Shooter

I had previously mentioned reading War of the Rats, which has kind of put me into the mood of reading about snipers. War of the Rats [amazon.com] and Kill Zone [amazon.com] (which are both about snipers) are some of the best novels that I have read in a while.

One of the authors (Jack Coughlin) of Kill Zone actually wrote an autobiography called Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper [amazon.com], which I decided to read next. In the book, Coughlin recounts his role in several conflicts, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Coughlin spends a bit of the book on top of a soapbox, describing his ideas on how the role of the sniper can/must change along with the recent changes in warfare. The authors seem to think that the role of the sniper is being marginalized in mobile, fast-attack forces; but that snipers are now needed more than ever and can be better utilized in these kinds of military operations.

Many of the chapters of the book focus on conflicts in which he was given greater flexibility to demonstrate how snipers could be better utilized, to devastating effect.

Of course, one of the most interesting aspects to me was to hear the accounts from the ground (especially in Iraq), which sound very different than how they were reported by the media.