The Killing School Quotes

“What Sands told him that changed the course of his life boiled down to this: If your environment and circumstances control your attitude, you’re in prison. If you are in control of your thoughts and your attitude, then you’re free.”
― Brandon Webb, The Killing School: Inside the World's Deadliest Sniper Program

“The problem with negative reinforcement is that you are essentially programming your student to fail. I wanted to program them to be successful—no matter what.”
― Brandon Webb, The Killing School: Inside the World's Deadliest Sniper Program

“Here's how we're going to teach. If you see your student doing something wrong, you give him a positive correction. Not a negative correction. Instead of telling him *not* to do what he's doing wrong, identify the fundamental he needs to be implementing, and remind him to do that.”
― Brandon Webb, The Killing School: Inside the World's Deadliest Sniper Program

“During the briefings their current hyper-conservative rules of engagement had been drilled into them. “And if you screw up,” the briefers added, “they will prosecute you.” Oh boy. Operation Hopeless had left our military planners gun-shy. Gun-shy. Haha. That was the right term, all right. To bring the point home, some of the marines had been armed with various “nonlethal technologies”—pepper sprays, flashbangs, and guns that shot a sticky foam in place of actual bullets—“to fill the gap between verbal warnings and deadly force,” went the official reasoning.”
― Brandon Webb, The Killing School: Inside the World's Deadliest Sniper Program