Authors: Michael Lee Lanning
ISBN-13: 9780804116206, ISBN-10: 0804116202
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Date Published: July 1998
Edition: Reprint
Michael Lee Lanning retired from the army as a lieutenant colonel after more than twenty years' service. During his assignment to Vietnam, he served as both an infantry platoon leader and a company commander in the 199th Infantry Brigade (Light). He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
"The American sniper could be regarded as the greatest all-around rifleman the world has ever known. . . ."
At the start of the war in Vietnam, the United States had no snipers; by the end of the war, Marine and army precision marksmen had killed more than 10,000 NVA and VC soldiersthe equivalent of an entire divisionat the cost of under 20,000 bullets, proving that long-range shooters still had a place in the battlefield. Now noted military historian Michael Lee Lanning shows how U.S. snipers in Vietnamcombining modern technology in weapons, ammunition, and telescopesused the experience and traditions of centuries of expert shooters to perfect their craft.
To provide insight into the use of American snipers in Vietnam, Lanning interviewed men with combat trigger time, as well as their instructors, the founders of the Marine and U.S. Army sniper programs, and the generals to whom they reported. Backed by hard information and firsthand accounts, the author demonstrates how the skills these one-shot killers honed in the jungles of Vietnam provided an indelible legacy that helped save American lives in Grenada, the Gulf War, and Somalia and continues to this day with American troops in Bosnia.