Met a sniper today

the only vets I know, dont really talk about it, they will say that there at vet, wat war, and wat they did. and thats about it. I know there all vets cus i go shooting with alot of them, and they all have there marine vet listen plates, and shirts. Plus half of them use to skydive with the flying elvises team.

i will tell you flat out that i am a regular ole 11b and i wish i could get the chance to go to sniper school. that would make my army carrer worth it.

I wonder sometimes if veterans are reluctant to share their experiences because they think no one today will care?

During WWII, one of my grandfathers was a Naval Gunnery instructor at Newport RI, and the other one flew B-24's, and was shot down over Germany, escaped, and was then interned in Switzerland. Niether of them ever told any stories. I only got the little I did from my one grandfather because one Easter in the 1980's at his club in Florida we ran into a guy who had been his tail gunner in his B-24, whom he hadn't seen since they bailed out over Germany. Diverse experiences, but they both, along with all the vets I've met since, seemed to move on and focus on what they were doing now

I recall when I first started shooting competitively, one of my mentors had been in the 82nd Airborne in Vietnam, and he kind of got up in my face. He told me that he had had to shoot "more than one person" and that it had been terrible, and to think long and hard about how I'd feel about that before I handled a firearm, every time, because accidents are worse and you can never take it back. It's hard to get across in print, but it was one of those slap across the face lessons for a young man, and I've never forgotten it, because I got the idea it was really important.

yea tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil as I have spent my time in HELL. USMC 1963-1972, and the only person that knows what I did is my brother who also spent some of his time there. I haven't even told my wife or kids what i did.

Possum, it's attention to detail.

No offense, but the attention to detail around written communications will go a LONG way in getting you into various schools. If your government school screwed you on your education, take some correspondence courses or on-post courses, and improve your language skills.

With all the snipers and spec. ops guys i see in the shop, it's a wonder there is anyone left to clean a toilet in the millitary.
I know one USMC sniper, went to school with him for gunsmithing. the real deal no BS, one of the nicest guys there.
He talked a bit about it when we were at home but not much, i asked more about how to than what did you do questions, he knew more about long range shooting than i could grasp.
He also lit the deck on fire trying to show me how the start a fire with two sticks,honestly. he was building USMC sniper rifels in VA.i would like to get in touch with him again, i got hogs to shoot.

To add my anecdotes.

There was a guy at my old work who would wear a USMC camo hat, not sure of the technical name but it was shapped like a stop sign and had the Eagle, Globe and Anchor on it. He would tell storries about being in the Marines and an Artillary gunner. He would talk so much and he was over 300 pounds and quite "puffy" I figured he was pure BS.

I was making copies of some of my old Army pictures one day and he pulls a couple of old pictures out of his day planner, I kid you not, there is was, much younger, and MUCH skinnier with a team of guys posing in front of a HUGE field gun. I guess somtimes, the blow hards are telling the truth.

Funny how folks will brag about stuff they did in the military true or not.

I my 8 years I only went to one "special qualification" school, Cheju-do. I have no clue what my class number was or what dates exactly I was there. I do remember being really miserable, scarred poopless, and very, very glad as well as proud to pass the qual course and graduate. There are so few annual graduates that most folks have no clue what it is.

Most of you would tell me I was full of it becuase I can't remember the specifics and/or have never heard of it and will think it is made up. I guarentee though it IS on my DD214 and I have the pics of me "on the beach" to prove it, LOL

Special kudos to anyone here who can tell me what it is.

i got hogs to shoot.

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That must have been quite a task! [snicker]

I knew two ex-SEALS in Iraq, both working security, both in their 50's.

Joe from Tennessee was a real nice guy - quiet, professional, knew his stuff; the other guy was a self-important idiot who made no friends by always allowing his gold trident/budweiser emblem which he wore on a chain to just "pop out" at the right moment.

I'm a sniper too. I do it on e-bay from time to time.

BS artists

Are found everywhere, even (gasp ) on the internet. As a lot of guys have mentioned, then most common thing about the guys who have really been there and done that is, that they don't talk about it. Or rarely do, without details.

A good friend of my Dad's was a paratrooper in WWII. After many years I got him to tell me a little bit about it. He never would go into details, mostly he would just joke that he "hadn't had a haircut since 1944, it just stopped growing." I did find out that he was one of the guys that dropped on St Mere-Egliese in Normandy on D-day, and later was at Bastogne. If asked, he would say he was there, but that was it. Great guy, about 6'4", with a great booming laugh. Hunted deer with a Winchester .270.

One time the movie "The Longest Day" was on TV. His wife later told us he watched about half of it, and went to bed. She said he had nightmares for weeks afterward. If you watch that movie, you will get just a hint of what those guys went through.

One thing seems pretty constant, the "doers don't talk, and the talkers don't do."

my dad was a MP in the Air Force during Vietnam. He was in the Ryokan Islands, and Germany for the most part. He made mention of some buddies of his who were in the Army, who he seen pretty regularly, who were excited about getting to parachute in into some part of Vietnam, and who pretty much all got shot up before hitting the ground.

That was the only bad thing he made mention of.

The rest were stories that were pretty funny. Like riding a coal train in Germany and standing toward the front and wondering why nobody else was there. Until a few hours later when he went into the restroom at the station and took off his sunglasses and looked like a raccoon.

Or having to drag some guy down the street by his hand-cuffs because the guy refused to get up and 10 or so of the guys buddies were after my dad.

Or having to run around a field in Germany with the officer of the day ( I think thats who he said) trying to catch bugs since the guy had a big bug collection.

A few stories from my secret service BBQ restaraunt manager who makes like 10 dollars an hour:

Background: This guy is 5'9" and 250-ish lbs. and he claims to have gotten a 34 on his ACT, gone to the olympics for the govt. to do security work for 800 dollars a day, know guys in "all the bad@$$ forces", to have run over "a goth kid" in front of a cop, and the cop did nothing, eaten the live, beating heart of a cobra snake while in china.

He goes shooting with his secret service buddies at a range in N.E. oklahoma (what's the secret service doing in OK?) where they shoot their issue MP-5's. They use "bay of pigs surplus ammo" that comes in 36 round cans, that they have a warehouse full of.

I asked him why they came in 36 round cans, and he said that it was because the "swedish K" (Carl gustav M45) held 36 rounds, and it was used extensively by the secret service during that time.

I almost believe him just because I can't believe anyone would make so much stuff up out of thin air.

Or having to run around a field in Germany with the officer of the day ( I think thats who he said) trying to catch bugs since the guy had a big bug collection.

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That is just hilarious!!!

Most real snipers won't tell you their trade. Most simply say Grunt or specialist. Devildocs are whole different matter.

I shoot at Quantico on a regular basis, so I've met some of the real deals when they were sighting in. Most of them were very polite and "shy" about their real qualifications, but when you see USMC issued M-42's that is usually a pretty good clue. There are some pretty dang good older guys shooting out there too- I've learned a few tips and tricks by just being polite and listening to them At least now I can hit the broad side of a barn if I'm close enough....

Go to Snipershide.com. theres several LE and Military snipers there...

Hey...can't we call ourselves "snipers" if we harvested groundhogs?! I suspect that is about all the qualification that most of these charactors have. A few years back, I saw a program about this very fact. The narrator maintained that if every person who claimed to have been in some form of special forces factually were, that the special forces would be 4 times larger than the regular forces. Now, was he joking? I don't know...but his point was very comical.

I have heard several people mention they know a navy SEAL sniper...I was under the impression that all SEALs get sniper training (although I am not sure how extensive it is)....was I incorrect?

To the best of my knowledge, the U.S. Army had not instituted a formal sniper training program in VN as 1969 when I left. The USMC stared one in 66 or 67.

There might have been folks designated by their local commander as a sniper but this would have been some thing on the order of the Designated Marksman program that the Marines have now. That is, a man from each platoon would be selected to train and be issued a DM type rifle. Usually an accurarized M-14 with scope.

My terminal assignment in VN was as a straphanger (REMF) in the Division Operations shed in the 1st Cav. Div. In April 69, they were still talking about starting a sniper school in the divisions but MACV was holding up the program for some reason only known to the brasshats in Saigon.

I was a bartender for more years than I should have been. In those years I heard so many bull**** war stories from phony war heroes that I usually called them a liar to their face and evicted them.

Anyone that tells me that they were a sniper in the Army in VN in automatically suspected to be a liar because the Army had no training progrm or recognized positions for snipers for the majority of the time that the Army was in VN.

Last week I ran into someone who had a Purple Heart tag on his car at the carwash. About my age, he proudly told me that he was a ranger in the 9th Infantry division and that they jumped into their missions by parachute in 1970. Here is a guy at least 60 years old who thinks someone gives a **** about anything that happened 40 years ago. Pathetic loser.

No offense, but the attention to detail around written communications will go a LONG way in getting you into various schools. If your government school screwed you on your education, take some correspondence courses or on-post courses, and improve your language skills.

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what are you talking about, i am an infantryman, i ain't a public speaker. i have never heard of having to pass any sort of written, or vocabulary test to get in any of the army schools that i want to get in. heck if you think i am bad now you should have seen me before i joimed the forums, i have came a good ways since then. i know my spelling is horrible, and i can't use, punctuation to save my life. and btw this is a forum, not a freakin research paper, i have been on here a while and no one has ever had a problem with the way i communicate written or otherwise. obviously my writtig has done me some good, i won't go all in to that, but my writtin commo scored me the most wonderful wife that i could have ever hoped for.

but just for you sir i will tell my squad leader that i am a horrible communicator, and see if he can fit that in my NcOER anywhere.

the medals on my chest and the cib i wear wasn't given to me because i can write good awards and 4856's, i got them for doing my job which has nothing to do with writting. i communicate effectively with my soliders and i never leave them uninformed, they are always squared away so obviously i am doing something right there.

and finally the reason i haven't been able to get into any schools is simple. i got back from my first deployment and was supposed to go to sniper school, the bn was disbanding. then our company got some slots for airborne school but we where disbanding, so they took our slots and gave them to other bn's

possum:
I think the point he's trying to make is that if you want to get anything out of anything - and esp the military - you need to be real persistent with your letters. I have several friends just like you who had to write write write write get rejected write write write and eventually they got their tution paid for, got into warrant school (not really sure what that is), officer school, etc. everything from med bills to books. its the linchpin of our society, writing requests.

Hey...can't we call ourselves "snipers" if we harvested groundhogs?! I suspect that is about all the qualification that most of these charactors have.

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I suspect that if you can groudhogs as they pop their heads up at 200 yards reliably you are a pretty decent sniper. I seriously doubt Koenig or Vassily or that finn sniper Hadyn had any more training than that.

I think the point he's trying to make is that if you want to get anything out of anything - and esp the military - you need to be real persistent with your letters. I have several friends just like you who had to write write write write get rejected write write write and eventually they got their tution paid for, got into warrant school (not really sure what that is), officer school, etc. everything from med bills to books. its the linchpin of our society, writing requests.

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see the issue is getting in to army schools and for you guys that aren't familiar that is stuff like airborne, sniper, pathfinder, ranger etc. i have no problem getting college courses, and on-line courses that isn't the issue, the army will pay for that no problem, plus i have the GI bill when i get out, i am refering to military schools that have to dowith my job not college, and i defenitly don't want to be an officer i like doing the dirty work and i love being an NCO. warrant sounds ok but not for me either. the pay is definetly better, but obviously i am not doing it for the pay or i would have never joined the army, as a matter of fact i never once asked the recruiter what the pay was at all. it is something that i wanted to do and now that i have been doing it for a while i love it. i love leading soliders, and trainning them.

The verb to snipe —means: “to shoot from a hidden place”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper

I have seen people “snipe”. Were they designated snipers?
Well by the other troops with them, by the opposing side
that got away, you bet they were. Does an act of congress
really make you a gentleman?

Who were those Japanese shooting at our troops from the
palm trees?



Tinker2

RugerDude's post/Mr Rogers/CPT Kangaroo...

RugerDude's post about his BBQ mgr's "secret service" past is very funny.

The "Swedish K" 9mm SMG was in use by many spec ops units in the 1960s/early 1970s in SE Asia(Vietnam). I think Smith and Wesson made a 9mm SMG called the model 76 based on the same design. From what I know, these 9mm SMGs were considered garbage by many elite units/CIA types working in these denied areas of Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia/etc.

In the great non-fiction book; SOG, retired US Army officer; John Plaster(who served in spec ops, MACV-SOG) writes that 9mm SMGs did not have the punch of the M-14s/M-16s/CAR-15s that many SOG teams needed. Plaster said the K and/or model 76s were junked for the CAR-15s in 5.56mm when SOG members could get them.

Rusty

PS: Bob "Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan is often confused with Fred "Mr Rogers" Rogers. Keeshan was a highly decorated veteran of WW2 who is widely known to have done some very brave acts in the D-Day battles. I'm not sure if CPT Kangaroo was a sniper but I think he was also highly trained by the US military.