SHOOTER: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE TOP-RANKED MARINE SNIPER

SHOOTER: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE TOP-RANKED MARINE SNIPER Marine Sniper Sgt. Jack Coughlin is the Marine Corps' top-ranked sniper. Shooter is his harrowing and very human first-person account of one man's battle to remain sane and hold his family together while personally bringing America's military muscle to the enemy's front door. Coughlin is also a divorced father of two who grew up in a wealthy Boston suburb. At the age of nineteen, although he had never even held a gun, he joined the Marines, and would spend the next 20 years behind the scope of a long-range precision rifle. Marine Sniper Sgt. Jack Coughlin carried his specially designed bolt action rifleand its nearly magical scopeinto a landscape of sandstorms, firefights, and chaos during Operation Iraqi Freedom. As marines charged through the desert and leapfrogged through bizarre, treacherous urban battlefields, Coughlin and his sniper teammate did their job and did it well: One by one, they spotted their targetsup to a half a mile away. And one by one their targets died. Coughlin has more than 60 confirmed kills.In this extraordinary account from battlefield Iraq, Coughlin tells the story of his own unique war, from stealthy, slowly-unfolding long range kills to unplanned firefightsand how one sniper team adapted and thrived in a battle zone unlike any they faced beforeWith vivid portraits of Coughlins fellow marines and the battles they fought from Al Kut to Baghdad center, Shooter takes readers to the frontlines of the war in Iraq and gives a brutally honest account of a man trained to hunt humans, who had the courage to do his deadly joband live with it once the WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING:When I asked one of his commanders about his skills, the commander smiled and said, 'I'm just glad he's on our side.'" _Peter Maas, war correspondent and bestselling author of Love Thy Neighbor"The combat narratives here recount battlefield action with considerable energy...A renowned sniper, Coughlin is less concerned with his tally than with the human values of comradeship and love." -The Washington Post"A uniquely intimate look into the life of one trained to live in the shadows...some of the most poignant action ever recorded in a modern Marine memoir." - Seapower ISBN: 0-312-93917-5 publish date: 05/15/2005