"Snipers look for targets of opportunity. One sniper can stop a company in its tracks. Warfare in the mountainous jungle is different. Pristine jungle. No humans have been out there. A lot of times it is so thick you can barely see because of the undergrowth. We were in the mountains in single file, and we got ambushed. I was farther back in the column. We got people in the kill zone wounded, and we got people dead up in the front. After a while I said I could get around behind and flank the NVA.
I crawled back down the perimeter looking for a place where I could go off to the side of the trail and work my way around. As I was coming across a hilltop, and the top was relatively flat. I heard what sounded like a steel mosquito whistle past my ear. It was a sniper, but he missed me. You don't hear the shot. You hear the round as it passes your head. A lot of about being a sniper is concealment. There's only one of them operating in an area where there may be 500, 1,000, 2,000 enemies, so concealment and movement are key.
The sniper has to master those skills of moving and getting into position, acquiring cover. He learns about wind and elevation, the effect of heat. He learns to control his breathing. Pulling the trigger is the last thing the sniper does.
There are three kinds of people who kill, from what I can discern in combat, For some people, that first kill makes them almost sick. Physically ill. They really can't deal with it. At the other extreme, there are those people who get that rush. It's the supreme power act. It almost gives them a god complex. Some guys, when they do it, they like it. They get hooked on killing just like they got hooked on heroin. In the middle, there are guys who get that rush but fight with the moral conflict.
You don't have time to think about dying, very rarely do you think about dying. This is what you have to say to yourself: 'If I die I won't know anything about it.' You don't think about dying or getting hurt. You think about killing the enemy." - U.S. Marine Washington Broker III, Bravo Co., 1st BN, 3rd Marines, Quang Tri Province, Vietnam July 4th, 1968 #stayzero #zerofoxrtrot