“It takes an awareness of the environment and total concentration at the moment you fire the shot. You have to be aware of the wind, which has a tremendous impact at 1,000 yards. You have to be aware of the sun, whether it goes behind a cloud or not. Then at the last millisecond you have to develop total concentration.”
Major Jim Land, Marine Corps (retired)
“A modern army scores one enemy fatality per 15,000 rounds expended by its infantry. For specialist snipers the result is better. Way better. Twelve and a half thousand times better—a sniper scores one enemy fatality for every 1.2 rounds.”
“Gas, grass, or ass—the price of hitchhiking?”
Set up base on a significant interchange.
Stand with one foot on the shoulder of the highway, and one in the traffic lane.
Stick out your thumb.
Stand in a way that suggests need but not desperation.
Try to look friendly (especially if you are overwhelmingly large and/or have an obvious facial wound, such as a broken nose).
Smile.
“As a mode of transportation, hitching rides was dying out. Drivers were less generous, more afraid. Because who knew what kind of a psycho you were …”
Be wary of: the strong smell of weed or bourbon.
Drivers can be more compassionate at midnight than at midday.
If you get a lift, give a destination. Saying “anywhere” sounds like you’re a drifter who wants to go home with them.
>>WHY DRIVERS STOP TO GIVE LIFTS
Because people used to give them lifts.
Because they’re charitable and kind.
Because they’re lonely.
Because they’re so drunk they need someone else to drive the car.
Because they think you look like their type.
Because they’ve just committed a crime and need an alibi.
“Hitchhiking usually carried with it the promise of random personal encounters and conversations made more intense by the certainty that their durations would necessarily be limited.”
>>HOW TO TURN A CAR OVER
Let the tires and suspension do the work.
Rock the car hard. Then bounce it until it’s coming up for air at about forty-five degrees.
Hook hands under the footboard and heave the car all the way onto its side.
Then keep the momentum going and tip it onto its roof.
“It’s all about free will. It’s all about making choices. You can tell me now, or you can tell me after I break your legs.”
The hardest part of any adversarial conversation is the beginning. An early answer is a good sign. Answering becomes a habit.
Ask once, ask twice if you must, but don’t ask three times.
First chat about shared interests to build up trust; then it’s harder for them to start lying.
“Be skeptical but not too skeptical. Too much skepticism leads to paranoia and paralysis.”
If the night shift won’t help you, maybe the day shift will. (Night workers are always tougher—less contact with the public.)
Ask a librarian—they’re nice people, they’ll tell you things if you ask them.
“Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
Benjamin Franklin
Resort to threatening physical violence only as a last resort.
“Either you walk out of here by yourself, or you’ll be carried out in a bucket.”
“Every city has a cusp, where the good part of town turns bad.”
FINDING AN AUTO-PARTS STORE
In any city the auto-parts store is always on the same strip as the tire stores and the auto dealers and the lube shops. Which in any city is always a wide new strip near a highway cloverleaf.
FINDING THE MORGUE
Morgues are usually close to hospitals, well hidden from the public. They are often not signposted at all, or else labeled something anodyne, such as Special Services. But they’re always accessible. Meat wagons have to be able to roll in and out unobstructed.
FINDING THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE
Turn off the main drag—public offices are always in the back somewhere where land is cheaper—and check the side streets. Look for a shortwave antenna on the roof and a lot big enough for a handful of cruisers.
FINDING A WESTERN UNION OFFICE
Stand on a street corner and ask yourself, Is it more likely to be left or right now? Then turn left or right as appropriate, and pretty soon you are in the right neighborhood, and pretty soon you’ll find it.
If in doubt, turn left.
“The bad stuff seems to migrate. Law enforcement never really wins. It just shoves stuff around, a block here, a block there.”
WEST POINT
WHAT
Established in 1802, the United States Military Academy at West Point educates and trains about a thousand select cadets every year to become officers. After four years, most graduates leave with a commission as second lieutenant.
WHERE
Fifty miles north of New York City, the academy campus occupies 16,000 acres on a commanding plateau on the west bank of the Hudson River.
WHO
Applicants must have an above-average academic record and qualities of leadership, and be fit, strong, and agile. They are nominated by either a person connected with the service or by a member of Congress.
THE WEST POINT MISSION
“To educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army.”
Old West Point saying:
“Everyone’s life needs an organizing principle, and relentless forward motion was Reacher’s.”
Always move on and never look back. Never do the same thing twice.
The best place for a nomad to sleep is a motel. It has beds and doors that lock. Pay cash and don’t give your real name.
“Part of being a drifter means you look forward, not backward. You concentrate on what’s ahead.”
Arrange the smallest details in your life so that you can move on at a split second’s notice.
Own nothing, carry nothing.
Two days in one place is about the limit.
“Mostly he had rocked and swayed and dozed on buses, watching the passing scenes, observing the chaos of America, and surfing along on memories. His life was like that.”
“I’m a nomad.”
“Nomads have animals. They move around to find pasture. That’s the definition.”
“Okay, I’m a nomad without the animal part.”
Transience is a habit you can’t break.
A wad of dollars means … a few more weeks when you don’t have to find a job.