Master sniper ‘The Reaper’ Nicholas Irving tells what it’s really like to kill for a living

AMID the buzz of “American Sniper”, meet Nicholas Irving, who became a master sniper with the US Army during tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. In his new book, he tells what it’s really like to take a life.

THERE was something about your first experiences in combat, and especially your first kill.

In 2005 during the Iraq War, we were doing a Ground Assault Force operation, taking the Strykers (eight-wheeled, armoured fighting vehicles) to a location outside of Ramallah, West Bank. This was my first deployment, so I was a little more gung ho than the rest of the guys. I was still in that stage of cherry new guy where I was hoping to get into one of the big firefights I’d heard about when guys came back Stateside. It all sounded so cool. Most of the firefights I’d participated in to that point had lasted five to ten minutes tops. While we were in them, it seemed like hours, but later when we reviewed the footage, only a few minutes of real-time action had occurred. Most of that was due to the enormous firepower advantage we had.

What took the most time was arresting, searching, and processing detainees. I had done all kinds of training related to destroying or capturing targets; helping gain intel was something I was having to learn more about while on the ground. I would want to talk to the guys about what we were doing, but I picked up on a vibe and listened to it. To them what we were doing was no big deal. Just another day at the office. Just do your job. Don’t bring your work back home with you.

I was busting inside with questions. What was it like to shoot someone up close? Do you even think about it?

One night that first deployment, we set out. I’d been trained as a Stryker driver, and it was pretty thrilling to be in control of a forty-tonne, eight-wheeled vehicle capable of 110km/h. At that point, though, I was a gunner, stuck sitting in a little pod where all I had was my joystick, my video display, and my team leader Salazar’s feet to look at. If I turned around, I could see the other soldiers behind me in the back end of the vehicle.

By this time everything had become routine. We’d reach the objective, offset about a thousand meters from it, drop the ramp, and I’d stay behind to offer cover fire for the assault team. On this particular operation, everything went as smooth as could be. We went in without incident. No shots were fired. We got the guys while they were sleeping and then loaded them up.

Nicholas Irving in action.

The worst part was always the drive to and from the objective. Improvised Explosive Devices were the biggest threat, as well as vehicular-borne devices.

Salazar was up top and he said to me, “Hey, I want you to check this car out to the left. Make sure no one gets inside our formation.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, a car came flying past us on our left, travelling about 110km/h. We’re on Route Tampa, the sun has just come up, and there’s light traffic, just a few other vehicles out there. Something was up or maybe some guy just didn’t want to be stuck behind our convoy of six Strykers. We were in the lead one and guys were freaking out over the comms, wondering what the hell this dude was up to, where he came from.

Salazar’s voice cut through the chatter. “If this guy turns around and approaches us at that same rate of speed, take him out.”

I acknowledged his order, but my mind was racing. “Is this serious? Do I really take this guy out? Is it that easy?” Truth is, I was hoping that the guy would turn toward us. I wasn’t wishing that he’d do any damage to us, but I wanted to see what that .50 cal could do. Another part of me was thinking it would be good if the man just kept speeding down the road and out of sight.

It was one of those “angel on my right shoulder and devil on my left” situations. For a while, neither of them was winning the debate and the man in the car wasn’t co-operating either. He just stopped the car on the side of the road. I zoomed in on him through the gun’s scope and I saw his dead clear eyes sizing us up. We were still moving toward him and he was about 800m away. That’s when he turned the car around and started coming toward us. I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is really going to happen.”

He revved his engine and came toward us, but then stopped right in the middle of the road as if he was going to block us.

Salazar started beating on the roof of the Stryker, yelling, “Shoot! Shoot!”

I hesitated, looking at my view screen at this expressionless man. I took the weapon off safe.

I felt Salazar’s boot on my shoulder and heard him saying, “Shoot! Shoot the mother——!”

I opened up with a seven-round burst, watching the bullets climb up the car’s hood and then into the windshield, and through the smoke of the shattering glass, I saw something explode inside the car. It wasn’t an IED; it was the man inside it.

We stopped the vehicle and, just like in any operation, the soldiers approached the car acting as they would if they knew the man was still alive. I knew better, but still they needed to be cautious. When the man didn’t respond to any of their orders and it was clear that he wasn’t going to be able to, they opened the driver’s side door and this pile of stuff dropped to the ground. They made their way to the car’s trunk and unloaded some AK-47s and then one of the guys held up the head of a rocket-propelled grenade. If we had charged the guy and run him over, that could have gone off and done some damage. We didn’t know exactly what the guy’s intent was, but it didn’t matter, both because of what happened to him, what I’d done to him, and because of how he’d chosen to respond to our presence.

A couple of the soldiers congratulated me, and that felt good, but later on, when my shock wore off, I had this funny coppery taste in my mouth, like I was sucking on a penny. I felt a little queasy, with that stomach-sinking feeling you get when somebody gives you some bad news.

Later that night, the image of that man returned to me. I had a dream where I was in a room with a ceiling fan spinning above me. The blades of the fan were the man’s four limbs plus his head and chest. He was staring at me with that same dead-eyed stare, but as the fan spun faster and faster, he started screaming at me open-mouthed. Eventually the fan got spinning so fast that his limbs were whipped off and he sprayed the room with blood and guts.

I woke up thinking about what my platoon sergeant had told me prior to our going over to Iraq. We were in a Humvee, with me in the back and him in the front seat. He turned and said, “You know what, Irv?”

“What’s up, Sergeant?”

“After you kill a man, there’s no other feeling like it. Mark my words. You won’t want to do any hunting again. The excitement of that will be gone. You won’t find any joy in it either. Once you kill a man, you can’t replace that feeling.”

He was right. The combination of emotions and the physical rush that floods through your body after combat is unlike anything I’d experienced before or since.

Edited extract from The Reaper: Autobiography of one of the Deadliest Special Ops Snipers by Nicholas Irving, published by Nero and on sale January 28.

MORE FROM IRVING: ‘Being able to kill is something you’re born with’

Originally published as Master sniper ‘The Reaper’ Nicholas Irving tells what it’s really like to kill for a living