Would you be a sniper?

Question

I am enlisting in the army this summer and am going to try my dam ned hardest to be a sniper.. but the ? is could you handle the stress of sniper work?

Being a sniper would be very stressful. You look at someone threw a scope and decide the exact second of their death... Imagine the thoughts that would go threw your head @ that very moment you pull that trigger..
"Did he say goodbye to his kids"
"Did his wife fight w/ him last night"
junk like that...
Idk i think i could handle it because i dont really care of any country but the United States, Israel, and England.. but would you be able to handle the fact of killing people everyday and watching them die due to your finger...

No im not saying any of these things effect me @ all.. because they dont .. Im just asking would these things keep you from preventing your job

Answer 1

Moral and ethical dilemmas are things that have to be completly abolished during war. A small part of them stays as rules of war, but if you have any doubts about killing somebody, you can't waste that time. You get one shot before your cover is blown and you have to run like hell. Don't agonize over it. I know I could do this because people have been asses to me my whole life, and I just assume everyone is like that until I meet him. But it is a hard and unfortunate business. I don't have experience but I think your first time out and your first shot will characterize your entire career.

Good question. Theres also more to being a sniper. You have to sit in one place for hours and maybe days on end. Read "One Shot One Kill"

Answer 2

the moment of truth is not that bad. a job to do and you must do it well. the problems arise later on.

here's a fact most people don't think about. there were 58,193 american seveice men killed in viet nam. since the war 100,000 to 150,000 viet nam veterans have taken their own lives. (the numbers get jumbled). you want to talk about stress? i live with it every day. yeah, i'm still here, and there has been a time or two i thought of myself as lucky to survive the war and it's aftermath. only a time or two. you can forget about being the same person you were. forget about sleeping at night. forget about finding a girlfriend you won't eventually chase away. but you never forget the faces.

i could go on and on, but i don't want this in my head right now.

Answer 3

If those thoughts are running through your mind even before you become a sniper than I seriously doubt you would want to be killing someone right then and there. Imagine your wife and children hearing the news "We're sorry Ma'am but your husband has died in service. Best wishes."

Well, many messages like that would be recieved because of you. Many.

Think of it this way, your job is to KILL people.

I hope you can understand your responsibilites now.

Answer 4

Im in the Marine Corp and have known MANY snipers, i think the biggest thing is dissconnecting yourself from the idea that your shoooting a human, see it more as a target. That is the goal of all the training. The thing you have to worry about is getting through is the training not the thoughts through your head. Trust me you'll be filled with judgement calls, windage, distance, movement, and not really think about the other person. Snipers are a strange breed, but they're a little pre-modonna. GOOD LUCK!

Answer 5

You're going to get laughed at so much by everyone else when you join and talk all the time about stuff like this. That's the definition of the tools in the military are the new guys who think they're going to be special forces right off the bat.

As a sniper on active duty it consists of standing perfectly still in the same place often for hours and hours, days even, waiting for that one instant to get a shot. It's not like in computer games where you sit in a room picking guys off left right and center.

Answer 6

If you have a conscience with strong moral convictions, I would recommend you go into something else. After you kill someone, you cannot un-kill him, and you may have such remore that you blow your own brains out. It take a man with no conscience to just kill on orders and not feel anything. What killing does is take away a piece of your own humanity. When you pull that trigger two people die, the victim, and a piece of you, whether you like to admit it or not. You become less and less human with each kill.

Answer 7

Yea, I couldnt do it for those exact reasons.you just dont know the person and you are going to have to kill them but if not you somebody else that might not be as good as you. I say if you think you could be great, and if you think you could handle killing somone, go for it, but I think you still got a lot of thinking to do.

Answer 8

No. If you kill because you are orderred, you have lost the power of freedom at the moment it should have matterred most, namely, who you are going to take out today. I'd rather have other memories. Some will see me as a coward just because I don't agree with chain of command or heirarchy, but I'd defend my causes/family like any man. I think the old wars formed in bar rooms were most honost.

Answer 9

If you are asking those questions.....you're gonna have fun in the military...

If you want to be a sniper...those questions will not exist.

You will be trained to do you job...against an enemy.

It will all come down to this....kill or be killed.

Answer 10

Yeah that's actually really easy for me to fathom, not that hard to do. I think if you're questioning it this early don't do it, you'll end up wasting your time.