I was the senior weapons sergeant on my special forces detachment. I had conducted a direct action operation on a known HVT less than six kilometers from my FOB. The operation was well regarded for numerous reasons, but mostly the fact that a large cache of actionable intel was recovered. Word got out. A week later, I was told to return to the FOB because a blackhawk was waiting in the LZ. I had been selected to be an attached member to a CIA special operations group task force. About a year later, I was transferred from my current detachment to what is know as a "paper detachment", meaning it only exists on paper. The members of such paper detachments are out chasing the things that go "bump" in the night, and always bumping back twice as hard. Basically, our job was to kill the monsters of the world. After several months of intensive training, I was deployed with my team to a remote area in a very sensitive country. Believe me, it's one of those countries that you keep an extra grenade in your jacket pocket (wrapped in e-tape) in case you get caught up in a mess. No way my family was going to see my skinned body hanging from a crane on the nightly news. Anyway, one operation conducted with this task force stands out from the others. I had killed before, and it never gets easier. This one, however, was both difficult and memborable. I was standing out on a small wooden platform hidden by thick brush overlooking a snowy mountain pass about 1200 yards out. I was going over some documents I had recovered from an earlier operation when a spotter called me on the radio and instructed me to scope out the ridgeline to the east. I stuffed the documents back into my jacket and dropped to a prone position on the platform, withdrew my long gun from its sleeve, and scanned the target location. I spotted the target. It was a young man, maybe in his late 20s, stumbling his way up a snow-covered, rocky, and scrub brush infested goat trail about 1100-1200 yds away. You could tell he was inexperienced simply because of what he was wearing. He didnt wear traditional robes like the rest of the fighters, but wore a white gown and black tactical vest. A 10-year-old could have figured out this guy was up to no good. Anyway, I watched him struggle up this mountain trail, trying to balance a pack full of gear and a bulky AK-47, when I saw him glance in the direction of a JSOC base down the mountain pass and talk into a radio. I immediately sighted in and called "shooter on" to my teammates. I pulled the trigger. The first round impacted the guy's left shoulder from the rear and exited just beneath his left clavicle. How it didn't take off his arm from this distance I still cannot figure out. He dropped to the ground, removed all of his gear, did his best to sprint up the trail. I fired a second shot, this time striking his left leg just below his hip and undoubtedly shattering his left femur. He tumbled down an embankment of about thirty feet and came to a rest, crumpled in a mess of blood and broken bones on a large rock outcropping. He was still alive. I sent a third round to the back of his skull, ending his ordeal. The sheer ability to cling to life has always impressed me, and that guy fought the hardest I have ever seen.