In 1968, Gary Mitchell was a teenager in Granbury, Texas - a town that offered very few options other than college or the military. Fresh out of high school, Mitchell chose to enlist in the Army, and was sent to Vietnam, where he earned a reputation for keeping his head in extreme situations. This caught the eye of his superiors, who found that he also excelled at long-distance shooting - a discovery that set him on the path to a new identity as a sniper.

During his time in Vietnam, undercover American intelligence agents "borrowed" Mitchell, off the books of course, from his Army unit, and used him to carry out planned assassinations. Some - not Gary - might even call them executions. These were not combat kills, but most likely targets assigned by agents in the CIA-backed Phoenix Program. From his first mission to his last, Gary had to deal with the realization that he and his spotter were expendable, their missions deniable.

But this is not just the story of a man at war; it's also about the war within the man, because the memories of his sniper missions were always with him. And as the years went by, the full realization of what he'd done in the line of duty came back to haunt Mitchell's scarred conscience. Without the love of his wife, Ellen, it would have destroyed him.

A compelling, troubling story, this war memoir recounts the hellish experiences of an 18-year-old na?f from Texas who volunteered to fight in the Vietnam War only to find himself transformed into a part-time sniper. Mitchell served as an infantryman and as the commander of an armored recovery vehicle for most of his 1969–1970 tour, spending most of his time in the thick of the guerrilla war. Periodically, he would be plucked from his unit by a team of anonymous intelligence operatives (perhaps members of the CIA's Phoenix Program), handed a special sharpshooter's rifle, put on a helicopter and given a mission to stalk and kill someone. For respite, he was given three weeks of temporary duty working with dead American bodies at the Danang morgue. Mitchell survived the war, but soon after coming home he began suffering from terrifying nightmares and rages that would plague him for three decades. Mitchell tells his life story with the help of journalist Hirsh (None Braver), also a Vietnam veteran. Though the later sections dealing with Mitchell's efforts to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder are bogged down with repetitive details and long quotes, the authors' recounting of Mitchell's sniper missions are absolutely riveting.

Mitchell began his journey as a high-school student in Texas, from which college and the army were the only ways out. The army took him to Vietnam, where he proved such an effective combat infantryman that he was chosen for sniper training. He served as a sniper during the rest of the Vietnam War and on detachment to U.S. intelligence for deniable covert operations in many countries. The deniability required that he and his spotter had absolutely no backup or any resources except their own wits and weapons to execute the mission and then escape and evade. Mitchell's conscience preyed on him, as has many a sniper's before, and he describes its working with exceptional vividness. He also pays tribute to his solid marriage and credits his wife for much of the work of preserving his sanity. Probably a good deal of detail about his service remains and will remain hidden; even so, Mitchell's report of his career adds well to sniper literature and infantry memoirs.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Roland Green

Gary D. Mitchell served in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star for Valor, two Purple Heart Medals, and the Combat Infantryman Badge, and participated in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Michael Hirsh is a George Foster Peabody Award and Writers Guild Award winner, and the author of None Braver.

length: (cm)23.6 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)16.4