American Sniper - Boekje Pienter

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I think the whole idea of putting an Iraqi face on the war was
garbage. If you want to win a war, you go in and win it. Then you can
train people. Doing it in the middle of a battle is stupid. It was a miracle
it didn’t fuck things up any worse than it did.
COP IRON
The thin dust from the dirt roads mixed with the stench of the river
and city as we came up into the village. It was pitch-black, somewhere
between night and morning. Our target was a two-story building in the
center of a small village at the south side of Ramadi, separated from
the main part of the city by a set of railroad tracks.
We moved into the house quickly. The people who lived there
were shocked, obviously, and clearly wary. Yet they didn’t seem overly
antagonistic, despite the hour. While our terps and jundis dealt with
them, I went up to the roof and set up.
It was June 17, the start of the action in Ramadi. We had just
taken the core of what would become COP Iron, the first stepping
stone of our move into Ramadi. (COP stands for Command Observation
Post.)
I eyed the village carefully. We’d been briefed to expect a hell of a
fight, and everything we’d been through over the past few weeks in the
east reinforced that. I knew Ramadi was going to be a hell of a lot
worse than the countryside. I was tense, but ready.
With the house and nearby area secured, we called the Army in.
Hearing the tanks coming in the distance, I scanned even more carefully
through the scope. The bad guys could hear it, too. They’d be here
any second.