Bangkok File

Texas Hill Country

Texas Hill Country

L

ocked to his body, the big infantry rifle felt solid, firm, and reassuring, kind of like a handshake with a good buddy in hard times. He squinted through the rear peep-sight aperture, ignoring the front-sight blade for the moment and trying to focus tired eyes on a paper target precisely 600 yards away from where he lay prone and sweaty with the M-1 Garand tucked tightly into his shoulder. He wasn’t ready for precision sight alignment just yet. Before he dealt with the mechanics of squeezing off a shot, he had to be sure that little black smudge on the horizon really was the target and not some boulder or mesquite shrub. At this long range, staring through heat shimmers that rose from the sunbaked ground like a horde of advancing specters, it was hard to tell. And it got harder as a blinding sun in a cloudless blue sky advanced overhead, casting shadows all along the tortilla-flat terrain between his muzzle and the target.

This time, he thought as he tightened the loop sling into a painful tourniquet just above his support arm bicep, I just might have let my battleship mouth override my rowboat ass. The doctor told him during a recent check-up that a pair of eyeglasses might bring things into sharper focus, but he was having trouble admitting that his always excellent distance vision wasn’t what it used to be. Strap on a pair of glasses and it’s all downhill from there. Next thing you know, you’re doddering around on a walker.

It was shortly after that appointment that he wandered into a downtown pub just off the square in Lockhart—his new hometown—where he ran into a local guy who was just home on leave after deploying as a sniper assigned to the 10th Mountain Division. As it was destined to among a couple of veterans, the conversation turned to combat shooting. The soldier was full of techno-jargon about precision optics, finely-tuned weapons, and ballistic specs. The old Leatherneck at his elbow thought it was more about the shooter’s skill and indicated he’d made plenty of long-range shots with bog-standard infantry weapons using iron sights. Three beers later, they had a bet and an appointment to prove it or lose it with a case of beer on the line.

Retired Marine Gunner Shake Davis took a deep breath, inhaling the tang of linseed oil sweating out of the rifle’s walnut stock, and cut a glance to his right where the Army sniper was staring downrange through a spotter-scope. “Anytime today would be good…” The young soldier grinned around a lip full of Copenhagen and pointed into the shimmering distance. “Wind’s no factor, and that target ain’t gonna shoot back.” He spit into the sand and turned back to his scope. “I’m getting thirsty.”

The shooter squirmed into the hot sand and studied the horizon again until he found the white slab of rock he’d planted to the left of the target as a marker and then shifted his gaze to the right. That should be it, he decided, trying to bring the fuzzy image into sharper focus. At 600 yards—100 yards more than the book said was the M-1’s max effective range—the 40-inch-by-20-inch silhouette just looked like a greasy smudge, no detail at all. He cranked another click of elevation onto the rear sight and then began the practiced ritual of taking a precision shot. All he had to do was cut black, any hit on the target would win the bet, so he had a little wiggle room. He brought the front sight blade into the precise center of the peep-sight and made miniscule movements to bring that alignment onto the smudge for what he hoped was a good sight picture. Taking a deep breath and exhaling half of that into the sand, he took up the slack on the trigger, careful not to disturb the sight alignment and letting the fine motor muscles of his hands work in concert.

The shot broke unexpectedly, as it was supposed to do, but he was so locked into his shooting position that the recoil from the .30-06 round rocketing downrange at 2,800 feet per second barely phased him. He watched the front sight blade settle back in where it had been when he fired and then closed his eyes. There was nobody out there to wave Maggie’s Drawers, the time-honored red flag signal for a miss on military rifle ranges, but the spotter would let him know soon enough if he was buying the beer or drinking it.

“s**t!” The Army sniper swiveled on his stool and shook his head. “I swore there was no damn way that was gonna happen. M-1 rifle, ball ammo, 600 yards, iron sights—and you put one in the ten-ring.”

“Bet’s a bet,” the Marine said, uncoiling from the prone and using the rifle as a crutch to assist in the effort. “Let’s police up that target and then we can drink the beer you just bought.”

They sat in the shade of the pick-up’s tailgate with a cooler between them and examined the target. The shot had been good, better than the shooter thought it would be. The round of ball ammo holed the paper target about throat level, closer to the left shoulder than to the right if the silhouette had been human rather than a black outline on stiff cardboard. The Army sniper shook his head, still marveling at the results of the shot made without benefit of the high-power optics he was used to using and shouldered the M-1. “It’s heavy, ain’t it?”

“Just ten pounds,” the Marine said cracking a beer. “Probably a damn sight lighter than one of your tricked-out sniper rifles with all the bells and whistles attached. I’ve fired a few rounds through the .50s you guys use, and that old Garand is a featherweight compared to a Barrett.”

“Gizmos make it reliable.” The soldier squinted through the peep-sight aperture and swept the M-1’s muzzle across a patch of gently waving blue bonnets. “And with optics you can…you know…watch the shot go home…” He trailed off, having trouble saying much more about the business of long-range killing. The Marine traded him the M-1 for a cold beer can.

“Gizmos break,” he said. “And usually at the worst possible time.” He patted the old rifle fondly. “A man doesn’t have to worry about Murphy’s Law or have a degree in rocket science if he can shoot well enough to hit at long-range with open sights.”

“I worked with plenty of Marine snipers,” the soldier responded. “They’re just as big on the bells and whistles as we are.”

“Yeah, I know—and they’re a hell of an asset when they’re around to observe and take the shot. But my experience is that when you really need to take a long-range shot at a target of opportunity, there’s never a sniper with all his gear anywhere around. In my outfits we spent a lot of time on the range. I wanted every swinging d**k to be able to nail a target out at max ranges.”

“Every Marine is a rifleman, right?”

“A rifleman…a well-trained shooter that can reliably hit targets using standard issue gear when and where a target needs hitting…that’s the key. Not everyone can be a sniper—and if you train right, not everyone needs to be.”

The soldier digested that and ran his pinky finger through the bullet hole in the target. “Funny about optics,” he said after a few silent seconds. “You know you’re looking at a guy out there maybe a mile or so, but through the scope…he looks close…you can see details.”

“That’s important,” the Marine admitted, “especially if you’re picking up order of battle intel or ID’ing a specific high-value individual. If you’re just taking another asshole out of the fight…not so much.”

The soldier picked up one of the M-1 clips and ran his fingers across the tips of the eight rounds it contained. “We had this old dude came to talk to us at Fort Drum one time. He carried an M-1 in Korea. He said the commies used to wait to hear the ping when the clip ejected and then make their move.”

“I’ve heard that tale before.” The Marine jammed the clip into the M-1’s receiver and then racked the bolt, ejecting rounds until the empty clip popped out with a distinctive metallic ping. “Hear that? Now imagine trying to hear it in the middle of a firefight with machineguns ripping, rifles firing on both sides, and HE is detonating all around you.”

“So you think it’s bullshit?”

“Maybe if a guy is just trading rounds with another guy and no one else is shooting and there’s no incoming mortars or anything like that—but how often does that happen in combat? Most of the infantry fights I’ve been in you couldn’t hear s**t…not when the weapons are firing and not for a good while after that. Most guys who go through all that for any length of time wind up deaf as a damn post.”

“Those were the days before hearing protection and all that, I guess.”

“I guess,” said the Marine as he stood to brush sand and burrs from his jeans. “So just talk real loud if you want me to buy you lunch at Black’s barbecue joint. After that we can go by the house and I’ll teach you how to clean this old hog.”