"traitor"

What would you do if you had the power to take lives with one finger? Just think about taking a human life that’s a crazy thought, life is precious but what if you had to make a very tough decision. We lets go back first, my names Ben, Ben Griffin I am a sniper in the Iraq mountains, I  supposed to be on a mission to find out intelligence about a random guy raping women, and killing children, crazy right? It’s January 2007 and a little too cold for me to be exact it hasn’t stop snowing for two week. Anyways my spotter and I John Varate a spotter is someone who tells me the wind direction and how to aim in my scope for the most accurate shot.  So let me tell you about me I’m 6’2” 205 lbs and have no facial hair I grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania and I wrestled all my life. Before I bore you let’s get back to the story, we were in the Gerd-e san mountains the 2nd highest mountains in Iraq not a nice place to be at all. The weapon I was carrying was a Barrett 50 cal. One of the most deadly weapons ever, but to hike in the snow…not so much!

Besides the fact this crazy guy whose name is confidential, he had our lieutenant. Lieutenant Tyler Lazon was a very good friend and how he got captured it’s beyond me but I must say I was furious to say at the least.  But little did I know what was actually going on, but we’ll get to that. So here I was me and John Varate me spotter on MT. Gerd-e san in January, with two and a half feet of snow looking for a lieutenant who was captured by a crazy guys who I was supposed to eliminate. Not a good thought to kill a person but he was a killing rapist so it was a little different this time I wanted to find this guy get my job done and get out sounds simple well it’s not. I see it as “killing two birds with one stone” because I was eliminating a target as well as rescuing my lieutenant, quite the mission and no room for error! We first had to get to a vantage point which will start my diary entries. By the way diaries aren’t wimpy they can be manly too.

         Day: 1 January 15, 2007 we started our hike up the mountains I had about 100 lbs worth of equipment including my gun, ammunition, and map which were most important to me. The only communication we had was a radio that was sent to a base but only was used in emergency situations so it was just me and John. The snow was deep and I was tired, we knew this was going to be a challenge.

         John looked over at me and said, “Hey, Ben can we take a break?”

         I said, “Yeah... but we have only been hiking for an hour.”

         He said, “I know I feel nauseous.”

           I replied, “Okay it must be the altitude.”

         John said, “I sure hope.”

         So we took a break and had no food so I went on a hunt about 100 yards away a coyote was wandering around and thought perfect… food! Then took aim and within two second I was no movement. I hated taking humans lives and animals were just as important but we had to eat. So I came back and started a fire, and cooked the coyote. It tasted wonderful, after an hour break we set off again we had another 2 ½ hour hike at the least still to go. It was until five minutes after we left it started to snow, and it keep snowing, until it was a blizzard, just what me needed, so after 5 minutes of snowing I couldn’t see in front of me, so we stopped again. It was probably 3:30 when we started up again with it still snowing. Just as I thought john hadn’t talking in a while john looked at me and wanted to talk.

         So I came over and said, “What?”

He said, “How much longer?”

I replied, “I’m guessing around a half hour.”

He nodded and kept hiking.          

We reached the point where we no longer needed to go up but rather find the location of the camp site which if I was right it would be about 300-500 yards. This is no problem when you are highly skillful and well trained. We reached the vantage point 15 minutes later. Then ate more, rested, got a fire going, set up a tent and last covered everything in white for cover. When we finally found the location of the psychotic killer and was easily in range of my Barrett sniper rifle I wasn’t worried. John gave me locations of important spots and it was around 10:30 when we went to bed awaiting the next day when I had to rescue the lieutenant.

    Day: 2 January 16, 2007

            We woke up at 6:00 sharp got dressed and started to scout the area. It wasn’t until 9:30 when we finally saw life we counted 21 men one of whom was our lieutenant and the other was apparently in charge and appeared to be my target.

         John looked at me and said, “When should we begin our assignment?”

         I said, “At 2:15.”

         He said, “Okay sounds good.”

         At 2:10 I took aim the target was in my crosshairs we dialed in wind resistant and was ready to fire at exactly 2:15 I shoot the target at 500 yards I hit him in center mass. He was dead before he hit the ground the alarm was sounded. All 20 men came out and looked around then one sniper pointed to my location. I took aim and fired a mist of blood sprayed out and he fell dead. 5 soldiers stayed with the lieutenant and the rest got on snowmobiles and took off ten rounds later there where ten guys left 5 with the lieutenant and five still coming closer I reloaded by the time I was done they had made it to our tent.

         John yelled, get them! He pulled out his M16 and started to fire.

         I took out my .44 magnum and shot, and missed every time, then with a sudden jolt I fell on the ground and felt a tremendous pain in my shoulder. It appeared one of the five men left at the camp had a sniper and when John came over he had killed all of the men on the snowmobiles. He patched me up and we reposition 250 yards closer to the enemy camp. We sat there waiting and watching for any movement it seemed that had all taken cover. It was around 4:45 and then we saw the crazy man I slowed my breathing, said a prayer, and shot. Before I opened my eyes and saw a lifeless body on the ground. Blood was splattered on the trees behind him; I shot through his right eye socket. Well I thought to myself at least he won’t be harming more people. It wasn’t over yet.

         John said to me, “Ben that was an amazing shot.

         I said, “Thanks.”

         He said, “So now what?”

         I said, “I think we should come up on their camp site from the left.”

         John said, “Okay let’s move.”

         So we headed out at 6:00 p.m. luckily I had brought my G36 and John still had his M16. Three of the men came outside we jumped behind a shed and fired most of our ammo. When the other two men heard the noise they came running out right towards us. I didn’t have time to reload so I pulled out my Barrett 50 cal. And shot through his Jugular vein before I could reload to fire again but John shot him four times. I dropped my weapon ran towards where we had seen my lieutenant. John got there first kicked down the door and ran in before I could get in John dropped like a ton of bricks and laid lifeless I pulled up my G36 and saw my lieutenant with a different uniform and haircut I shot him in his shoulder. I ran to kick out his gun he punched my shoulder and I screamed. We got into a fist I used one of my wrestling moves then tied him up to a post. I called in a pickup and helped John up he was almost unconscious when the help arrived then took my so called “lieutenant” who was a traitor. I had one heck of a day. When I finally got home I said bye to John and went home.