Marine Corps Snipers

I've been reading about Marine scout-snipers and their training for the past several years. They are the crown jewels of the Marine Corps in my opinion, and the idea of Jihadis showing up with their Dragunovs to try to play scout-sniper tag with them would be funny if there weren't so much gore involved.

My mind is reeling at the thought of this Marine Corps specialty, developed mostly in the relative peace since Vietnam, being turned loose in a real combat environment with real targets. Among these young men are the instructors, tacticians and authors of the future.

God bless them all.

The snipers put far more fear into the Islamikazis than the ring of troops around Fallujah does. Nothing can be more terrifying than carting a couple of RPG's down the street with your buddy, then watching your buddy drop to the street dead before your eyes.

God bless our brave troops!!

Yah, I was in the Nam...but no hero...was with a couple...ie. Coker...my dad my uncle and my brother were all Marines...so I knew what I was going to do from the start. It really is all about timing...hell I missed Tet...Hue...Kah Sahn...but I did get up to leather neck square...con tien...then hill 22 and hill 55. was a grunt for 6 months (Mike 3/3)...even with my mos had to earn your way into snipers...finally made it into 3rd Div SS...based at Quang Tri...then down to 1st Marines SS...at Hill 55.
interesting to read about the new snipers (and all their cool gear)...I got in because I was high shot out of bootcamp...saw those guys with the rifle cases walking by...and said...who are they?
found out were they were showed the lt. my record he said yah you belong here...got in...at the time it was all based on boot camp rifle scores...and the training was mostly range work...I think we had one over night...moved from the beach into Pendleton. glad to see the apprentice tradition still is in effect...one of my classmates in school went to 1st Marine SS...and was one of Gunny Hathcock's back up men...then when I got to Hill 55 I got to be my old classmates back-up man...til I got the lay of the land...(jungle verses more open terrain.)...Hathcock was everyone's hero...a true hunter.

huh... I was the high shooter in my boot camp platoon too, got promoted to PFC for that. I was just talking to my second cousin, he fought at Hue. Said he was in a tank and three hours after the battle started they got hit by rockets and he got wounded.

I got on a police dept. and am one of the snipers on our SWAT team so I guess I was able to use what I had learned in the Corps in the civilian world.

In 95 I got to go to a Law Enforcement Sniper School at Camp Lejeune. We were in the same building that I was in when I went through 2nd Mar Div ss school. That was fun.

Hathcock was teaching cop snipers for awhile but I never got to go to one of his schools.

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