Free Hunters: U.S. Snipers in the War on Terror by Milo S. Afong Page A

further searching.
    The group decided to hole up in the village built on the hill above them. Chris should have known that nothing in war ever happens as planned. He had packed for a twelve-hour mission, but now there was no telling how long it could take.
    Under darkness, the men patrolled back. When they arrived, Chris and two other SEALs were sent to search the buildings inside the village. The area was empty and the group took one of the buildings. Inside, a small cooking stove was used for warmth as nobody had brought any sleeping materials. Within a few minutes the men were fast asleep.
    While they slept, AC-130 Spectre gunships patrolled overhead. Their thermal imagery spotted militants nearby and killed them. Within hours, the men on the ground were directed to search the remains of the dead. Before sunrise, the group split into two elements. Chris would be with the group searching the dead a few kilometers away.
    They arrived before daybreak at the spot of the bombing. The AC-130 retreated to base, no longer having night to cover it. Another reconnaissance aircraft guided the team onto the location. When they neared the position the AC-130 had bombed, their radio cracked up.
    “You guys should be standing on the bodies,” said the radio operator on the aircraft, but there were no dead in sight.
    Everyone stopped and took a knee. Chris and the others set security while the platoon commander began to scout the area. Within seconds, voices sounded behind Chris’s team.
    “Go to ground,” whispered the platoon commander, immediately sending the SEALs prone and hugging the dirt.
    Chris searched for the voices. They came from a group of men he thought were close to 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) away and climbing from a cave with weapons.
    “Hey, man, how far do you think they are?” the platoon commander asked Chris.
    “About a thousand meters,” Chris replied, but he misjudged the distance. With the rolling hills, it was hard to determine the range.
    “Call in an air strike,” the officer said to a combat controller.
    Minutes later, F-18s flew in hot. The whistle of falling bombs had everyone in the team watching. They all witnessed the bombs miss their mark low and to the left.
    The next bird on station was a B-52. It was close to dropping its ordnance, but the pilot wanted the SEALs’ location first. The last thing the SEALs wanted was to give their coordinates to the bomber, especially when months earlier Army SF soldiers were killed after being accidentally targeted in a similar scenario.
    The team did not give their coordinates and the planes would not drop bombs. It took the authorization from the platoon commander and his stating that he would take responsibility for the placement of the ordnance for the pilots to send their payload. Only after the officer stated his initials over the radio were the bombs released.
    Meanwhile, the SEALs shot at the militants. At the distance, effects on targets were difficult to gauge. Chris had his M4 with a scope made for close-quarters combat and tried his best to apply Kentucky windage to get a hit. Surprisingly, the militants had no clue where the fire came from and did not run. They stayed very close to the cave entrance and began searching for the origin of the shooting.
    “Bombs away. Impact forty-five seconds,” said the radio operator on the B-52.
    Chris braced for impact behind a small mound of dirt. When they hit, the fourteen Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) sounded like popcorn raking the mountainside. One landed five hundred meters from the group. The ground rumbled underneath them. The bomb fell at such close proximity that rocks and pebbles landed around them. When the dust settled, half of the mountainside had collapsed upon itself, and trees and brush were ablaze.
    “Let’s go,” said the officer in charge.
    The men quickly headed to assess the damage. Less than a hundred yards away, they came upon a small house. When they noticed it, the men