American Sniper - Boekje Pienter

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He agreed. The other chief came back with a different attitude.
“You owe me a Subway sandwich, fucker,” Primo told me when I
saw him later on. Then he told me the story.
I owe him all that and more. The promotion came through, and, to
be honest, being chief wasn’t near as bad as I thought it would be.
Truth is, I never cared all that much about rank. I never tried to be
one of the highest-ranking guys. Or even, back in high school, to be
one of the students with the highest average.
I’d do my homework in the truck in the morning. When they stuck
me in the Honor Society, I made sure my grades dipped just enough
the next semester to get kicked out. Then I brought them up again so
my parents wouldn’t get on me.
Maybe the rank thing had to do with the fact that I preferred being
a leader on the ground, rather than an administrator in a back room. I
didn’t want to have to sit at a computer, plan everything, then tell
everyone about it. I wanted to do my thing, which was being a
sniper—get into combat, kill the enemy. I wanted to be the best at
what I wanted to do.
I think a lot of people had trouble with that attitude. They naturally
thought that anyone who was good should have a very high rank. I
guess I’d seen enough people with high rank who weren’t good not to
be swayed.
TOO MUCH THINKING
“On the road again . . .”