Book Review - Trigger Men by Hans Halberstadt

Book: Trigger Men--Shadow Team, Spider-Man, the Magnificent Bastards, and the American Combat Sniper (St. Martin's Griffin, N.Y.: 2008) (Amazon link here).

Overview: Trigger Men combines stories about actual U.S. military snipers that served in Iraq with information on the current selection and training process of snipers in formal sniper programs, as well as "apprenticeships" in the war zones of Iraq. There are also chapters discussing weapons, ballistics, and terminal ballistics.

Impression: I really liked this book. It was a good blend of personal anecdotes and observations, with some overview thrown in. While not a "history," per se, of sniper operations in Iraq, it gives you a good idea of how sniping missions are (or rather, were) being carried out there, some of the problems that arose and were addressed (or not, as the case may be), and some discussion of practical details about weaponry. Because the stories came from snipers serving in Iraq, the missions described primarily concern urban sniping; generally at fairly short ranges as would be expected in a city environment. Despite the time frame, there are no accounts of sniper missions or operations in Afghanistan. Also, while use of rifles using the .50 BMG and .300 Win Mag are discussed, the book apparently pre-dates deployment of the .338 Lapua.  There is some discussion of the latter cartridge, but none of the stories related about the snipers involved weapons using that round.

I think anyone interested in the Iraqi conflict, long-distance shooting, or sniping, would enjoy this book.

Notable Points: For someone interested in prepping, this book actually has a wealth of ideas and points as to urban sniping, and differences from rural sniping missions. One thing in particular that I found interesting in the book was the frank discussions about terminal ballistics. For instance:

Even when a person is shot in the torso within effective range, the immediate effect will vary tremendously from person to person. In a common reaction, the muscle groups that provide upright posture and support immediately relax and the person drops straight to the ground. Sometimes the arms will fly upward, a phenomenon one high-scoring team called the wave. Head shots will sometimes result in a violent spasm when leg muscle groups suddenly and violently contract; as a result, the person seems to jump or leap in the air.

A person shot in the torso is not normally dead and may not be unconscious. He may have minutes or hours of life remaining. Sometimes a person with such ultimately mortal wounds will recover for a bit, pick up his weapon, and get back in the fight. In the wide, wonderful world of warfare, just because someone has been shot does not mean that you can forget about him as a threat. He can still kill you if he wants, and for many of them that is exactly what they want to do as their last living act.

Note: I did not receive any compensation from Amazon, author or publisher for this review.