Free Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper by Gunnery Sgt. Jack, Capt. Casey Kuhlman, Donald A. Davis Coughlin Page A

trigger on an unsuspecting enemy in a heartbeat.
    When I became the company gunny, I handed off the sniper platoon to other leaders, but although the snipers were no longer under my direct command for their daily tasks, they were still mine, and I would participate in or make every major decision involving them. They were always coming by to ask questions, and everybody knew that when the shooting started, I would be carrying my sniper rifle.
    I demanded more from them than just textbook learning and shooting skills. They would be distributed in teams throughout the battalion, and the lives of other Marines would depend on them. Were they ready? Hell, yeah. They were confident, tough, and itching to fight. A few of the arrogant little bastards even thought they could outshoot me.
     
    My M40A1 sniper rifle lay in pieces before me on my poncho as I gave it still another thorough cleaning. In the Marines, you always take care of your own weapon, and I would never trust someone else with the job, because my life might depend on the task. It was a mechanical marvel, from the Pachmayr recoil pad on the McMillan fiberglass and epoxy stock to the modified Winchester Model 70 trigger guard, to the Remington 700 receiver, and the Atkinson heavy, free-floating barrel, all topped off with the 10-power Unertl scope that makes a target a thousand yards away seem to be right next to my eyeball. The package weighs fourteen and a half pounds, and it is my long arm of justice. It is a common misconception that we work with just one weapon until death do us part, but gone are the days of Davy Crockett and his Kentucky long rifle at the Alamo. This rifle just happened to be the one I would be using for a while, and the armorer had adjusted it to perfectly fit my grasp, so I treated it kindly.
    I was tired, but feeling good after calling home and talking to my kids, for their girlish chatter lifted my spirits. The babysitter said my wife was at school, where she was working toward a doctoral degree, and I paid her absence no mind. I was receiving a lot of letters and packages from friends and family and figured the low volume of correspondence from her was because she was simply overwhelmedtaking care of the girls, running the house, working, and going to school. Being a Marine wife is not easy.
    Casey ducked into my cubbyhole on a bitterly cold night in early March 2003 as a hard wind beat against the sturdy Bedouin tent. He heated up some Spam on the little propane stove, grabbed some lukewarm coffee, and settled in for a bullshit session while I cleaned my disassembled rifle, up to my elbows in gun oil, patches, and rags. He was thoroughly capable in his job, although Officer Bob frustrated him almost to the point of mutiny. A couple of times I had to stop the staff guy from trying to replace Lieutenant Kuhlman, carefully explaining that we needed someone who knew what the hell he was doing to take this unit into combat.
    “I hate everybody and everything,” Casey declared. “I hate Bob. I hate this fucking country.” Everybody hated Kuwait.
    He was a kindred spirit, and I recognized his jumpiness as nothing more than a case of prebattle jitters. After months of training and tense expectation, he wanted to get into it, to see how he stacked up as a combat Marine, but he wanted to be leading a rifle platoon, not babysitting Bob. I knew he would do fine, but Casey would reach that conclusion only after enduring his trial by fire. It’s always a one-man graduation ceremony.
    “You need a day away. Go down to Doha and get a hamburger.” Camp Doha is a rear-area paradise that had been established near Kuwait City during the last Gulf War and then was built up with millions of U.S. dollars. Between the shopping mall and the restaurants, you can get anything you want at Doha. It was not like life at the front.
    I had my boots off because my feet were always itching. Outside our little office, Casey and I observed military courtesy and