The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi Read Free

didn’t want it to change me, or us—any of us. I didn’t think ahead to the future—where I’d be as a man or a husband or father a decade later. It didn’t matter at the time. I just needed to clean my gun. I was in Ramadi, and I’d be back in my rack before the flies found the meat we’d left for them in the reeds.
    Later, I lay awake for only a moment before falling into a satisfied sleep, confident in the work I’d done with the others.
    I hope it will always be like this.
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F EBRUARY 2, 2013
    The bar had a typical college feel to it. The slight touch of hippie made it the type of place that, in my past life, I would have tried to avoid. It was early and the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, night was just getting going. I settled into a much-needed night off from studying and routine grad school life as the opening snap of a cue ball breaking the rack cut into my conversation with my wife, Lindsey. I took a pull from the Coors Light bottle. Some things never change.
    My phone vibrated in my pocket. For a moment, I considered ignoring it. I was enjoying a rare night out at a friend’s birthday party and I really didn’t need a distraction. Then again, I wasn’t the average physician assistant student. I had a kid at home with a babysitter, and I had a job outside of school. I checked the phone. The last thing I needed was to miss an important call.
    The screen read STEVEN YOUNG—CRAFT CEO.
    I thought it strange for the boss to call at 8 p.m. on a weekend. I answered, figuring it had to be important.
    “Hey, Steven,” I said, my phone held tight to my right ear and my fingers plugging my left to block out the noise of the bar. “What’s up?”
    I immediately realized something was very wrong from the tone of Steven’s voice. The words tumbled out at me and I collected what I could. “Dauber . . . something bad happened earlier . . . Chris is gone  . . . shot earlier today with Chad . . . Murder  . . . I’m so sorry . . .”
    The phone stayed fixed at my ear, but I didn’t hear the rest of what he said. I felt like I’d just been punched in the face. I guess you could call it shock. I shot a look across the bar at Lindsey, whose eyes were glued on me. She knew something was wrong.
    I mumbled a thanks to Steven and a request to keep me posted, then hung up the phone.
    I walked over to Lindsey. I didn’t want to tell her. Since we’d met nearly seven years earlier, we’d grown accustomed to breaking this kind of news to each other. More often it was me who broke it to her, sometimes over the phone when I learned of the death of someone I’d served with, sometimes even via text, other times face-to-face, like this.
    I didn’t want to tell her.
    She was happy, standing there, enjoying a night out. Reluctantly, I grabbed her hand and led her out of the bar. I looked at her face in the streetlight. I thought of the news I’d broken to her over the years, and how she’d taken it on with me, because they were my losses. Each time she had mourned with me, respectfully paying tribute to the men I called brothers. This was going to be different. The longer I’d been out of the Teams, the more my core group of friends had dwindled. Chris had remained constant. I knew this news was going to hurt.
    When we were still dating and living in Imperial Beach, California, I took her along on a sniper shoot east of San Diego. All the snipers in the task unit came and a couple of us brought our girlfriends. Chris was solo that day, so we spent the afternoon sighting in the guns and teaching the chicks to shoot. Lindsey had never shot a rifle before, but I could tell she was happy, especially after I watched her hit a head plate target at 500 meters. Chris was the first to praise her with a “Hell yeah!” With praise coming from the Legend, she was especially proud of her shooting.
    I thought about the fun we’d all had together over the years. This time it was her loss, too.
    As I told her, I