Bob Lee Swagger: I don't think you understand, these boys killed my dog.
Mr. Rate: Would've been a bad job to take, though.
Nick Memphis: How come?
Mr. Rate: Whoever took that shot's probably dead now. That's how conspiracy works. Them boys on the grassy knoll, they were dead within three hours. Buried in the damn desert. Unmarked graves out past Terlingua.
Nick Memphis: And you
know this for a fact?
Mr. Rate: Still got the shovel!
Bob Lee Swagger: Suppose I was looking for man who could make a 2200 yard cold bore shot, who's alive that could do that?
Mr. Rate: Seems I heard about a shot like that being made not too long ago, said the guy's name was Bob Lee Swagger. Never met the man, so I wouldn't know.
Bob Lee Swagger: Ya, they said that alright.
Mr. Rate: They also said that artificial sweeteners were safe, WMDs were in Iraq and Anna Nicole married for love.
Colonel Isaac Johnson: What the hell am I doing here? You've got nothing on me. I'm covered. Call the Joint Chief.
Attorney General Russert: That won't be necessary, Colonel, as I have already received no less than a dozen calls from highly-ranked and powerfully-placed individuals telling me to let you go. But the joy of checks and balances in our
government is that I can, and am, indeed, required by law, to tell them to fuck off.
Bob Lee Swagger: Sake of argument, somebody other than him?
Mr. Rate: There was a guy in Russia. They locked his ass up. Another one in France. I know he's dead. There was one guy, but he don't shoot no more. A brutal son of a bitch. Most boys shoot to kill. He'd shoot to wound, wait till his friends come to help, kill them too. Turned one target into four.
Men, women, children. Killed them by the hundreds. The other side wanted him. Bad. Finally narrowed his hide down to an abandoned six-story building. They quit the subtle tactics. They called in an artillery strike. Leveled a square block. Brought the building down on his ass. Some say he crawled out of there. Some say he died. Never heard from him no more.
Bob Lee Swagger:
[recalling the man in the wheelchair, Michael Sandor] Fuck me.
Nick Memphis: What?
Bob Lee Swagger: I met the son of a bitch!
Bob Lee Swagger: I don't really like the President much. Didn't like the one before that, much, either.
Colonel Isaac Johnson: You like the idea of the President, living in a free country. Do we allow America to be ruled by thugs?
Bob Lee Swagger: Sure, some years we do.
Howard Purnell: You have embarrassed this office. You will be facing a review from the Office of Professional Responsibility.
Nick Memphis: Sir... I don't, I don't feel embarrassed. A Force Recon Marine Scout Sniper disarmed me three weeks out of the academy. If anything... I feel lucky to be alive.
Senator Charles F. Meachum: You got any plans after this? You have a rather unique skill set. I'd be interested in offering you a job.
Bob Lee Swagger: Work? For you?
Senator Charles F. Meachum: It's not really as bad as it seems. It's all gonna be done in any case. You might as well be on the side that gets you well paid for your
efforts.
Nick Memphis: And what side are you on?
Senator Charles F. Meachum: There are no sides. There's no Sunnis and Shiites. There's no Democrats and Republicans. There's only HAVES and HAVE-NOTS.
Bob Lee Swagger: I'm just a peckerwood who lives in the hills with too many guns
Bob Lee Swagger: The Archbishop?
Michael Sandor: You want to take all suspicions away when you shoot someone, wait 'til he's standing next to the President.
Bob Lee Swagger: What was he going to say?
Michael Sandor: The truth. That nothing, no matter how horrible, ever really happens without the approval of
the government. Over there, and here. The problem isn't the doing. It's the people in power having to admit that they knew. The prisoners are tortured at Abu Ghraib, and only the underlings go to jail. Their bosses knew. We know their bosses knew. But you don't say it.
Bob Lee Swagger: What exactly happened in Africa?
Michael Sandor: Somehow the
villagers didn't think that an oil pipeline was a good enough reason to move their village to a place where the spirit gods didn't exist.
Bob Lee Swagger: They asked them all nicely to move, and they didn't, so they just killed them all?
Michael Sandor: No, they didn't ask. They just killed them. All. So the next village won't need to be asked,
they'll just go.