American Sniper - Boekje Pienter

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of IED attacks, kidnappings, assassinations—you name it and it
happened on Haifa. American soldiers dubbed it Purple Heart
Boulevard.
The buildings we used for overwatches were fifteen to sixteen
stories tall, and had a commanding view of the road. We moved
around to the extent that we could, shifting locations to keep the
insurgents off-balance. There were an untold number of hideouts in
the squat buildings beyond the immediate highway, all up and down
the street. The bad guys didn’t have much of a commute to get to work.
The insurgents here were a real mix; some were mujahedeen,
former Baath or Iraqi Army guys. Others were loyal to al-Qaeda in
Iraq or Sadr or some of the other whackadoos out there. At the start,
they’d wear black or sometimes these green sashes, but once they realized
that set them apart, they resorted to wearing regular civilian
clothes just like everyone else. They wanted to mix with civilians to
make it more difficult for us to figure out who they were. They were
cowards, who not only would hide behind women and children, but
probably hoped we’d kill the women and children, since in their minds
it helped their cause by making us look bad.
One afternoon, I watched a young teenage kid waiting for the bus
below me. When the bus pulled up, a group of older teenagers and
young adults got off. All of a sudden, the kid I was watching turned
and started walking very quickly in the opposite direction.
The group caught up quickly. One of them pulled out a pistol and
put his arm around the kid’s neck.
As soon as he did that, I started shooting. The kid I was protecting
took off. I got two or three of his would-be kidnappers; the others got
away.