A Sniper's Journey: The Truth About the Man Behind the Rifle [Hardcover]

Gary D. Mitchell (Author), Michael Hirsh (Author), Douglas Valentine (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 2006

What kind of man can take another's life while looking him-or her-dead in the eyes? And what does repeatedly committing such an act do to that man?

In 1968, Gary Mitchell enlisted in the Army and was sent to an infantry unit in Vietnam, where he earned a reputation for keeping his head in extreme situations. This caught the eye of his superiors, who had him trained to excel at long-distance shooting. However, Gary was not used as a combat sniper the way marksmen are currently being used in Iraq. He was lent to American intelligence agents who used him as an assassin, probably as part of the infamous, CIA-run Phoenix Program.

This is not just the story of a man at war; it's also about the war within the man, because the memories of his sniper missions followed him home, through his twenty-four year Army career and into civilian life. As the years went by, the full realization of what he'd done in the line of duty came back to haunt Mitchell's scarred conscience. But for the love of his wife, Ellen, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder would have destroyed him.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A compelling, troubling story, this war memoir recounts the hellish experiences of an 18-year-old naïf from Texas who volunteered to fight in the Vietnam War only to find himself transformed into a part-time sniper. Mitchell served as an infantryman and as the commander of an armored recovery vehicle for most of his 1969–1970 tour, spending most of his time in the thick of the guerrilla war. Periodically, he would be plucked from his unit by a team of anonymous intelligence operatives (perhaps members of the CIA's Phoenix Program), handed a special sharpshooter's rifle, put on a helicopter and given a mission to stalk and kill someone. For respite, he was given three weeks of temporary duty working with dead American bodies at the Danang morgue. Mitchell survived the war, but soon after coming home he began suffering from terrifying nightmares and rages that would plague him for three decades. Mitchell tells his life story with the help of journalist Hirsh (None Braver), also a Vietnam veteran. Though the later sections dealing with Mitchell's efforts to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder are bogged down with repetitive details and long quotes, the authors' recounting of Mitchell's sniper missions are absolutely riveting.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Mitchell began his journey as a high-school student in Texas, from which college and the army were the only ways out. The army took him to Vietnam, where he proved such an effective combat infantryman that he was chosen for sniper training. He served as a sniper during the rest of the Vietnam War and on detachment to U.S. intelligence for deniable covert operations in many countries. The deniability required that he and his spotter had absolutely no backup or any resources except their own wits and weapons to execute the mission and then escape and evade. Mitchell's conscience preyed on him, as has many a sniper's before, and he describes its working with exceptional vividness. He also pays tribute to his solid marriage and credits his wife for much of the work of preserving his sanity. Probably a good deal of detail about his service remains and will remain hidden; even so, Mitchell's report of his career adds well to sniper literature and infantry memoirs. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: NAL Hardcover; First Printing edition (January 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451216520
• ISBN-13: 978-0451216526
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,035,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Probably Stolen Valor material, April 10, 2006

By 

MACP - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Sniper's Journey: The Truth About the Man Behind the Rifle (Hardcover)

Whenever I see a veteran start to opine about his PTSD, it sends up a red flag for me, especially when mixed with assassination stuff.

The book deals with a guy who was selected for a very short sniper school while in Vietnam, and he then is sent into the field in order to basically assassinate people. He also claims the word "sniper" was never once used during his training.

As I read on, my suspicions were confirmed when he described being assinged to the "2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry", (in the 1st Cav Div), which he also described as "the Garry Ownen battalion". Now those two gaffes right there show me he's a poseur. And I don't think you can hang that one on his ghost writer, who also allegedly was in VN.

He also slipped up later, when he described being shown a photo of his intended target, who had a scar over his eye. After dispatching that guy, a couple missions later he looks through his scope and identifies a female he is supposed to snipe, and he recognizes her by a scar over her eye. Oops! The other thing is: you can not expect me to believe that he could just be given a photo to examine for a few seconds. That's ridiculous.

Yeah, the book is a joke and the last half of it has a bunch of useless filler about PTSD etc.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Supposed Non-Fiction: Long On PTSD, Short On Facts, December 17, 2006

By 

H. J. Rossi (Shawnee Mission, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Sniper's Journey: The Truth About the Man Behind the Rifle (Hardcover)

In "A Sniper's Journey" Gary Mitchell (with Michael Hirsh) lays out a supposed story about a small-town Texas youngster, new to the Army, who is pulled into the Phoenix covert program as a sniper in Viet Nam. In fairness, the reviewer is far more familiar with the Marine's program, but this overall story simply did not seem to ring true to a real sniper's techniques and mental processes from that long-ago time.

Possibly as much as a third of the book deals with Mitchell's domestic problems with his wives and for filler, outlined a primer on PTSD. All this was "part of his journey" I suppose, but of marginal interest to outsiders.

We should thank Mr. Mitchell for his 24-year service to our country, but in respect for the fine Army snipers, the great Carlos Hathcock and other 'Corps "One Shot-One Kill" shooters from the past, I cannot recommend this book.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not about Phoenix either, February 17, 2006

By 

Larry J. ODaniel (Wenden , AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Sniper's Journey: The Truth About the Man Behind the Rifle (Hardcover)

I bought the book because it was supposed to be about Phoenix and a sniper in it. It flunked on both issues. I was in Phoenix, the real program.

It is full of technical errors, not the least of which Phoenix was not an assassination program, Doug Valentine to the contrary notwithstanding.

Phoenix advisers knew the rules against assassination and followed them. We wanted people alive. I cannot tell you what this guy

really did or when. Phoenix was about capture, harassment, information sharing, agent handling, and running operations against the Viet Cong

Infrastructure. They were legitimate targets, following the rules of land warfare. Valentine had it right in his introduction. Real people in the

program would have problems with this book. Like his book on Phoenix, he has problems with being able to verify facts or verify real

incidents. Phoenix was declassified over 30 years ago. At least four other books on Phoenix, two written by real operatives, tell the truth

and not the assassination story given here. Valentine knows what I think about his reputation on being accurate on Phoenix. I think the same

about this book. It does not pass my test. It just confirms what I thought earlier about his abilities.