Sharpshooter by Chris Lynch Page A

he says.
    â€œI absolutely am, lieutenant.”
    â€œAnd here I am, keeping you from your hard-earned meal after a long first day in the field. What’s wrong with me? Tell you what — go on in there and eat, get your fill, then meet me back out here afterward so we can have a talk. How’s that?”
    â€œThat is fine, Lieutenant Systrom. Sure.”
    â€œGreat, then. See you right here. What say, half hour, yes?”
    â€œWell, sir, I was thinking more —”
    â€œHalf hour, tremendous. See you here.”
    Now I’m worried all over again. Am I in trouble? Am I not in trouble? Does he like me? Is he taking me under his wing? Is he taking me outside to see what kind of man I really am?
    Jeez, what am I worried about? What’s happened to me? I never used to worry about anything. That’s what was great about me.
    Now I’m worried about being worried.
    I look all around me before I step through the door of the mess. Nobody is watching, thank goodness.
    I give myself such a belt across the face, I am sure my dad hears it and is smiling in my direction.
    â€œThere,” I say. “That’s better.”
    Thirty minutes of wolfing later, I encounter the lieutenant standing right where he said he’d be. He has his beautiful sniper’s M-21 at his side.
    â€œFine, fine,” he says, looking at his watch as I walk up to him.
    â€œIf you don’t mind, sir, could I use the latrine before we begin?”
    â€œAbsolutely, private. I mind very much. Next time, plan your allocation of those thirty minutes more judiciously. Follow me.”
    Okay, then. I follow right behind as Lt. Systrom marches double-time through the compound, past the commissary and the NCOs’ club and the BOQ, which is the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. Right past the dock and the boats all parked next to the big Benewah , out to the clearing where we have a makeshift six-station, three-hundred-yard firing range.
    Lt. Systrom hands over the magnificent weapon, and my heart goes all beehive on me. I lift it, get a feel for it, raise the scope to my eye, and see that target through the early evening dark as clear as if it were about to bump into me. Already I feel like the rifle and I are one unit.
    â€œYou do know your way around a gun, don’t you, Bucyk?”
    â€œI believe I do, sir.”
    â€œYou have dreams of being a sniper, don’t you, Bucyk?”
    â€œI have those dreams every night, sir.”
    â€œIt is about so much more than shooting, you know, private. So, so much more. It is about stealth. It is about being a leaf in the forest rather than a baboon. It is about staying so quiet and so still for so long at a time you forget your own presence.”
    â€œYes, sir, I know this, sir,” I say, training the scope from one target to the next to the next and feeling I am the gun.
    â€œSo why did I spend all day today listening to you?”
    I am no longer the gun.
    â€œSir?” I say, lowering the weapon to consider him.
    â€œYour voice, Private Bucyk. All day long. From my high perch, my position of stealth, I listened to the sound of your voice from the farthest reaches of the trail.”
    â€œI was whispering, sir.”
    He is unimpressed with my defense, if he has even registered it.
    â€œYou see, being seen and heard in this line of work in this part of the world in this moment in history is the same as being dead. I have received very strong advance reports on you, private. I would like to not see you dead.”
    â€œI would like to not see that, either, sir.”
    â€œWell, if there were any serious enemy activity along that trail today, Bucyk, you would, in fact, be dead. Raise that weapon again and focus on the target.”
    I do, and I do, and I am loving it again.
    â€œThe possibilities are great for you, soldier. The possibility that you never get there is far greater. But for right now, I want you to focus on that target.