My first real experience with Aimpoint’s Comp M2 (or M68 in Army circles) came on my first trip to Afghanistan in 2003. I had trained with the optic stateside while I was in the 82nd Airborne Division and again once I was assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group. In 2003, while on deployment with 3rd Group, I learned how much I revered it after using it for several months on a wide variety of combat missions.
I had more than one optic from which to choose and rotated through them, but I loved the M68. Initially, I thought I would want some magnification for the wide-open spaces of Afghanistan, but soon learned that the M68’s no-specific eye relief and its field of view that mimics the human eye were much more valuable.
If I could narrow down a single, initial experience that sold me on the red dot sight – a light-bulb moment if you will – it would have to be while I was using a low-powered magnified optic in the spring of 2003. This was early in my deployment and we were doing a lot of mounted patrolling in rural areas. As our truck crested a hill, there were two Taliban soldiers about 100 yards in front of us. One did a spectacular mag dump from the hip with his AK-47. He looked like he stepped right out of a Rambo movie and he didn’t hit a thing. Post-mag dump, both took off running.
Three of us jumped out of our trucks and took off after them; my two teammates followed the one on the left and I chased the one on the right. It didn’t take long for my opponent to open his lead to 150 yards or so. What I
