Yes you must believe that people who score sharpshooter in the Marines are lousy shots. In December of 1956 Oswald scored Sharpshooter qualifying with the M1 rifle during basic training.
Oswald was a radar operator in the Marine Corp. On his annual rifle qualifications after basic training he only qualified as a marksman. This is often given by the unknowing as evidence that Oswald was not all that great a shot.
But anyone who was in the service in that era knows that those with jobs that do not require the use of a rifle often shot their required annual rifle quailification with what they called back then an M1 Pencil. Tests were often faked. There were rarely enough workers available to give people such as radar operators requiring security clearance time off to go shoot annual qualifications. There were rarely enough range staff or enough ranges to test them and no one to do their job while they would take the test. So the Military routinely faked the rifle qualification tests for such people. It was SOP to give the trooper whose test was faked a low but qualifying score. And that appears to be the case with Oswald.
It was common back then to give troops who actually fired the test and only scored a 191, a 193 or 194 score so people would know they actually shot the test and were not too good.. But those whose annual firing was faked were given a 191 score so supperiors would know know the firing test was faked.
Shooting is a skill that is retained for life. Once one has mastered it, it can be repeated again and again. It just takes a bit of practice to get it back. Annual qualifications always allowed for pre qualification practice. Oswald scored sharp shooter once. That says to me he could score sharpshooter as long as eyesight remained good.
Plus the distance from the sixth floor in Dallas to the car beneath him was no more than 120 feet. A rifleman who can hit targets at 100 to 250 yards with Sharpshooter skill has little trouble hitting a target at 30 to 80 yards.
I was no great shooter in the military, but I would bet a bundle I could, even at my advanced age, hit slow moving target the size of Kennedys exposed body 2 out of 3 times from that distance. They were not particularly hard or difficult shots. It would have been very long pistol shots, but very close rifle shots. Any average guy with a even a low grade military rifle could do it.
And Oswald was the sharpshooter who did just that.
Thank you!
"This goes to show what one motivated Marine and his rifle can do.”