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The life expectancy of a door gunner might be a little less than the pilot and co-pilot, only because he's visible and the pilot and co-pilot are normally not that visible; coupled with the fact that the enemy may want to kill the door gunner because he's shooting the machine gun. His survival time will be rated upon the amount of time his aircraft is hovering within enemy gunfire range. If the chopper is staying within ground fire range, and is receiving ground fire, for one or two minutes, then he may only have one or two minutes left to live. The pilot and co-pilot may have 3 or 4 minutes left of life remaining; as they are hidden from view, and if not hit by fire, and the bird crashes, they may become casualties from the crash itself. Which gave them more time to live than the dead door gunner. Time is relevant. If it's an intense fight and there's no cover (protection) then life expectancy is shorter. If it's an intense fight and there IS cover then life will last longer. If it's NOT a serious firefight (sporadic) then life may last even longer still. Then there's always those accidents...

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Which side?

Communist snipers had a lower life expectancy than US snipers, because US snipers didn't have to worry about an air strike being called in on them.

In over half the cases, US forces would call in an air strike on an enemy position, snipers included. US jets dropping napalm or 250, 500, 750, or 1000 pound general purpose high explosive bombs, plus firing 2.75" rockets and 20mm cannon fire was quite effective compared to countering with just small arms fire. US snipers; USMC or USA nearly always survived their tours; they specialized in relatively long range shooting (excessive of 100 yds), most unit contacts were grenade range, about 40 yds maximum. Only one US sniper was Kia from one US brigade, in one military region in 1971; contrasted with nearly four hundred US KIA from the same region during the same time period.

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Q: What was the life expectancy of a door gunner in Vietnam?
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