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Los Angeles Times - Dec 28, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-snipers28dec28,1,4223355.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true

Snipers stalk Marine supply route in western Iraq

By Tony Perry
Times Staff Writer

Along MSR Mobile, Outside Fallouja, Iraq -- The battle for this desolate
stretch of road east of Fallouja is relentless: Twenty-four hours a day,
Marines lumber up and down the six-lane freeway in 23-ton amphibious
assault vehicles, looking for bombs and dodging snipers.

The shadowy gunmen are a constant menace on MSR Mobile -- short for Main
Supply Route Mobile, so dubbed because it serves as a main link between
several U.S. bases here in Al Anbar province. In the last two weeks, two
Marines with Company B of the 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion from Camp
Lejeune, N.C., have fallen to snipers' bullets: Lance Cpl. Luke Yepsen, 20,
of Brazos, Texas, and Cpl. Joshua Pickard, 20, of Merced, Calif.
Marines suspect the same sniper killed Yepsen and Pickard.

"I hope he shows up today -- I'd like to blast his ass," Sgt. Clayton
Chism, 26, of Prentiss, Miss., said at the beginning of a patrol involving
14 Marines and three vehicles from the battalion's Team Gator.

The mission on the road linking Fallouja to Baghdad could be seen as a
microcosm of the Marine mission in Al Anbar: nothing likely to be made into
a Hollywood war movie, just a "persistent presence" to wear down the
insurgency.

But there are moments of adrenalin-pumping drama. On this day, the Marines
shot an Iraqi spotted planting a roadside bomb. When Lance Cpl. William
Shaw was lifting the wounded Iraqi into a vehicle to be taken to a field
hospital, the Marine was shot in the back by a sniper.

The round struck the back plate in the flak vest worn by the 22-year-old
from Fort Bend, Texas. A few inches lower, and Shaw might have been killed
or his spine severed.

The explosive ordnance detail was called to examine the bomb. It was fake.
Fake bombs are a recent wrinkle in the insurgents' game plan. The strategy,
apparently, is to fire at Marines who arrive to neutralize the devices.

Navy trauma doctors who have treated wounded Marines say the snipers have
also learned how to find vulnerable spots not covered by protective plates.
"We're not bionic men," said Gunnery Sgt. Justin Smith, 32, of Boston.
Several sniper shootings have taken place nearby. Marines suspect that
insurgents use low-slung buildings parallel to the freeway as a staging
ground and a place to make bombs.

The Marines raided the buildings recently and detained dozens of Iraqis.
Some Marines had hoped to get permission to demolish the buildings, but
that was denied by upper authority.

"It's like being in the U.S. and having a public park being used by drug
dealers," said Capt. Eric Dominijanni, 34, of New York, commander of B
Company. "Not everybody there is a drug dealer, and you can't destroy the
park."

Chism's three-vehicle convoy arrived to provide additional security for the
Marines. Inside one vehicle, nicknamed "Event Horizon," after a sci-fi
movie, three Marines waited to respond if the searchers were attacked.
Protecting MSR Mobile is sometimes boring.

For four hours, they waited. "It was a good day: not much action," said
Cpl. Dennis Bryant, 21, of Kodiak, Alaska. "Everybody came back OK."

Navy corpsman Raymond Casas, 35, of Victoria, Texas, was hit by a sniper
round in the upper chest while on a mission just off the freeway. The
bullet hit his M-16 and then the fabric of his protective vest, leaving
Casas with a deep gouge in his Grim Reaper tattoo.

Casas said he felt a sharp sting in his chest and immediately went on the
radio to report he'd been hit. "I was more mad than hurt," he said. He
knows that if the bullet hadn't been deflected by his M-16, he'd be dead.
"I was lucky, I guess."

Although the sniper thought to have killed Yepsen and Pickard is still at
large, the Marines here have killed and captured numerous snipers and
bombers.

"We take one off, there seems to be another to take his place," Smith said.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

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