The Top 40

You do realize the irony implicit in the fact that this little squib about Carlos Hathcock has been posted by a major-league purveyor of beard oil and similar male cosmetics.

How edgy.

And the point of those 300 kills was what exactly?

Hathcock was a bit off, but he was an astounding sniper. The guy just was not quite right ever again when he got back from the war, but I guess after all he did and went through its not surprising :/

ghost: the point was to make the targets dead. Nothing more elaborate. Some people enjoy killing, some focus on the setup and target approach. The kill shot is an anti-climax for them. I do not attempt to explain Hathcock, merely suggest that he either enjoyed killing or he was detached and just concentrated on the approach and shot. Some long-range varmint shooters can kill a hundred gophers at five, six hundred yards and not realize that each one was a living thing being killed.

Some have killed both ways: at a distance, detached like in a firefight, or up close and personal, hands-on. I can tell you that however the death is caused it is a big letdown. One minute alive, next minute a pile of lifeless flesh. The up close ones I will never forget. Damn near knocked me off the rails and I get a few dark dogs howling at my door in the wee midnight hours, long 'fore the break of day. See? I have to put them in a context I can live with. Other guys would walk over dead bodies to eat their meals.

Watch "The Unforgiven", Clint Eastwood's movie.

At 19 years of age I volunteered to go over there and do that stuff, having been sufficiently brainwashed for close to 2 decades. Maybe Hathcock never saw the light, like I did, until after he did his dastardly deeds for reasons I'm sure he can't explain, now.

Chas, right on about those up close, looking them in the eye shit. When you turn their lights off, there is no way of denying what your doing. Shooting 2-300 meters is like shooting pop-ups on the range. There isn't any real connection to you/them.

As for the night visitors, they never go away. And sometimes, even in the day, when one slips into drifting, something can really get you back to the here and now.

VW — That's the nice thing about reality though, consequences are immediate and proportional: a short'n sharp feedback, no room for dithering excuses. Nothing like a jolt in the middle of the night, keep you centered and grounded.
I try to keep a two meter zone around me and I avoid crowds. Some sounds and smells will trigger me. The smell of Afro Sheen gives me the cold sweats. I had a faceful of the shit and it took forever for the poor bastard to drop.

Drifting, uh? Try not to lose sight of shore.