavalry's Task Force 12 have seen combat. Scores have been injured and several killed. Long routine patrols are broken by moments of intense fear and excitement when units come under attack.
The Observer joined an eight-hour patrol along Route Predator, a key road leading into Sadr City that has been the site of regular bomb attacks and ambushes.
Apart from some wayward mortar shells early on, the patrol was uneventful - though the following one suffered two killed and three injured when two roadside bombs exploded. Sergeant Herman Groombridge, 35, and his men drive slowly up and down the pitted tarmac.
Groombridge points out a mosque from where gunmen opened fire a few weeks earlier. Jesus Sales, a 21-year-old who joined the army to pay for college fees, is the unit's reserve sniper. He shot a man a few weeks earlier: 'I didn't feel anything weird. I just felt satisfied.'
Wilks is equally phlegmatic: 'Sometimes I feel like I should feel guilty, but I don't. Everyone I shot deserved it. It doesn't bother me.'
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
Is The Observer biased? I smell a rat in the tone of this story.
In Vietnam, it worked and a lot of people ripped on our troops with impunity. In this war, only a tiny fringe of the left dares to badmouth our troops. I've only encountered one person, in NYC no less, that said a bad word about them. And then I almost made him cry.
Good for our men, regsrdless. It takes nerves of steel and they've got 'em.
This guy and his buddies need some of these!
Crass, perhaps yes.
If they are indeed Sgt. Wilks' words, then, well...
You were in. You know the grunts don't always take the time to think about how they feel and then say those things using the Queen's English.
Heck, *I* gotta get me some.
But I bet they're not allowing the Great Unwashed to own these, are they?
A Texan with gun. Nothing more deadlier!
I'd be very suprised if these quotes are factual.
I can see where these rounds may be too dangerous and deadly for the average grunt, but all of our snipers should have them.
In WW-II, we had war correspondents that were actually on our side. They supported the guys at the front, cleaned up the language, and made the folks back home proud of the whole effort through positive articles and cartoons. Ernie Pyle was a good one, but I don't think he made it back home.
You are right...Ernie Pyle died on Okinawa...as did a US journalism that actually supported our boys...done in by traitors like Walter Sickhead and Dan Wraither.
Why?
War is hell.
A sniper should NEVER be interviewed.
The reporter has just signed this MAN's death sentence!
I still think it's stupid to give the name and hometown of guys that speak of killing Islamanazis...
We have enough nuts here, to be concerned about "revenge"..
Semper Fi
Whoa, not all of the press, at least not us at www.Christian-news-in-maine.com . You will never find anything there that you would think is unfair towards our troops.
My first impression too. The second thought was that this soldier is not all strapped up with a suicide belt, ready to slaughter innocents, on the outside chance of that he'll get lucky with the 72 virgins. Is the Observer biased? I don't know and I no longer care what the "outside people" think of us or our soldiers.
Agree...The names as well as hometowns should not be published!
Rummy should see that this stops, if it's not policy already..if it is the reporter should be punished.
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