The Sniper’s Apprentice

by Jim Young

He was trained to shoot. He learned to persuade. In 1984, eighteen-year-old Churchill McClusky survives the gauntlet of Army Basic and is steered onto an unlikely path—sniper school, SERE, and, under the eye of a nameless Major, into the quiet, dangerous world of PSYOP where the mission is to move men without firing a shot. From Cold War Germany’s stone border markers to Desert Storm’s brief, blinding war—and later to the Horn of Africa, where markets can riot and a radio mast can rewrite truth—Churchill buys days with words and pays for them in blood. A dockside operation turns fatal, a teammate is lost, and he’s handed a battlefield appointment only PSYOP would captain on paper, sergeant in his bones. Anchored by letters from Karry—the woman who refuses to let him be a ghost—Churchill draws hard no churches, no clinics, no lies that break mothers. But when the day screams, he’ll still be exact. Authentic, unflinching, and morally sharp, The Sniper’s Apprentice is a ground-truth thriller about influence at muzzle distance—and the price of keeping your name when everyone wants to rent it.
For readers of Jack Carr, Mark Greaney, and Don Winslow.

(Contains combat violence and strong language.)

195 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2025