American Sniper - Boekje Pienter

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which has to do with the rotation of the earth and the effect it has on a
rifle bullet. (This comes into play only at extremely long distances.)
You live all of this technical data in sniper school. You learn about
how far to lead someone when they’re moving—if they’re walking, if
they’re running, depending on the distance. You keep doing it until the
understanding is embedded not just in your brain but in your arms
and hands and fingers.
In most shooting situations, I adjust for elevation, but not for windage.
(Simply put, adjusting for elevation means adjusting my aim to
compensate for the drop of my bullet over the distance it travels;
windage means compensating for the effect of the wind.) The wind is
constantly changing. So about the time I adjust for wind, the wind
changes. Elevation is a different story—though if you’re in a combat
situation, a lot of times you don’t have the luxury of making a fine adjustment.
You have to shoot or be shot.
TESTED
I was not the best sniper in my class. In fact, I failed the practice test.
That meant potentially washing out of the class.
Unlike the Marines, in the field we don’t work with spotters. The
SEAL philosophy is, basically, if you have a fellow warrior with you, he
ought to be shooting, not watching. That said, we did use spotters in
training.
After I failed the test, the instructor went through everything with
me and my spotter, trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. My