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Notes -
I wonder if that would improve or ruin my use of the book as my "read a bit before bed" book, the whiskey might cause me to pass out faster by that ruleset, but the hangover would be killer.
I think any profiler should start from a place of sympathy with their subject, even if it is ultimately a hit piece, the story will hit harder if you start by looking at them as a hero. Even a biography of Stalin or Mao is better if you start by looking at them as on Campbell's Hero's Journey and then show them going off the rails, show them becoming a villain. If you start out hating them, it kind of undermines the story. The closest he gets is the kind of standard shitlib "oh he was kind of sad and pathetic and poor before he joined the army" thing.
Particularly I guffawed when he described Delta Force selection ending with a "40 miles ruck that would turn a normal man's ligaments into gelatin." Which, I'm sure I wouldn't pass half the stuff they have to do there, and I'm sure it would suck, but 40 miles isn't gonna kill you. But the guy just clearly doesn't do anything.
Lol, I read it more as addressed to an audience that's never done anything than as by an author that's never done anything, but you may well be right. Separately, the accounts I've read of Delta selection (e.g. Haney's Inside Delta Force) make it pretty clear that the challenge comes more from navigation, elevation gain, bushwhacking (using the road is an auto fail), and beating the time cutoffs than from merely covering ground as such.
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