"The Reaper" 3rd Ranger Battalion's Deadliest Sniper

By Bob Owens | 11:44 AM | August 23, 2014

This is a brief interview with Nicholas “The Reaper” Irving, one of the deadliest Ranger snipers of the war in Afghanistan.

Irving says something I’ve heard from other snipers. He says that he wishes that he killed more of the enemy… but not out of anything like bloodlust. These warriors feel that every enemy that they kill at a distance is one less enemy combatant firing on fellow soldiers at closer ranges. They view themselves as taking enemy lives to save the lives of their fellow soldiers.

We haven’t read them, but Irving has a couple of books out (link goes to amazon.com) that look as if they may be interesting to long-range precision rifle shooters.

Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com. Bob is a graduate of roughly 400 hours of professional firearms training classes, including square range and force-on force work with handguns and carbines. He is a past volunteer instructor with Project Appleseed. He most recently received his Vehicle Close Quarters Combat Instructor certification from Centrifuge Training, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun. He can be found on Twitter at bob_owens.