140-Character Claim: In order to operate efficiently as a team, one must be able to put their trust in the man that fights next to them on the battlefield.
How to Survive: Being a Marine Scout/Sniper:
From boot camp to indoctrination, all the way to scout/sniper school, Marine scout/sniper training is difficult, to say the least. The large amount of time spent training all leads up to an effective force multiplier that shows that United States Marine scout/snipers truly are the best at what they do, but being the best does not make surviving as a scout/sniper easy. Many challenges follow on the way from recruit to Marine to P.I.G to H.O.G in a scout/sniper’s life.
Boot camp includes some of the hardest training that a person will go through. According to some Marines, “Boot camp was the hardest thing I have ever done.” Boot camp for the marine Corps lasts 13 weeks and is split to focus on a different training each week, including the pugil stick training, MCMAP, and the Crucible. With pugil sticks, staves covered with hard foam wrapped in rubber to simulate rifle combat, recruits go into a one-on-one combat with another, fighting viciously until one is declared victor. The MCMAP, Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, ensures that recruits follow up to “One mind, any weapon” by enabling recruits to disarm and take out an enemy with their bare hands. The final section of the boot camp training, the Crucible, consists of 52 hours of extreme physical effort; long marches over harsh terrain, carrying a full pack with over 70 pounds of equipment all for one goal: the eagle, globe, and anchor to symbolize their becoming of a Marine.
Indocumentation lasts about two days and most STA, Surveillance and Tactical Acquisition, platoon indoctrinations have an 80-100% failure rate. Over the two days, indoctrinations briefly run over all the skills a basic scout/sniper would need before sniper school, including map reading, land navigation, spotting, observation, and movement. Scout/sniper school itself lasts 8 and a half weeks and goes into high details on instruction that a Marine scout/sniper needs. There are three phases of the training, the first phase being the Marksmanship and Basic Fields Craft. The students shoot at targets between 300 yards and 1000 yards and have several observational tests. The second phase is the Unknown Distance and Stalking phase where students start at a distance of 1200 to 800 yards away and stalk towards two instructors within a distance of 200 yards. The third phase is the Advanced Field Skills and Mission Employment where sniper students go on basic simulation missions and use the skills they have been taught to accomplish them.
After this rigorous training snipers graduate and become H.O.Gs, hunters of gunmen, as the snipers like to call themselves. Snipers are then able to join a sniper platoon and work on scout/sniper related missions. Being a scout/sniper is very difficult, though. Missions may have the sniper go through days of possibly sitting or laying in one place with little movement, little food and water and lots of waiting before firing on a target. Snipers also have to deal with several stress factors and a moral factor. Normal infantry soldiers fire on enemy targets while in a firefight, both sides shooting at each other. Stress is high and adrenaline is pumping, but the situation is a survival one and so soldiers would fight on instinct. Marine scout/snipers though, are not in that firefight situation. They calmly look through the scope, identify the target, whether the target be a man, woman, or in some cases even a child (Carlos Hathcock, famous Marine scout/sniper that fought in Vietnam, had to kill a young boy because he was a weapons mule, a person who delivers large amounts of weapons, for the enemy soldiers) and then fire their round. The target is hit and they see that. The impact on the mind is a lot greater than a normal infantry soldier’s would be, and therefore many snipers come out of the military different mentally than they were before.
Many people call snipers cowards, that they are murderers, shooting unaware soldiers who have no chance of fighting back, but war itself is not fair. Artillery can kill an unaware soldier from 7 miles away, a pilot in a plane can drop a bomb on a platoon and kill all of them. Snipers are trained to do what they do, and they suffer for their skills. Sniper training, especially Marine Corps sniper training, is extremely difficult. Snipers are not cowards. During missions, snipers may have to sneak around enemy lines with little chance of recovery if they are hurt or caught, stay hidden when an enemy may be only a few feet away, lay for days in one spot, unmoving, just to take their shot on a single high value target or to gather intelligence that may help the rest of the military on a very important mission. Their training is intense, rigid and designed for this. Snipers are some of the bravest men in the world, no matter what country they are fighting for.
Surviving with the stress would be difficult, but snipers need to remember, this is their job. This is what they signed up for. With every bullet they send downrange, they are saving lives of their fellow soldiers. Their job is very important, and they cannot let stress affect them or the way they perform their job. Many organizations also help veterans who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. Take pride in the job, take pride for the soldiers that have to put up with this difficult life.
Works Cited:
Primary
Henderson, Charles. Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills. New York, NY: Berkley, 1988. Print.
"Recruit Training." Marines.com. United States Marine Corps. Web. 8 May 2012. <www.marines.com>.
"Becoming a Sniper." United States Marine Corps Scout/Sniper Association. United States Marine Corps Scout/Sniper Association. Web. 08 May 2012. <http://www.usmcscoutsniper.org/hogsden/becoming.htm>.
Secondary
Roberts, Craig, and Charles W. Sasser. Crosshairs on the Kill Zone: American Combat Snipers, Vietnam through Operation Iraqi Freedom. New York: Pocket Star Book, 2004. Print.
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