The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America's Deadliest Marksmen

• Author: Takashi Kagawa
• Position: Judge Advocate, U.S. Army
• Pages: 242-250

242 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 216

THE RED CIRCLE: MY LIFE IN THE NAVY SEAL SNIPER

CORPS AND HOW I TRAINED AMERICA’S DEADLIEST

MARKSMEN1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR TAKASHI KAGAWA2

Whatever it is that you do, you are making a stand,

either for excellence or for mediocrity. This is what I

learned about being a Navy SEAL: it is all about

excellence, and about never giving up on yourself. And

that is the red circle I will continue to hold, no matter

what.3

I. Introduction

In October 2013, Sony Pictures released a movie based on the true

story of U.S. merchant captain Richard Phillips who was held hostage by

Somali pirates and later rescued by Navy SEALs in April 2009.4 Though

the movie focuses on Phillips as the main character, it depicts the

extraordinary abilities of the SEAL snipers who shot the three Somali

pirates on rolling seas more than 100 feet away with only three shots

from another vessel at sea.5 How does one train to become a SEAL

sniper with such deadly accuracy? Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL

sniper course manager, reveals the making of a SEAL sniper in his

personal memoir, The Red Circle.

Inspired by Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture, a YouTube video with

over sixteen million hits, Webb writes this autobiography in a similar

fashion as Pausch’s lecture: documenting his life and extrapolating

1 BRANDON WEBB, THE RED CIRCLE (2012).

2 Judge Advocate, U.S. Army. Student, 62d Judge Advocate Officer Graduate Course,

The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, U.S. Army, Charlottesville,

Virginia.

3 WEBB, supra note 1, at 380.

4 Sony Pictures, About, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS, http://www.captainphillipsmovie.com/site/

#about (last visited Sept. 10, 2013).

5 Id.; Robert D. McFadden & Scott Shane, In Rescue of Captain, Navy Kills 3 Pirates,

N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 12, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/world/africa/

pirates.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.