# Sniper One by Sgt. Dan Mills (1st Bn The PWRR at Al Amarah)



## Gunner98 (2 Aug 2009)

I borrowed Sniper One: On Scope and Under Siege with a Sniper Team in Iraq from the local library (same visit as Contact Charlie). Book is praised by The Sun (U.K.) as, "The most vivid account ever of total combat on Iraq's front lines."

IMHO, it is a boastful account by a sniper platoon leader (of his 18 member platoon) in Iraq from April - October 2004. It is almost like a Dick Marcinko novel. He states early in the book,

 "I have been a soldier for eighteen years and a sniper for ten.  I'd done six tours of Northern Ireland, one of Kosovo, and one of Bosnia_ and I still hadn't fired my rifle once in anger...But not actually being shot at by an enemy standing right in front of you, and not getting the chance to shoot back, used to make me question whether I could ever call myself a real soldier."  A little foreboding that is about to change. The climax of the story involves a 23-day defence of Cimic House at Al Amarah.  Tour stats >200 confirmed kills.  Tour losses 1 KIA and six seriously wounded.

An average book but worth a summer-time read if you have a month to kill and it keeps on raining. I am selectively re-reading the 350-page book prior to returning it to the library. First Edition - US St. Martins Press- Sep 08, First published in Great Britain in 2007.


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## Gunner98 (2 Aug 2009)

Al Amarah was the scene of Private Beharry's Warrior heroics that resulted in his Victoria Cross, a recount of the 1 May 2004 incident appears on pages 115-130.  link: http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/bbbeharr.htm

Has anyone seen or read his book? Johnson, Beharry and Cook, Nick. Barefoot Soldier, Little, Brown Book Group, (5 October 2006.)


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