Not to brag, but, as a father of an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, in on March 20, 2003, here’s what I learned of his second job. First job was in a bridging unit - construction, boat-driver, and truck transportation of equipment (750 miles on their first combat run).
As his sergeant said, “The boy likes to shoot” so when my son was qualifying on the M249 SAW (light machine gun), he gave him 6 box clips (250 rounds each) instead of 3 and let him fire at will.
My son qualified as a sharpshooter for targets at 1,000 yards. I’m impressed at 300 feet, not just at 3,000. Anyway, he got several kills of fedeyeen snipers or assault troops who used women and children as human shields. Fired when he could, didn’t fire when he risked hitting the civilians.
THe one he didn’t get, which I have written about before, was a good Iraqi sniper who was in a multistoried abandoned building. He would shoot and then move to another window or even another floor.
My son would try to anticipate where he might pop up next and put a 3 shot burst into that window. Kept missing him but he was getting a feel for how this guy thought.
Unfortunately he never got the bastard as one of our Abrams tanks came by, saw what was happening, and blew up the building with one shot. End of sniper. My son was pissed. That was his target, but everyone was safer, earlier.
I think Hitchcock set the American record in So. Vietnam at over 1,500 yards, or perhaps more. I’m sure it was at least half a mile away. A VC or NVA Colonel or General who stepped out onto the porch of his hut and BLAM, worm-food.
Jungle sniping is a lot different than desert sniping but our guys who do this are outstanding and deserve our total respect, Americans, Canadians, Brits and Aussies.
There is a passage in one of Eisenhower’s books about taking Cherbourg. It quotes a German commander who said, “We decided to surrender, when the Americans began using their long range artillery as sniper rifles.
Long distance shooting is truly a “Zen” art. Just the logistics are daunting. You have to learn to reload to a consistency of about 10 fps which is a task in it’s own. Then you must learn to “read the wind” and be able to see it as “waves on the beach” and coordinate your pulse with those troughs so the bullet will suffer the least deflection. Then you have to repeat the task so many times that you squeeze with confidence as you learned to “recognize the moment”. BE the bullet. Takes dedication.
Think of the equipment White Feather was using compared to the equipment today. Also, as you say jungle shooting has it’s own issues.
I thank him for his service to our country.
“our guys who do this are outstanding and deserve our total respect, Americans, Canadians, Brits and Aussies.”
Copy that. [literally...LOL]