"Any outdoorsman will tell you the most frustrating part of hunting is when a deer simply FALLS DOWN when shot, and doesn't FLY BACKWARD into the forest. Those days are over. Anything this baby hits better PACK A LUNCH, 'cause it is going for a ride!"
On the TV screen, the bad guy flew about four yards backward, as though he'd been hit with an anti-tank rocket instead of a mere 9-mm pistol round. "I wonder where you buy those."
"We can't afford them, O great accounting expert!"
John almost spilled his remaining beer at that one.
"We can't afford them, O great accounting expert!"
John almost spilled his remaining beer at that one.
"It's got third-person shooting that doesn't really work, with this horrible little stun-gun where enemies get shot and then fly halfway across the room, and you keep having to chase them, like that guy in the Popeye movie who keeps kicking his hat when he tries to pick it up."
"Among the grunts, some carried the M-79 grenade launcher, 5.9 pounds unloaded, a reasonably light weapon except for the ammunition, which was heavy. A single round weighed 10 ounces. The typical load was 25 rounds. But Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Than Khe, and he went down under an exceptional burden, more than 20 pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus the unweighed fear. He was dead weight. There was no twitching or flopping. Kiowa, who saw it happen, said it was like watching a rock fall, or a big sandbag or something — just boom, then down — not like the movies where the dead guy rolls around and does fancy spins and goes ass over teakettle — not like that, Kiowa said, the poor bastard just flat-fuck fell. Boom. Down. Nothing else."
— The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
