Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.70443373092
Format: Bargain Price
Label: St. Martin's Griffin
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: May 02, 2006
Publishing house: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: May 02, 2006
Sale Popularity Level: 750274
Studio: St. Martin's Griffin
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
With more than sixty confirmed kills, Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin is the Marine Corps’ top-ranked sniper. Coughlin has written a highly personal story about his deadly craft, taking listeners deep inside an invisible society that is off-limits to outsiders.
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Rated by buyers 
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I was in the Corps 30 years ago. My last duty was in SD MCRD, and we didn't train recruits to tell a CO to F off. Is that new? I would probably have agreed with him in most the incidents he writes. Especially in situations with the butterbar. Still, in my day, that would have been a dangerous pass time. Especially for a lifer. who wants to retire a Gunny.
Anyway, this book is no great recount of sniper activity, like that of Hathcock. Its hard to top keeping a platoon pinned down for 24 hours. Maybe it's because he wasn't let loose for a few years in a stagnant war. So he had to make the best with the targets he had. Still it reads on and on like the drone that it is. I see target, I shoot target..repeat. Tell LT to F off..repeat. The best part of the entire book was the Somalia chapter. With all the service this man had to retell, he simply made the mistake of thinking volume of kills would be more interesting than a few really interesting missions. If you ever read this Jack, I appreciate your service to this country, but you need to forget you wrote this and start over. Tell us about the whole 15 or so years you bopped around the planet shooting people. I gave it a second star for not boring us with boot camp stories. Thanks for that respite.
Rated by buyers 
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The author/sniper seems to enjoy shooting Iraqis a little too much. Of course, shooting enemies is one of his duties, and he has a right to feel good about doing it well. But the book overflows with cocky statements like "I considered the ill-trained, poorly led soldiers of Iraq to be hamburger in my scope, practically begging me to kill them, and I was more than ready to grant that wish." Still, if you can tolerate the author's apparent machisimo and arrogance, and his constant whining every time his superiors order him to do any job that does not involve shooting, you will get a little piece of action-packed history from the perspective of a person who lived it.
Rated by buyers -
Overall a good and well written book. It surprised me how flowing the narrative was in this book, seeing as it was a biography,and autobiography at that. Shooter has none of the long drawn out side paths to the story, nor setting up one part of the characters life, then another. There is a bit of set-up in the form of the very first chapter, and some side paths to the story, non longer then a page and most a single paragraph. The bulk of the story focuses on Gunnery Sgt. Coughlin's envelopment in the training and invasion of Iraq.
There is the occasional cliche' and the book is as gung-ho as would be excepted from a Marine, but the smoothness of the storytelling and the Coughlin's clarity in retelling events far surprised those rather minor complaints.
A quality book all around.
Rated by buyers -
This is a great story. Jack Coughlin is a great Marine and a great sniper. The book is written with a real cocky, type-a personality kind of tone. It doesn't come off all that bad, but you have to get used to it. It's written as if Jack Coughlin were standing in front of you, and talking at you. This is a good buy if you like military books. I got it for free from a co-worker, so the price was right and I wasn't out anything even if it sucked...which it didn't.
Rated by buyers 
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Read this if you want to put out the welcome matt "When Johnny Comes Marching Home."
Calculated killing in war can sharpen wisdom and appreciation for life.
Coughlin's words are the gemstones of a genuine sage and his insights are as sharp as his shots.
He reveals his marriage problems with way more class and grace than "a human being should be allowed to have."
A platoon of Jeff Foxworthys or Jerry Seinfelds could not have conjured, in their finest hour, the real-life and hilarious laser war chaos created by Jack the Sniper.
The man is a legend and a genius.
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