Former Washington Post movie critic Stephen Hunter writes in today's paper about the Navy SEAL snipers that took out the Somali pirates on Sunday in order to rescue the captain of the Maersk Alabama. Hunter was in the Army for two years and has written several fiction books about snipers, so he knows his subject. I enjoyed the way his article puts the reader in the minds of the shooters, as much as such a thing is possible. I find it difficult to imagine what it must have been like for them, lying prone on the deck of a Navy destroyer with rifles trained on a small lifeboat bobbing in the waves 50 feet away. Hunter's article makes me realize that not only were they able to accomplish their mission, they probably could have done it from two or three times the distance.
I think I should add some of his books to my extensive "waiting to be read" list. Given my taste for military and spy fiction, I suspect I'd enjoy Hunter's fiction writing as much as I used to like his film reviews.
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