"How an Army Rangers sniper became ‘The Reaper’" Topic

"Nick "Irv" Irving had never taken a human life when his platoon sergeant took him to one side. "After you kill a man," said the NCO, "there's no other feeling like it. Mark my words. You won't want to do any hunting again. The excitement of that will be gone. You won't find any joy in it. Once you kill a man, you can't replace that feeling."

Later, in Iraq, Irv was on the .50 caliber machine gun in a column of Stryker armored vehicles outside of Ramallah. On Route Tampa, the sun had just climbed above the horizon when a car sped past them at 70 mph. "If this guy turns around and approaches us at that same rate of speed," said Irv's supervisor, "take him out."

Irv wondered: Is it that easy?

The Iraqi driver stopped, turned around, stared. Then he gunned it. He stopped in the middle of the road, facing the American convoy. Irv lit him up, with a controlled seven-round burst. "I saw something explode inside the car," he writes. "It wasn't an IED, it was the man inside it. He turned into mist and chunks."…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Maybe they should adapt his book into a movie too since its cover looks kinda like American Sniper's:

But the following quote shows the author doesn't know what he's talking about since the army equivalent of Navy SEALs is Delta Force:

Failing a colorblindness test ended the young man's hopes for joining the SEALs, but he took to life as the Army equivalent, a Ranger.

SEAL's aren't the Delta equivalent, if anything it would be the DevGroup.

SEALs and DELTA are two different units. Arguably some may say they have equal or very similar capabilities. Save for, AFAIK, not all DELTA are SCUBA qualified. However, IIRC, failing the colorbliness test(took it several times usually during a physical while on active duty), means you can't tell the difference between Red and Green, generally. Which is an important capability. Because Nav lights on ships, aircraft, etc. are Red[left/Port] and Green [right/starboard]. And no, RANGERs in mission and training are not = SEALs. However, arguably US ARMY SF units that are SCUBA qualified are. Note many ARMY SF, DELTA, SEALs, USMC Recon, etc. go thru RANGER school or are RANGER Qualified before they start ARMY SF or possibly DELTA training. As a Mech Co. Cdr, '87-'89, I had an LT, that had served in the NAVY as enlisted. Before going to ARMY ROTC and becoming an ARMY 2LT. He went to RANGER school while in ROTC. So by the time he was assigned to my Company, he was SEAL, AIRBORNE RANGER qualified. And he was very good at all his duties. And his uniform was quite decked out with those qual badges. I also had a former NAVY enlisted, LT that went a similar path, but he was not a SEAL. But a NAVY Hard suit salvage diver. And he wore that badge on his uniform along with his Jump Wings. So for one thing the officers in my Company had a lot of skills, training, etc. … One of my LTs even went thru Pathfinder school as well … They were all a pretty skilled bunch. The Bn Cdr had assigned them to my Company because of my own varied training, experiences, etc. previously before I took Command. We got all the special, odd, etc. type missions.

Interesting story, Ralph.

The LT who was a former SEAL must've found Ranger school 'easy' when he went thru it during ROTC, at least the physical aspects.

He was one tough [crazy] MF !! And a Hell of a soldier ! My Mech Company was attached to a Tank Bn in Germany. We had to recon a ford site suitable for the M60s and M1IPs MBTs to cross. He took off his jungle boots, had no socks on, and walked thru water up to his knees to the other side. And said the bottom is rocks and stones. And the MBTs could cross here. True story !

Saw THE REAPER sniper on CNN this morning … I was impressed …