Crosshairs
The Story of a Marine Sniper
Sergeant Cole Griffin sighed as he lay knee deep in mud. He was just outside of Khe Sanh, Vietnam, and had been watching the same field for around four hours. It was a foggy day with constant precipitation, yet Griffin did not move an inch. He was positioned about a mile into well known Vietcong territory but hadn't seen any movement all day.
"Figure Charlie finally got scared off?" Private First-Class Hank Collins joked quietly. He had been assigned as Griffin's spotter a couple of months before. He was a smaller man with a good sense of humor. He, like Griffin, was caked with mud from the long day as he lay in a prone position.
"I'd be scared too if I had air strikes fallin' around me," replied Griffin as he adjusted his head behind the .30-06 bolt action sniper rifle with it's 10-power scope. Over the past year he had learned to use this piece of weaponry as if it were an extension of his body. He had over 60 confirmed kills and 100 probable, and there was no sign of him stopping anytime soon. He slowly reached toward his belt and took a drink out of his canteen. "See them mounds of dirt at 2 o'clock?"
"Yeah, could be a bunker...Want me to call in the birds?"
"Not yet, I got a feelin' Charlie's about to show up." He scanned the area once again with his rifle and then focused on the mounds. They were made up of bare dirt and had hills on either side of them. He had only seen something like this once before. About three months ago he had been positioned just East of Chu Lai and had spotted dirt mounds much like these. He called in an air strike and when the Vietcong came pouring over the hill, he had picked them off one at a time. He was hoping for a similar turnout but it was getting dark and he might have to call for illumes. At the moment he would wait and think of his next course of action.
The men had arrived in Vietnam a year earlier, 1963, and began their scout/sniper training. They had learned all about guerrilla warfare and had been trained as woodsmen, marksmen, and craftsmen. They both had similar backgrounds, growing up on farms and learning to hunt at an early age. Griffin was from Montana, and Collins from Virginia. The snipers had been trained to be stealthy, intelligent, and reliable. They often went in alone or with one other man and were very successful. Collins and Griffin had been assigned to numerous objectives together and had gotten to the point where they knew exactly how each other would react. Together they had pinned down an entire enemy patrol. Three days later, all of the men were either dead or in extreme conditions. The snipers started to run low on food and ammunition so they called in the artillery which took care of the remaining soldiers. Twenty two men were confirmed dead.
Griffin flicked a rather large bug off of his rifle and glanced over at Collins. The spotter sat silently, concentrating on the large mounds of dirt with his M-14. A half an hour ago they had seen a man walk away from the mound to have a cigarette and then stroll back behind it. Griffin's guess was right and there was a tunnel leading into the hills. The two men thought to themselves as they studied the tunnel entrance.
"It's crazy how they got all these tunnels..." Collins whispered. Most marines had heard stories of what happens when a man is taken into those underground tunnels. None of the stories were good.
"I don't like to think about it. Hey, get ready to call in-" He was stopped mid-sentence as a group of Vietnamese soldiers stepped out from behind the steep hills. Griffin saw Collins' body stiffen as he saw the wandering men too. He gripped his rifle tighter. There were eight men and they were following a path that wrapped around a small pond in the middle of the field. The hills were to the right of the snipers, the pond in the middle, a tree line past that, and another tree line to their left. The men were headed to the left tree line and made no noise as they moved along the path. They walked in a quiet, stealthy manner. The snipers, on the peak of a rather steep hill with the perfect amount of vegetation, sat quietly as they studied the men. They were most likely on some sort of assignment and it was Griffin's and Collin's job to prevent that.
Under the thick knots of leaves and vines, Griffin signaled that he had the first man and that Collins was to take the last. The camouflage paint on his face was smeared due to the rain that dripped from the hanging branches and leaves. Collins nodded and the two stiffened their bodies and stared through the scopes. He got Collins' attention again and quietly whispered for him to call in for illumes. A moment later, the night lit up and the patrol began to run as fast as they could down the path. Griffin steadied his breathing. He focused only on where he wanted his bullet to strike and then placed his crosshairs on the leader's chest. He eased the trigger and the .30-06 recoiled into his shoulder. The man kicked backwards, a direct hit to the heart. Griffin could hear Collins' fire and saw the last man in line fall to the ground. Griffin was able to work his rifle's bolt so fast that he had soon struck two more men and Collins got one. The remaining three dove behind a boulder to the left of the pond.
The snipers relaxed their grips. "Alright, let's call the boys in."
As Collins' called in the air strike, Griffin was able to pick off one more of the men as he tried to fire his AK-47. The remaining two were determined to stay hunched behind the boulder. The night continued to light up as more illumes were set off. Griffin, deciding he wouldn't get any more shots off, draped the rifle over his shoulder and began to crawl away from the field, down the other side of the snipers' hill. Collins followed him and the two heard the planes deliver the deadly explosives over the given coordinates. After they had crawled about 500 yards, the men began to walk and quietly talked to each other about the day. They then made it to their rendezvous point and were picked up by a chopper.