Replies

I didn't Oswald qualified as Marksman.

In fact I read before he was a terrible shot
and basicly got booted out of the Marines.

And his fellow soldiers laughed at what an incredibly
bad shot he was. He was said to be by far the worst
shot in his Company.

"... I didn't (know) Oswald qualified as Marksman.

In fact I read before he was a terrible shot and basicly got booted out of the Marines.... And his fellow soldiers laughed at what an incredibly bad shot he was. He was said to be by far the worst shot in his Company."

The USMC marksmanship standards have been the same since before WWI. Recruits initially qualify in Boot Camp, and Fleet Marines qualify yearly after that. The ranking structure is 'Expert', 'Sharpshooter', and 'Marksman' in that order from top to bottom. Out of a training company, as many as a dozen or more green recruits will go 'Unk' and have to requalify at the range as basic marksmen.

Oswald's service jacket shows that he qualified two points above the minimum for sharpshooter (in Recruit Training Regisment at MCRD Parris Island) on one occasion and only one point above the minimum requirement for marksman about a year later. Oswald never went 'Unk', or 'Unqualified' in his career.

Only one fellow Marine named Delgado appeared in front of the Warren Commission to testify that he was near Oswald on the range when he scored poorly. Delgado did testify that he believed that the FBI pressured him to change his story, but another Marine who served with both Delgado and Oswald insisted that Delgado was full of crap.

Having been a Marine, I can tell you that Oswald sounds like a typical rifleman, and I've also had bad qualification days. I currently shoot higher scores on the same exercise in NRA High Power competitions than what the high-end cutoff score is for USMC 'Expert'. There's 'Master' and 'Grand Master' above that level, but the US Marine Corps doesn't rate shooters any higher than 'Expert'.

Oswald was a capable shooter, and intimately familiar with the rifle he owned -- that's my opinion.

The shot was not difficult for Oswald's skills, and conspiracy theorists have been claiming otherwise for decades. Almost every conspiracy theory hinges on dismissing Oswald as the primary shooter.

Well...Lee's own brother disagrees with you. He was interviewed about ten years ago about his hunting trips with Lee. He said that his brother was a good shot.

I didn't Oswald qualified as Marksman.

In fact I read before he was a terrible shot and basicly got booted out of the Marines.

While in the Marines between 1956 and 1959, Oswald was twice tested for his performance with a rifle. On a scale of expert-sharpshooter-marksman, Oswald scored two points above the minimum for sharpshooter on one occasion (December 1956) and only one point above the minimum requirement for marksman on another (May 1959) -- his last recorded score. Colonel A. G. Folsom evaluated these scores for the Commission:

The Marine Corps consider that any reasonable application of the instructions given to Marines should permit them to become qualified at least as a marksman. To become qualified as a sharpshooter, the Marine Corps is of the opinion that most Marines with a reasonable amount of adaptability to weapons firing can become so qualified. Consequently, a low marksman qualification indicates a rather poor "shot" and a sharpshooter qualification indicates a fairly good "shot." (19H17-18)

There exists the possibility that Oswald's scores were either inaccurately or unfairly recorded, thus accounting for his obviously mediocre to horrendous performances with a rifle. However, there is other information independent of the scores to indicate that Oswald was in fact not a good shot. In his testimony, Colonel Folsom examined the Marine scorebook that Oswald himself had maintained, and elaborated on his previous evaluation:

Mr. Ely: I just wonder, after having looked through the whole scorebook, if we could fairly say that all that it proves is that at this stage of his career he was not a particularly outstanding shot.
Col. Folsom: No, no, he was not. His scorebook indicates . . . that he did well at one or two ranges in order to achieve the two points over the minimum score for sharpshooter.
Mr. Ely: In other words, he had a good day the day he fired for qualification?
Col. Folsom: I would say so. (8H311)

Thus, according to Folsom, Oswald's best recorded score was the result of having "a good day"; otherwise, Oswald "was not a particularly outstanding shot."
Folsom was not alone in his evaluation of Oswald as other than a good shot. The following is exerpted [sic] from the testimony of Nelson Delgado, one of Oswald's closest associates in the Marines:

Mr. Liebeler: Did you fire with Oswald?
Mr. Delgado: Right; I was in the same line. By that I mean we were on the same line together, the same time, but not firing at the same position . . . and I remember seeing his. It was a pretty big joke, because he got a lot of "maggie's drawers," you know, a lot of misses, but he didn't give a darn.
Mr. Liebeler: Missed the target completely?
Mr. Delgado: He just qualified, that's it. He wasn't as enthusiastic as the rest of us. (8H235)

The Report tried desperately to get around this unanimous body of credible evidence. First Marine Corps Major Eugene Anderson (who never had any association with Oswald) is quoted at length about how bad weather, poor coaching, and an inferior weapon might have accounted for Oswald's terrible performance in his second recorded test (R191). Here the Commission scraped the bottom of the barrel, offering this unsubstantiated, hypothetical excuse-making as apparent fact. Weather bureau records, which the Commission did not bother to check, show that perfect firing conditions existed at the time and place Oswald last fired for qualification -- better conditions in fact, than those prevailing during the assassination.[5] As for the quality of the weapon fired in the test, it is probable that at its worst it would have been far superior to the virtual piece of junk Oswald allegedly owned and used in the assassination.[6] Perhaps Anderson guessed correctly in suggesting that Oswald may have had a poor instructor; yet, from the time of his departure from the Marines in 1959 to the time of the assassination in 1963, Oswald had no instructor.
For its final "evaluation," the Report again turned to Anderson and Zahm. Each man is quoted as rating Oswald a good shot, somewhat above average, as compared to other Marines, and an "excellent" shot as compared to the average male civilian (R192). That the Commission could even consider these evaluations is beyond comprehension. Oswald's Marine scores and their official evaluation showed that he did not possess even "a reasonable amount of adaptability to weapons firing." If this is better than average for our Marines, pity the state of our national "defense"! The testimonies of Folsom and Delgado -- people who had direct association with Oswald in the Marines -- are not mentioned in the Report.
Thus, Oswald left the Marines in 1959 as a "rather poor shot." If he is to be credited with a feat such as the assassination, it must be demonstrated that he engaged in some activity between 1959 and 1963 that would have greatly developed his rifle capability and maintained it until the time of the shooting. The Report barely touched on the vital area of Oswald's rifle practice. In a brief two-paragraph section entitled "Oswald's Rifle Practice Outside the Marines," the Report painted a very sketchy picture, entirely inadequate in terms of the nature of the issue (R192-93). In all, Oswald is associated with a weapon eleven or twelve times, ending in May 1963.

I didn't Oswald qualified as Marksman.

In fact I read before he was a terrible shot and basicly got booted out of the Marines.

I came to this thread late and I'm not going to read all of the replies. But, in answer to your comment, there are three levels regarding shooting in the military. The top is Expert, the second is Sharpshooter and the third is Marksman.

If Oswald "qualified" as a Marksman, he was among the worst shots in his outfit. I qualified as Expert with an M-1 in 1952. With a bolt action rifle, I have questions as to whether I could have put more than one shot in the moving target in the time expired, in Dealey Plaza.