Somewhere just outside of Baghdad, an Iraqi insurgent with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher slung over his shoulder moves cautiously across the roof of an apartment building and, once in position, peers down at the street below. His mission: to kill as many American soldiers as possible. He spots a U.S. Army convoy a few blocks away and starts to bring the launcher into position.

On another rooftop more than 800 yards away, a carefully concealed Marine sniper watches the insurgent through a scope so powerful he can see the pattern on the cloth that covers the man’s face. As the insurgent puts his hand on the launcher, the Marine pulls the trigger on his M-40A3 rifle, sending a bullet through the unsuspecting terrorist’s chest. As a result of the Marine’s quick action, the convoy arrives at its destination safely.

Marine snipers have played a critical role in both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, protecting advancing coalition forces during the early days of both wars and now by taking on the enemy insurgency wherever it nests. Without these skilled guardian angels, say those who have been there, these operations would have resulted in far more American casualties.

“Marine snipers have proved invaluable in Iraq and Afghanistan,” confirms Sgt. Dagan Vanoosten, a Marine sniper who saw action in Operation Iraqi Freedom and now works as a primary field skills instructor with the Marine Corps Scout/Sniper Training Program in Quantico, Va. “They can go places that other people can’t go, and they can get there without being seen. This allows them to obtain valuable information and paint a picture of the battlefield ahead of time, which ultimately saves lives. If you know what kind of fight you’re going into and you know that someone is there with precision fire to watch over you while you’re fighting, it helps the morale of the troops, makes them feel safer, and allows them to fight harder and longer.”

Guardian angels

Military sharpshooters have been a part of war for as long as there have been rifles, notes Capt. Jake Hood, officer in charge of the Scout/Sniper Instructor School at Weapons Training Battalion, Quantico. During the American Revolutionary War, for example, Marine snipers hung from the riggings of ships so they could protect American boarding parties by picking off high-value enemy targets.
 
Throughout the Civil War, both the Union and Confederate armies made good use of sharpshooters. “Hiram Berdan was a prominent marksman on the Union side who formed two regiments of well-trained snipers that came to be known as the Berdan Sharpshooters,” Hood reports. “And the Confederates also had their share of skilled sharpshooters, many of whom came from a hunting background.

“During that period, the actions of a sharpshooter were often seen as being unchivalrous; they were kind of looked down upon because of what they did on the battlefield. But they got the job done.”

Marine snipers also played a significant role during the Vietnam War. One of the most well-known snipers was Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock, who had 93 confirmed kills and nearly 300 probables. Hathcock was so skilled a marksman that he once hit a North Vietnamese Army target at 2,500 yards with a special scope-adapted .50-caliber machine gun converted to single-shot operation, and during a five-day period he reportedly wiped out an entire company of Vietcong guerrillas. The North Vietnamese feared Hathcock so much they put a $30,000 bounty on his head.

Best of the best

Hathcock, who tried to discourage the “cowboy” image of the military sniper, was instrumental in establishing the current Marine Scout/Sniper Training Program at Quantico, one of four Marine scout/sniper training programs in the United States. (The others are located at Camp Pendleton, Calif.; Camp Lejeune, N.C.; and Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.)

“The program here was established in 1977 and came off some hard-fought lessons learned in the Vietnam conflict,” says Hood.

Many men volunteer for scout/sniper training, but only the best of the best receive the coveted MOS 8541. Each year an estimated 300 volunteers are brought to the four training schools for the 10-week entry-level scout/sniper course, and fewer than 70 percent graduate.

“Sniper teams, and sniper team leaders in particular, are tasked with the very challenging mission of operating forward of friendly lines in a small unit,” Hood explains. “So we’re looking for independent thinkers, Marines who are level-headed and not easily overwhelmed by the conditions in which they may find themselves in a combat environment.”

Physical fitness also is important, because scout/snipers often are required to traverse unfriendly terrain while carrying heavy equipment, including weapons and communication gear. In addition, their job could require them to stay in the field for days under adverse conditions and with little communication, sometimes remaining motionless for extended periods as they survey enemy positions or wait for an assigned target to show himself. It’s grueling work, both mentally and physically.

The entry-level scout/sniper training course begins with intensive marksmanship training at distances up to 1,000 yards, says Hood. During this phase, trainees learn to scope an intended target while taking into consideration such things as the weather, wind speed, and whether the bullet will be traveling through glass. These and many other factors can influence whether a bullet will hit its target dead center as intended or miss by inches or feet.

The M-40A3 7.62 mm bolt-action rifle, made to exacting specifications at the Precision Weapons Section of Weapons Training Battalion, Quantico, is the preferred weapon among Marine scout/snipers. Other commonly used weapons include the M-40 antipersonnel rifle and the .50-caliber Special Application Scoped Rifle, which is designed primarily for anti-materiel shooting because of its heavy penetrating power.

Midway through the basic course, trainees move into the field skills phase, where they learn the intricacies of observation and stalking. These are essential skills, Hood explains, because Marine scout/snipers often play a dual role on today’s battlefield.

“The Marine sniper’s mission is not only to select and engage targets with precision rifle fire,” Hood says. “He often is also the only organic intelligence gatherer that a battalion commander may have, so he could have challenging mission parameters that might include confirming or denying what the enemy situation is.”

It’s the stalking portion of scout/sniper training that causes the majority of trainees to wash out, adds Vanoosten. Trainees must crawl approximately 1,000 yards under the watchful eye of a trained observer, move to within 200 yards of that observer, and fire two shots without being seen.

“Stalking is a skill that permeates both conscious and unconscious habit,” Vanoosten explains. “It can’t be taught well in the classroom; it’s better learned on the ground. The biggest thing is attention to detail and patience. We have a set time limit for completing the course, and guys start to lose track of time or they think they have to hurry up, and they make mistakes. It’s all about slow, methodical movement. Inches equal hours. It may take a sniper 30 minutes to move 5 feet, depending on the situation.

“It’s a very difficult task, but once the light clicks on, you can see it in their faces. Some guys are really good at stalking, while others just can’t pick it up. It’s almost something that has to be inherently understood. But once a sniper learns how to do it correctly, he should never get caught.”

Beyond basic training

Following completion of the basic scout/sniper course, graduates have the opportunity to take additional courses, including urban sniping, urban surveillance, and mountain scouting/sniping, which is taught at the Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Calif. The mountain scout/sniper course focuses on high-angle shooting and has proved beneficial to battalions deployed to Afghanistan, Hood says.

In addition, the Marine Corps offers a semiannual, five-week Scout/Sniper Advanced Course, during which graduates of the basic course learn additional skills, and a two-week Platoon Commanders Course.

The Marine Corps strives to make scout/sniper training as realistic as possible, but Hood acknowledges there are some things that just can’t be simulated. “One of them is what we call the fog of war,” he says. “It’s also difficult for us to simulate the adrenaline rush a sniper will experience or the time-crunch and pressure under which he may be forced to make decisions.”

Another thing that scout/sniper training doesn’t address is how to cope emotionally with taking a human life through a scope that makes the target seem close enough to touch. Civilians might find the concept difficult, but it’s a nonissue for those on the front lines.

“There is no psychological profile [a Marine sniper] has to go through or anything like that, but there is constant monitoring within the system,” says Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin, USMC-Ret., coauthor of Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper (2005, St. Martin’s Press). “It’s not done by doctors, it’s done by the personnel in the platoons. “I agree with that philosophy.

I don’t think we need to put psychological evaluations on people. I’m not against doctors — I’m a proponent of people seeking help if they need it — but if you start throwing that into the equation before you even start the training process, you’re putting it into a young man’s mind that what he is doing is wrong or that he will be hurt psychologically for doing it.

“Our training teaches us to treat the enemy as a target; we try to dehumanize them as much as possible. But when it’s over and I’m in a safe area, I certainly reflect upon the fact that a human life has been taken. But I believe that when we are doing our jobs, we’re actually saving lives — whether it’s taking out an enemy who’s going to take out some of our guys, or taking out an enemy so we don’t have to drop a 2,000-pound bomb on a building and have collateral damage.”

Specialized warriors

Coughlin, like Hood and Vanoosten, saw plenty of action in Iraq. And while there, he helped prove the effectiveness of mobile sniper teams, a concept that previously had been scoffed at by military brass. Marine snipers, Coughlin says, have played an integral role in the fight against the insurgency, attacking the terrorists both physically and psychologically. In fact, following the first battle of Fallujah, one of the primary demands of the insurgency during negotiations with U.S. military officials was that the Marine snipers be pulled back.

“What Marine snipers were able to do was gain access inside the city and take out the terrorists from their own safe haven,” notes Coughlin, whose previous platoon participated in the battle of Fallujah. “When the terrorists were walking across the street in what they thought was a safe area, the next [thing] they knew they were dropping like flies. They did not want to face Marine snipers.”

And though it doesn’t make the evening news, the covert work being done today by Marine snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan is saving the lives of both American service personnel and innocent civilians, Coughlin says.

“Every day there are sniper teams out there looking for insurgents placing bombs. Not trying to stop them from exploding them — they are stopping them from placing the bombs,” Coughlin states. “They are engaging them all the time. I guarantee that they are hitting at least a couple a week.”

The Marine scout/sniper has evolved considerably since the Vietnam era, but what will the future hold for these specialized warriors?

“I foresee snipers continuing to serve in their current role as a supporting asset to the Marine infantryman on the ground, because that is the ultimate mission,” says Hood. “We continue to look for ways to make them more lethal on the battlefield and in a larger number of operating environments. A great deal of that has to do with putting the most technologically advanced weapons systems in the hands of the sniper team leader to continue to make him a more effective weapon to the battalion commander.”