In 1968, Gary Mitchell was a teenager in Granbury, Texas - a town that offered very few options other than college or the military. Fresh out of high school, Mitchell chose to enlist in the Army, and was sent to Vietnam, where he earned a reputation for keeping his head in extreme situations. This caught the eye of his superiors, who found that he also excelled at long-distance shooting - a discovery that set him on the path to a new identity as a sniper. During his time in Vietnam, undercover American intelligence agents "borrowed" Mitchell, off the books of course, from his Army unit, and used him to carry out planned assassinations. Some - not Gary - might even call them executions. These were not combat kills, but most likely targets assigned by agents in the CIA-backed Phoenix Program. From his first mission to his last, Gary had to deal with the realization that he and his spotter were expendable, their missions deniable. But this is not just the story of a man at war; it's also about the war within the man, because the memories of his sniper missions were always with him. And as the years went by, the full realization of what he'd done in the line of duty came back to haunt Mitchell's scarred conscience. Without the love of his wife, Ellen, it would have destroyed him. -- From the book jacket.