Prologue: It Was Them, or Us Unterfeldwebel Rupert Schmidt Crack! The bullet sliced through the air as it left my rifle. After a split second, I saw poor Ivan flinch as his peace was disrupted by the rude interjection of my lead. The rifle dropped from his hands as he slumped over, no longer an active player in this skirmish. Instinctively, I promptly got ready for whatever next shot that will await me by tugging back the bolt handle on my rifle as the empty shell spewed out of her right side. It was my favourite piece of consolation after taking such a gruesome shot – the expended shell brushes against the metal receiver of my Karabiner 98k to make that familiar noise metals tend to make when touching. It’s reassuring to break the trend of exclusively worrying about what was often several hundreds of meters surrounding me to reach forward within my personal space and tend to my rifle for even just a moment. Pulling that bolt handle back has always been a wordless avenue for my rifle a...