Legend of the American Sniper | Full Documentary

The biggest misperception I've ever had since the day I came into the marine

sniper

community was that we're not cowboys, you know, we're not, we're not John Wayne, um, we don't think we are, we know we're not, uh we know who we are, we're marine scout

sniper

s, but that's why marine comes first in that sentence, it's marine scout sniper. Three main misconceptions about a scout sniper, I would say are not prima donnas in terms. of their shooting ability, which some infantrymen would classify them as uh, here comes the built-in assassination, you know, top gun and uh, they're not, they're there to do a specific job to support the infantry, that's the first concept erroneous, the second misconception.

It's that they believe snipers have this one shot, one kill concept. I must tell you that is not always the case, especially after having been in the field for quite some time and lastly, I would say that the sniper is not an elitist at all. uh he's part of a special group of highly trained individuals, like the Force Recon Navy Seals, the Army Rangers, Green Beret, those types of people, but they're still part of the infantry support part, they're supporting weapons to the infantry, everything. supports infantry including snipers, people think snipers shoot well, we shoot, but in reality that's only about 15 of what a sniper knows.

Being a military or police sniper involves a lot more than the above-average aiming skills we need to be able to sometimes shoot pretty far away, but none of that matters if you can't plan the mission, if you can't get to the location undetected, if you can't get to the right place and only then is there an opportunity to shoot and then you have to be able to escape to do it again, so there are some very important valuable skills that are in place before we get to the point where we can talk about shoot. I can talk about Vietnam era snipers, one of I think the misconceptions are confirmed kills.

If you look at the history of any Vietnam sniper, you can go to the military department. Defense Department. There are no records of confirmed deaths during Vietnam. The numbers were important for the military to report to the American public. Mind you, we suffered so many losses, but we killed so many enemies, so the numbers were increased and I think even the snipers were encouraged to report the numbers. What you see in movies portraying the sniper is largely a façade that doesn't come close. the depth of thought processes they tried to attribute to the sniper aren't really valid.

The first mistake, I would say, would be the level of intelligence that anyone could go out and do it. I'm not saying that you need someone with above average intelligence, but if you look at the curriculum, it was already difficult enough. The curriculum when I went to division sniper school. The program has only gotten better over the years. The information these young Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen need to have. digest in a short period of time, just a matter of weeks, is amazing, so I would say the misconception, first of all, the misconception of the intelligence level of a scout sniper.

The second thing I would say is the misconception that they have no conscience, the stigma of a Cold Blooded Killer. People would be surprised how many of them are family men, have wives and children. The third would be that they enjoy their work. I've seen a lot of movies where they just enjoy their work. Movies and media have a depiction of police snipers. Sometimes it is very exaggerated. I think you see the glitz and glamor of the work and things like that, you don't necessarily get to see all the training. the constant continuous upgrading of skills that goes with that people think you know we just go out and draw the rifle and you know pulling the trigger is not the case at all I mean day in and day out we shoot and sharpen those skills like that that if the time comes when you know you can be counted on to do what needs to be done, Hollywood portrays it totally differently, we have 48-man teams and also with us it's not a one-man show, do you know if you're shooting you have a spotter someone has to be on security someone has to be on the radio it's all your equipment combined and what makes a scout sniper is not an individual person once you understand and know why a sniper does what he does and what he has to go through to do it, uh, you don't take that feeling of him being a lone wolf or a rogue or you know, something of the loner type in today's military that is discouraged, it's not a quality that the military is looking for .

In a sniper, they need a clear-headed, well-adjusted individual who can operate well within a group because these are not individuals against any enemy as they are groups of soldiers fighting. is a coordinated and cohesive military unit against the enemy and we have elevated sniping to a fine and precise art form and does not tolerate individuals who cannot operate well within the group from the moment the sniper began shooting, he has probably been one one of the most feared people that are on the battlefield just by the nature of what we do, you know without warning, suddenly someone's shot hits, you don't know where it came from and it's accurate and it's reaching everyone, what? what are you doing? and that still exists today, whenever there are snipers out there, if you know there are snipers out there, you feel that cold fear in the back of your neck and there's nothing you can do about it and we like, to be perfectly honest with you, because I know I can be out there and not shoot anyone, but still have a positive effect on the mission simply by being out there.

If I have to shoot people well, then it has an even more pronounced effect on the mission. The American sniper is usually the most highly trained soldier in combat, the things that he will be asked to do once he is in the operational environment are going to test him and not only are they going to test him mentally, they are going to test him physically, which They are going to test. Test him emotionally and they will make him reach deep inside and bring out the best of what he is capable of offering, if anyone can claim the essence of the true warrior spirit, the one that sacrifices and fights for the best. . the good of his comrades and the greater good of his country is the American sniper who is this warrior he is all thanks to all men a mission no matter how difficult it is how difficult it is how demanding it may seem a sniper is up to height of that mission he will accomplish that mission with what he has at his disposal the sniper above all is a hunter his weapon a rifle his prey another human being no one has embraced this world better than the American sniper the sniper shoots his targets from further distances beyond the range of ordinary weapons and the ordinary shooter shoots his targets with the most accurate rifles of the time uses the best optics of the time and most of the time shoots his targets from hidden positions the sniper is the man of Few myths and

legend

s can measure up to what it takes to become a sniper and those that do will surprise you.

Selecting people to be trained as snipers was a very important part of what we did. You had the basics, which was that they had to be a good marksman to start with. They have a good track record, they had to spend a year in the country to participate in the training program, some of them had to extend it, but the most important thing was their attitude. I was asked what kind of person I would like to have as a sniper and I guess my answer is someone who can entertain themselves for half a day sitting on a porch carving with a stick.

The best snipers are boys and girls. I won't make it seem like only men who are detail-oriented and meticulous, they're chess players, they like the mental aspects of being able to shoot precision weapons, they like the intellectual angles of being a good observer, being astute, getting in position covertly and be there. I would say you probably have to be comfortable in your own skin you have to be able to spend long periods of time alone or with another person without verbal communication and I would say probably the most important thing that I have found over the years is my participation as a marine corps scout sniper do you have to be physically conditioned?

You have to be mentally conditioned and you also have to be spiritually conditioned. If the only reason they want to enter that environment is to feel what it feels like to kill a human being. "That's it, that's not it, that's exactly the wrong motivation. They have to have the ability to do it when the president already knows when the situation arises. I would say that the list enumerates the qualifications that they will have to have an intelligent appearance, for On the contrary, in my case, here they will have to be in excellent physical condition, it will certainly help if they have had considerable field experience in terms of before starting, you know, hunting competitive shooting that type of What certainly is shooting is a prerequisite, you have to be a good shot, but that is not the determining factor that will keep you alive when you are operating in an operational state.

You don't just have to go out and get in position to shoot, after you shoot, You have to get out of there alive, it takes a certain mindset, you have to have a survival instinct and a drive to keep pushing no matter the odds because the odds are against you, you are outnumbered. A sniper has to be very patient and has to have a lot of common sense and one of the most important parts is that a sniper has to Be honest when you are in the environment alone or with your spotter, you can make up all kinds of stories and make yourself seem quite important, but the sniper has to be meticulously truthful, the average guy who becomes a a marine scout sniper the guy the guy I always looked for uh when I was scoutmaster my platoon I looked for that guy who was outgoing I looked for that guy who when you walked into a room he was the one who would confront you because he didn't know you um look you look for the guy that when you say hey come on it's time to roll he's the first one to get off his ass and make it happen um when you say hey guys, he you know for zero eight, we gotta do this, he's the guy that when you come walking, yeah, you know the engine group, he's the guy that loads the truck, that's the guy that I'm looking for, um, and the same thing in the social environment, you know.

There's more to it than just knowing what face the sniper uses when he's, you know, in uniform, you know, I'm looking for the guy who knows how to have a good time, knows how to laugh, knows how to relax. um, you know someone and he wants that ship of camaraderie, uh, he, he wants the camaraderie of his brothers, you know, uh, I've never, I've never had good success, you know, bringing people who are isolated, you know, a lot of times, people. well said, that's what you know, those are the snipers, they all stay alone, you know, they're the guys that just hang out with other snipers, well, you know, maybe that's true, to a certain extent, but it's because that bond we all share, you know?

As marine snipers, you know we go out alone and you like to say fearless, but you know, to be honest with you, you know you go out and it scares the hell out of you. but you look for those guys that you can lean on, you know, those guys that keep you strong and those are the kind of people that I like to be with and that's what I came across all the time when I selected the guys to come to the platoon or even when I would take guys out on my own team, you know, I would want that guy who wasn't afraid to get dirty, wasn't afraid to shoot his gun and then have to sit there and clean it. for two or three hours, you look for the guy who has, you know, the background that you know from his childhood, hey, you know, he's the one who talks about going out and going on fishing trips and camping trips with his dad or his friends, you know ? uh he's the avid hunter, he's the lumberjack, it's a big part of being a marine, so you want that guy who knows how to go out and get his hands dirty and wipe them on his pants and still be part of the

legend

. around snipers is that all successful snipers at some point hunted rabbits or the family didn't eat or that kind of thing and to a large extent that's very true, the people we see who are really good at military sniping are also good at us. good at hunting and we have experience in hunting because that's what we are doing, we are gunfighter hunters in the military sniper field, so if you are oriented towards outdoor hunting, you already know a vigorous lifestyle, then you probably have a advantage. in this line of work, but that doesn't mean a city boy can't do it too because we have them and they're good, but that's one of the things you know, we have legends, we have myths and uh and that's one of them, but that's not necessarily a myth, we see it all the time and I think it's largely true.

I am a hunter. I have always beena hunter and it's also interesting now that we're talking about this. You know, some people are hunters and they experience military combat and then they never want to hunt again, and I know quite a few of those people that I haven't experienced and you know. Military combat is in a compartment of its own and when it's over that compartment closes. and those are very good memories of his bad memories, but it's closed, so hunting me is still as good as ever, but there are some very, some very. deep psychological things that happen, you know, for a basic infantryman involved in a firefight, there's a lot of noise and smoke and commotion and chaos, and here goes a bad guy and everyone shoots and it's okay, he falls down, someone caught him, but it's possible not.

I once found out who he was, so there's some distancing that can be applied when a sniper puts a crosshair on a person and pulls the trigger and sees their head collapse and a big pink mist comes out of their back, you don't know. may deny what happened or who. You did it that way in your heart, you have to be right as to why it was necessary and why it was. You know my job to do it and if you don't you can have some pretty serious problems. If you do, then you can. To deal with that and move forward and understand the need for the mission and the fact that you're saving lives by doing what you're doing, we go through years of training trying to learn a skill set and you never really learn. and even when you are in country you are still learning every time you go out on a mission, you are constantly learning, it is difficult to understand everything that the sniper trainee will need to hone many specialized skills and abilities.

It will be mentally and physically demanding. He will have to learn to handle a variety of firearms. He will have to get in top physical shape. He will have to learn a unique set of tactics on the battlefield. He will have to learn the physics of bullets. Trajectories learn how a bullet's flight is affected by environmental conditions and since the sniper does not act alone, he will learn to work as one with his spotter in Vietnam 1965 1966. The concept of what is most effective for snipers is boils down to two guys, a sniper and an observer, well, army sniper school, depending on where you go, if you go to active component school at Fort Benning, it lasts five weeks, when you have weekends off, if you go to the guard school at Camp Robinson, there are four. weeks but there is no free time it's day by day some days are 14 hours some days some days don't end it just depends on all kinds of military orientation of course the aim shooting at known distance shooting at unknown distance where you have to determine the range and drug the wind and do it all yourself and then you either hit that target or you don't, mission planning requires fire, the theory behind sniping, the tactics involved, stalking of course is a huge piece and you do several types of actions.

You'll do tree actions, grass stems, water stems and of course they like to send you, you know, in the winter and in the nastiest weather possible and then it's all rolled up at the end of school in phase two and we do it . an ftx that lasts three days mission after mission after mission starts with planning the isolation mission and then you go, you insert it using any of our normal insertion methods, we use helicopters a lot, you do the mission, whether it's a recon piece and reports or if it is really lethal. precision fire at a target and then you do the extraction and exfiltration piece and then we got kind of a surprise, there was actually a sear piece involved that we didn't know, you know, survival, escape, resistance, evasion and all of a sudden , all. they captured us and interrogated us, mistreated us and hooded us and then we managed to escape and if you remember where the meeting point was to escape the invasion that they told you about days ago, 40 or 50 hours ago, then you were supposed to head there with your partner and some made it if you didn't and of course the exercise started again for them so it's a pretty good workout.

Some pretty intense training sniper skills start with marksmanship. It is a complex skill set that transforms the student from a good first shot to a sniper in the marine corps, every marine is a rifleman and the intention is for every marine to be a good marksman to begin with, so the idea is expected After a Marine is aiming at a target with precision, but then you encounter the sniper who was professionally trained to reach beyond the ranges that infantry normally maxes out at five hundred and six hundred yards maximum, that's when the sniper starts attacking. your targets to include more than two thousand yards.

The biggest technological advance in combat sniping was when we put the rifle scope on the top of the rifle and you doubled or even tripled the operational range of snipers when the first sniper started doing his job, the two biggest obstacles he had to overcome were range estimation and what to do with the wind. Those are two key problems for snipers because range estimation is fundamental, we know that gravity acts on the bullet, so the moment you shoot, it starts to follow the earth and you have to raise the barrel, launch the bullet at a higher maximum artillery to fall once it acts on gravity. uh, at a longer distance from you to where you have set to zero, they train us and teach us the mill ratio formula.

We have the mil dot reticle on the scope and you look at it and you can break it down in your mind. Go down to the tents and compare what the target looks like with the reticle and then work on a formula and tell it how far away the target is and there are some people who are great at using the mill ratio formula, the problem is it depends absolutely a couple of things, one is you have to be able to see the target well enough to accurately mill it over a large portion of the target, so if you have a guy in the tall grass and you can only see this, don't works.

Very good, the target has to be still so that you can compare its size well with that of the reticle. If he moves, squats, sways, sways, runs, and does the things people do that don't work, the other problem is you. You have to be able to hold the rifle still enough to aim at the target, so if you're in the middle of a battle and you're looking at the side of a mountain of rocks and the only thing you see out there besides those rocks are muzzle flashes. Well, it's very difficult to use the muzzle to mill a flash and get a range estimate reading because you have to know the size of your target in inches for the formula to work, so no one knows or can tell me what the size is in inches. of a flash. es or size in inches of iraq es in afghanistan the evolution of snipers in the army and marines has come a long way from its beginnings when I started in the late 70s and early 80s technology has played a role important in that the inherent accuracy of the weapons has greatly improved the skills that individual snipers have acquired over the years the fundamentals to become a scout sniper in the field skills estimating rain the use land navigation technology to your advantage because you have it available to us and I say this from the perspective of someone who didn't have it until we had it, but never forget the basic fundamentals taught in scout sniper school. and the advanced scout sniper course as taught in their fundamentals and what they discover is that when you breathe due to the rise and fall of your chest, your aim point also moves and what they want to do is want the aim point in the rifle. be stationary when they shoot because that is equivalent to the barrel being stationary, so they are taught what is called a natural respiratory pause where they will stop breathing at some point, either with a

full

exhalation or with

full

lungs, and they will hold their breath. for a beat or two, they let the scope stabilize and then fire while the rifle is as stationary as possible.

In the fields they practice shooting at stationary targets. They're being very cooperative, but in real-world situations, people move. They are animated, they move their heads, they move their bodies, in some cases they walk or run, so they are uncooperative in your efforts to shoot them and snipers must be able to adapt. to that and be able to shoot at an uncooperative and non-stationary target, so you need to learn how to move your position to manipulate the rifle and make sure your cross areas are on one part of the target to provide proper forward distance. so that when the shot is fired, it will continue to hit the target even if it is moving and requires practice.

It is not something that is easy to learn after learning how to shoot accurately at long ranges. Shoot accurately in all environmental conditions after learning everything. From that the next most important set of field skills is called stalking school, what happens is you show up with your gun bag which is something like this, it serves as a shooting mat and also protects the gun when you move through the bush and whatever optic you have on the rifle at army sniper school, not only do we have a day optic similar to this, but we also had a day and night optic called the pbs 10, which was much larger and was on the prowl In school they made us have that on the rifle, so we were forced to hide that big 100 millimeter lens instead of a 40 millimeter lens, which makes the difficulty level much higher.

What happens is you put on the ghillie suit and paint. and they give you three rounds of blank ammunition and you escape into the woods and they walk you down the stock lane and they tell you here's the truck, you can see it, the instructors are there with their binoculars and they're in the back of the two ton truck and a half or five tons and they accompany you to the farthest limits of the lane and tell you that this is your left limit and it is marked, this is your right limit and it is marked so that you have to stay in that lane and then, every time you back up, It could be 300 meters, it could be a mile and they will tell you this is your starting point.

You have x amount of minutes to move forward and take natural. vegetation and combine it with your ghillie suit and your equipment and then they will tell you, well guys, time starts, now you are under observation and they move away, so now you have three hours to go, no matter how far the distance is, they could be 300. the meters could be a mile, you have to get within a certain amount, a certain distance from those observers in the truck, you have to fire a shot at that point when one of you shoots a guy named Walker, who He has a radio and an orange highway guard vest, he will walk up and get within five meters of whoever fired that shot and he will call the guy in the truck and say, "Okay, I'm five meters away" and so on.

At that point , the guys in the truck have a general idea of ​​where you are and they start looking five meters around that walker and if they find you, you're stuck, you're done, you fail, you have to leave the lane if they don't find you, they'll ask you where you are. you want and what they ask of you is that they are preparing to hold a piece of paper with a letter or a number on it and your job is to identify it. correctly, so when they ask you where you want it, that means you want them to hold it over the binoculars, they are looking from right to left or down and depending on the shooting position you have chosen. there, somewhere in the woods, you could tell them I want it on the right side of the vinyls so they can hold it and you have to be able to have a clear line of sight, in other words, a good line, a good line. for the shot so you can read this card and tell them it says whiskey there's a big w so the walker will call back and say okay the sniper says he identifies the whiskey and if that's right then They'll say it's okay to fire a second shot, so So now, while everyone is looking right where you are, you have to fire a second shot and still not be detected, so naturally we worry about things like leaves. loose on the ground because they will explode in the air if you do too. near the back of a tree, even from scratch, a shot from a 7.62 rifle will blow away the bark of the tree and reveal your location, any kind of disturbed vegetation or anything like that will get you arrested if you make it there. that second shot and they're still looking for you, they'll tell you okay, come within three feet, so now the walker will be on top of them, sometimes literally on top of them and if they still can't find you, they'll look for you.

Tell the walker to put his hand on your head and he'll crouch down and put his hand right on top of your head and at that point you're pretty much past that stalk, but you still have to.exfiltrate, there are five other points. 25 total points available in the butt to get the last five points, you must be able to exfiltrate again without being detected, this is not always the case, sometimes you get up there and shoot and of course when you shoot all the vinyls in the truck it spins right over where the shot came from and the next thing you know you hear a radio, you hear a guy getting closer and closer and closer and of course you're on the ground in the ghillie suit.

You're all covered in a veil and your world exists of whatever you can see around here and you don't move because you know they're looking for you, well, all of a sudden you see a pair of boots right here and they say Okay, stop and he goes away. stops and your heart is going 150 beats a minute and because you know there are other snipers out there, there are other candidates lurking and you're really hoping they convince him to become one of those guys and you're not, and sometimes that happens, the next thing you'll hear is take three steps forward and he walks away from you and your heart slows down again and then they will say sniper at your feet, you will look around negative and walk away and then your heart rate drops again and you don't dare move, you are still like a statue for 10 minutes until someone on the other side of the stalking lane shoots and draws their attention away from you and then you do it. your thing sometimes even though they walk right up to you and the boots are right here next to your head and you know what's coming and the guy says yeah, extend your left hand and there's a sniper retaliation and then they'll tell you on the radio how they arrested you , you know what gave you away, what led them directly to you and that's why we would prefer to learn under those conditions in the world where they not only search for you with binos, but small arms return fire and that type.

In fact, I don't know if things have changed at all. I hear people talk about revolution and training, but I think there has been an evolution, but the more things change, the more they stay the same, first and foremost, the sea explorer. The sniper is an infantryman. What I have always admired about them is that they put more emphasis on the individual skills of the infantry and try to master them. Land navigation. Marksmanship, of course, map reading. Camouflage. Concealment. You already know the communications procedures. Technology has increased a lot in the last few decades, but the actual training and skills haven't changed much.

The Marine needs to be able to shoot, move, and communicate, so whatever equipment is added to his skill set. remains largely the same camouflage is the key to any sniper's mission and camouflage for any sniper begins with his camouflage clothing blending into the environment is part of the hunter's tactics since the first hunters stalked their prey matt Mitchell is a marine scout sniper who is intimately familiar with every piece of sniper equipment here we have the ghillie suit you can see three ghillie suits on display here mounted on tripods okay the ghillie suit is essentially a camouflage utility uniform that has been Modified with items you can find in clothing stores.

The fabric stores burlap that is made into strands here hung from a net that is sewn into the uniform. Now snipers, when we're training, we'll put on this uniform and we'll attach vegetation to the burlap and weave it through the netting and uh and. We will try to hide while our companions look for us through binoculars or telescopes. The ghillie suit has been a training tool for military snipers for decades. Teaches the fundamentals of camouflage and concealment. The sniper will add vegetation to his ghillie suit. From the local environment, the vegetation adapts the sniper to the landscape, making him almost invisible.

The sniper uses the ghillie suit in training to reinforce the fundamentals of camouflage and concealment. What the sniper is trying to do is blend in better with his surroundings by reducing his outline and reducing his background contrast and I'm going to show you some of the different types of ghillie suits that we have here and what comprises a full ghillie suit, a full gilly suit which is a veil which is a hood or a boonie cover which again has been modified with a net and with strands of burlap and cord attached to it so that you have your veil that goes over your head, you have a jacket again, a blouse of Modified camouflage goes over your torso and you're through your arms and then you'll have pants that again have been modified so that your entire body can be covered with vegetation.

Now, when will a sniper put on a full ghillie suit, just a blouse and a veil? It depends on the operational requirements that the sniper faces in the theater, where other teams are located. Other items in the kit will be on and around the sniper's body. A veil would probably be appropriate in training where the goal of a particular training exercise is to be totally concealed from pure observers. The sniper will want to wear his entire body. ghillie suit and vege his entire body when the sniper prepares for his training in a stalk and ultimately his mission on the battlefield, he will need to carry with him his weapons, rifles, gun and knife, telescopes, tripods to stabilize his rifles and optics, communications and survival supplies. all packed for quick deployment and elusive movement right now I'm going to talk about the backpacks snipers use to carry that gear.

This is an old standard hiking backpack and is a favorite among military snipers due to its large carrying capacity. to use external pockets, the most important thing is a metal frame with hip support, you won't see that on too many modern backpacks and comfortable straps, okay, few modifications are needed on this backpack to carry what a sniper needs to carry on the training or in combat, this is a ruck-like day pack, it will carry snipers, equipment, your optics, your water, your food, your navigation equipment and batteries, in the field or in theater. A day pack differs from the mountain rock in that it is smaller, does not have a metal frame and is generally more padded on both the straps and the back, it will have less load capacity and therefore can be used for shorter missions or often simple patrols.

Well, what we have here is a bulletproof vest or a bulletproof vest. The jacket goes over the sniper's body and will carry through this molle web much of the equipment that a sniper needs on his body at all times, things like 556 magazines, pistol magazines, even his pistol, a gps and other pouches, really even that sniper. I prefer what you do with other pouches to put other mission essential equipment in your body armor so you can have it on you at all times and finally what I'm showing you here is a battle belt and again it's going to carry.

Pieces of mission essential equipment to accompany what is not carried in anti-aircraft fire again. Here we have a 556 magazine, some pistol magazines, a pistol holster, and an escape invasion bag that will have items a sniper will need in case a mission goes wrong. The sniper also carries a variety of mounts or tripods for stabilization of his weapons and telescopes. I'm going to talk to you about how snipers acquire targets. The first thing I want to talk about here is what it's called a telescope and this. in particular it goes at 24 power, it is mounted on a small tripod for stabilization and usually a spotter will accompany a sniper and acquire targets that he will observe and adjust the rounds that the sniper is engaging that target with to correct the sniper . that target if it fails, this here is a laser rangefinder that is mounted again on a tripod for stabilization.

Stabilization is especially important for a laser rangefinder that shoots a laser farther than three or four kilometers. That laser needs to bounce off and hit this device. to acquire the correct range and again a spotter will employ this once a target has been acquired to obtain the correct range on the target so the sniper can mark that range on his weapon. These are binoculars. Okay, everyone knows what binoculars are. and military snipers and observers use them in the same way they use their laser rangefinders or their telescopes to scan the battlefield, four targets, acquired targets, finally here we have a night vision device that is connected to what is called a halo, the halo revolves around a sniper head holding that night vision device in front of his eyes the importance of a piece of equipment like this allows a sniper to patrol insert move across a battlefield to get to where You need to go to accomplish your mission without the aid of visible light, however, the most important equipment of a military sniper is his rifles, his long-range bolt-action rifle, and his M4 defensive weapon.

I'm going to talk to you about a couple of the different rifles that snipers use. I'm going to talk to you about gas guns, there are a couple different variants of the M4 and the M4 is the sniper's primary defensive weapon. You will use it to attack targets while moving when you haven't had a chance to set up. a firing position with its bolt pistol the weapon will be used in close quarters and to break contact with the enemy this weapon here this m4 is equipped with a sound suppressor at the end of the barrel and a daylight aiming optic, but It is the long-range sniper rifle and optics that distinguish him from other soldiers on the battlefield.

Now I want to talk about some of the actual sniper rifles that our modern military snipers employ. From left to right, we have the m21, the m40a5, and a The variant of the m24 mounted on each of these weapons is a high-powered telescopic sight. Over time, the sniper will want to personally customize his long gun to fit his individual preferences and requirements, a tradition that dates back to the American sniper in Vietnam, so at some point in a sniper's career, you know if You are a police sniper or a military sniper, you get to the point where you love shooting and you know that shooting is an important part of it, so you want to do more and more. and that leads you to spend money to do things and acquire equipment and shoot on your own time and the more time you spend in the profession, the more involved you will become in this, so I have a couple of rifles here, these are personal.

Rifles that I can show you that are pretty similar to what we use in the military, but they are personal and I have some equipment here that you wouldn't necessarily see in the military, uh, this is an art. -15 uh it has an 18 inch barrel uh this particular one was made by larue tactical here in Leander Texas it's accurate it's incredibly accurate it's about a half minute angle gun I have a leupold scope as you can see I have painted it, I have a small bipod and some backup sights, so I train a lot with this rifle.

I also hunt with this rifle because it closely reflects what I might use at work on a mission. Another rifle is uh this is 556 or 223 remington this is 7.62 or 308 winchester uh so this is my dedicated bolt action gun my long gun this one fires via a bolt action it has a 10 round magazine it's built for tough and rugged use and extreme accuracy, I have a night force scope, you know, and I have an adjustable cheek here, so I can shoot at very small groups or I can shoot, you know, precise shots at longer ranges that today extend beyond. 1000 yards, how much does all the sniper's gear weigh?

So you can see with all our weapons, our optics, these tripods and other assorted equipment, the modern military sniper, in addition to his 200 pounds of body weight, is looking to leave the wire with over 150 pounds on his body in the 21st century In many important respects there is little difference in the training of the law enforcement sniper from his military counterpart the weapons are often the same the fundamentals of marksmanship are the same the personality and psychological profile are the same Likewise, the field skills are very similar and the extreme physical conditioning is also the same;

However, in other very important ways, there is a world of difference between the military sniper and the law enforcement sniper. One of the misconceptions about sniping is that we are on the outside. hunting on our own, you know, and while that may have happened in past conflicts, those days are pretty much over, we now go out as a small element attached to a patrol in support of that patrol or its mission and when we come into contact, the Everyone's job is to approach and kill the enemy now on the police side it is very different there are subtle differences but they are significant when a police sniper shoots it is because he is preventing the imminent commission of a dangerous serious crime he is preventing someone from being seriously injured wounded or killed The main focus and primary mission of a police sniper isobserve the crisis site, be it a barricaded person or a hostage situation and report the intelligence to the team so they can develop a plan and inform them about anything. that are changing critically, that would obviously change the plan and then when necessary you would immediately intercept it with lethal fire to prevent anyone from being killed or injured.

Well that's not the same for a military sniper, it's the exact opposite, that a police officer has a completely different set of rules, uh, military, you have rules of engagement, uh, law enforcement, you had the continuous use of force when I was a police officer, we had a very strict set of guidelines, our use of force continuum was a state-level continuum, so of course, then it filters down from there, you know your own individual states, you have your own individual departments, then you get your own individual team policies that you have to follow when it comes to use of force, with the sniper role in law enforcement, what you have.

To deal with a lot of time you not only have to deal with your own situation, but you must also be able to intelligently perceive what is going on in the mind of the entry team, what is going on in the mind of the hostage, what is going on in the mind of the active shooter, the bad guy. per se and you have to be able to formulate all of that together in a nice neat package before you can decide, as a law enforcement sniper, whether to shoot or not, having said this many times, just the presence of a weapon does not It's enough for a law enforcement spy to shoot, uh, let's say it's a hostage situation, you know what the end will be.

What's the outcome if I take that shot and that bad guy is pointing that gun at that hostage, you know? ? By the way, will you make him shoot? Do I have a shot that I can instantly incapacitate him with so he can't pull the trigger? I know there are all kinds of variables that come into play and the biggest difference there is is that you can't just shoot that bullet and forget about it, you own that bullet and what that does is it puts you in a mindset that you have to do it. . be able to hit your target because once you pull the trigger on that sniper rifle that bullet is gone forever, I mean you can't get it back.

There are innocent lives at stake, there is no exception for collateral damage in law enforcement, you know, the irresponsibility of a fired bullet, uh, you know, per se, like in Iraq, if I had to shoot like a marine sniper and I missed , yes, it is a personal shot in the stomach for me, but that bullet is gone and we forget. that, um, but in law enforcement I fired that bullet, where did it go?, did it go into a house?, did it go into a neighborhood?, did it go through a wall?, did it hit someone sitting in their living room?

What happened to that bullet? and we get to I know the only acceptable outcome is that we have to hit what we're shooting at. As police officers, you need to understand this and hopefully take this to your own individual agencies if they haven't already been told that there is no legal requirement for you to obtain special authorization from a third party to use a deadly course. Many people credit the Los Angeles Police Department with starting the first SWAT teams and initially the SWAT teams were modeled after small military units where they would have entry personnel, they would have grenadiers and they would have a sniper team and originally the first SWAT teams They were components of five, six and eight man teams, which is very different from what it is today and because they were copying the military model, most of the training initially copied the military model like Well, many of the snipers in The original police were sent to whatever military school they could get into or they made use of military training materials and tried to improvise their own training programs and in those days sniper training revolved mainly around teaching marksmanship and it became very little emphasis on the other aspects, which are observation and reports.

Some see the SWAT team with its deadly sniper as the militarization of the police force, but others see it as simply better and more effective security for the community that the public often sees. Police tactical teams, SWAT teams and sniper teams are very militaristic, however, they are actually very similar in that sense, they are very different, at the same time, police SWAT teams and sniper teams They are basically the next level of police service, we usually run things. that basic patrol officers are not equipped or trained to handle like police teams and sniper teams, we receive more extensive training and we have special higher caliber weapons and things of that nature, so the public sees it frequently, It is a very militaristic attitude. aspect of policing we are police officers just like any other officer that is on the street only with more training and different weapons and tactics we get emails and letters from people all the time saying they want to be snipers, how do they become snipers? and you have two options: become a police officer or join the army, that is the first step.

I mean, there's no civilian sniping where you come off the street and apply your trade, so you have to become a police officer or join the military and you're going to provide all the initial services that are required speaking from the police aspect, you have You'll have to go through the academy, you'll have to go through your probationary period, and at some point, hopefully, there will be an opening on the local SWAT team again. There is usually a trial period in SWAT where you learn other basic skills of SWAT operations and hopefully at some point a SWAT vacancy arises on the sniper team and the guys can try out and hopefully being chosen for the sniper team and then their school after that and then continued training as they go through the rest of their career, so it's not something that you wake up one morning and decide I'm going to be a sniper, it's a trip that the public should feel safer with.

SWAT teams because we are really there to solve the problem in the safest way possible, that is our goal as a tactical team, to simply solve any high risk situation without anyone getting hurt, that is our ultimate goal to make people feel safer with you. if you have a tactical team in your region or within your police department because it is an extension of your police department, our training has always been limited to only police and military and we do not break the rules for anyone, so there are always people out there. in the civilian sniper market who feel we are being elitist or superior to everyone else because we don't allow them to come to our classes and of course they argue that they shoot more than any other police officers do and are better shooters that they and the police officers would benefit from learning from them or they would be embarrassed because civilians would now shoot them and I keep trying to put it into perspective for them that sniper school is not strictly about shooting, these guys are learning the general skills From being a sniper artist, it's a complete package if you spend every weekend practicing shooting and these guys can go shooting once a month.

I hope you're a better shooter than you are, but you're not shooting in the same type of environment you're in, you're shooting at a stationary paper target without any pressure on you other than whatever peer pressure you can exert, these guys will be in situations where they can be lying in position for 10 to 12 hours exposed to the elements exposed to all the elements they are out there having worked a full eight or ten hour shift they sleep little or nothing they eat little or nothing they have to the depressed people rank, screaming, bloody murder asking for help, you have a deranged bad guy with a gun to someone's head and now you are in a situation where you have to take a single cold shot and it has to be perfect and you know That if you are not perfect, the wrong people are going to die and you will spend the next few years of your career fighting for your freedom and fighting to avoid going to jail.

In the 21st century, the American sniper is the best trained. individuals in all law enforcement agencies today we have sniper programs in all aspects of law enforcement in SWAT and hostage rescue teams, as well as in the military, and they go beyond operational forces advances that go against an enemy in war, we have borders. patrol they have snipers US customs they have snipers we have snipers in special operations in other places intercepting the drug cartels there are snipers everywhere and they do a good job they do a good job for everyone and they save lives war is about missions, be it Whatever the battlefield requires of a sniper, he adapts to that situation and that is the underlying part of the scout sniper that has not changed since the civil war, since the revolutionary war, he adapts, he overcomes, he adapts to the mission, it's all thanks to all the men, though.

The sniper has his own unique missions, unlike any other on the battlefield, but at the same time, the sniper is part of the bigger mission with his long rifle, excellent aim and unique battle skills. The sniper does not win wars, but he achieves victory. possible for his comrades and weapons, the typical marine sniper is obviously viewed in many different ways, not only in society but also in the marine corps itself, you know, society looks at snipers like you know the guy who takes the , you know the magic. shot the long distance shot the impossible, you know, the impossible, kill with that, with that precision rifle, what they don't understand is that there is much more than just pulling the trigger, snipers are asked to do a variety of things typically What a sniper will find himself doing these days is going out and moving toward a target undetected and then staying on that target for days at a time until that critical point culminates, either the location of enemy forces providing a target of opportunity for the sniper or it could be that you have obtained enough information from the target site and you have reported that information effectively and accurately and the unit commander decides that it is time to take action with the largest uh most dominant force and in that moment you sneak in the dark as they tell me shooting an enemy combatant that's exactly what an enemy combatant is if I shoot him and kill him that means many marine lives are saved because of that action my only bullet saved there may not be saved no one could have saved 10 20 20 lives you know, that's the guy who's planting an improvised explosive device now he's not saving 400,000 vehicles with one shot my 200 my 2.75 bullet saved 400,000 more equipment saved lives and there's no doubt it's him basically it's him me or one of my marines we definitely chose him what does a sniper do he saves lives he saves lives by taking out the really bad guys the scout sniper is an infantryman i think the public has this concept that this guy, this wolf lonely, he's out there, you know, you know, wandering around the battlefield, looking for targets and, there's no guy anywhere in the marine corps, the scout sniper is part of a scout sniper team, doctrinally he's He's a marksman and an observer, it's a two-man team, because they need security and because they have to carry so much equipment.

Equipment used in theater now is generally much larger than the sniper rifle. almost a crew serves as a weapon because you are part of a team and your small team is supporting a rifle company the rifle company supports an infantry battalion the infantry battalion is supporting all the efforts that are taking place in your area and that's what I try to When people ask me about snipers, I always try to emphasize the fact that they are infantry. It is the infantry that bears the brunt of the nation's battles and they are part of a team. There is no such thing as a lone gunman.

Being a sniver scout is being there with teams of four to eight men, being there alone doing missions from above, but it's all up to you as the team leader, it's your responsibility to get those guys out, finish the mission and bring them home and not there are platoons of 12 of 24 men, it's just you, you and your guys and it doesn't get any better than that, so the sniper is part of a bigger mission, part of a bigger military operation, in general, the sniper kills to Protect the lives of your fellow soldiers, your friends, the sniper.

You also have specific objectives when you go into the field, one of the functions of a sniper is intelligence, while they are in position for hours and days at a time, they will see many things that normal troops do notthey would see I would emphasize that it is a secondary role, not a primary role, it is a role that is assumed as a result of their position and where they are and the moment and their observation skills and their ability and observing that they develop their primary role is to kill the enemy . The sniper's goal is not to kill any enemy.

The sniper's goal is to kill valuable targets. His mission is to eliminate high value targets and put psychological pressure on the enemy if he has shots fired at his position. You don't know where it's coming from, you don't know how many people are out there, no, you have no idea, other than there's a dead guy at your feet and a shot came from somewhere that hit him and he has to shake him to demoralize the man. enemy and overwhelm his desire to fight to keep fighting so the sniper is very important there also to deny him access to communications if he can't call for help if he is cut off on radio then he is trapped and then we deny him access to the crew , weapons, machine guns, mortars, anything that has a devastating effect, we want to eliminate those guys too, so that is the main mission of the sniper, to also observe enemy activity and report well on everything we do. a combined arms concept, you know, we have infantry out there and we have helicopter gunships and we have fast attack aircraft and artillery and mortars and stuff, so you need a person who has been a sniper for a while and there is an advanced level of experience to realize that this is a high value target and this shot is at the limit of my effective range or the high value target did not appear where we thought it would appear and I do not have a shooting solution for more than here I have one outside and it will only be there for a few minutes.

I don't have much time, maybe instead of shooting I need to call for fire or call for helicopters or whatever resources I have available in this particular mission. you won't have artillery available all the time, there are a lot of things they don't teach you in school and that's why you know you can't count on ten weeks, eight weeks, five weeks or whatever. It takes a week of school to produce a capable sniper, it will produce a guy who is qualified to go out, carry the rifle and do the job, but then it takes years for that guy to develop the kind of experience where he can be in a situation ambiguous and then Get it right, the most common misperception of the marine sniper is that we don't just pull triggers, go out and collect and report, we can transmit communications that we can. call for fire, we can, you know, control aircraft, we can, you know , intercept targets of opportunity, we are a force multiplier once the bad guys know, you know I may be an insurgent, I'm dedicated to my cause, but I'm not stupid, no one.

You know I can wear a dress and rubber flip flops, that doesn't mean I want to get shot, so when it comes time to sneak to this intersection and rig this IED right, the last eight guys who tried it got smoked by someone. . We don't know who he is, where he's shooting from, but the last eight guys were shot. How excited am I going to be to sneak past that intersection? Probably not much and that's the effect we have and sometimes it works well enough that we can deny the enemy entire areas of terrain because they have some knowledge that if they operate on that terrain they will be killed.

The sniper, once the high value target has been killed, needs to return to base safely. Moving after shooting is absolutely critical because the first shot will usually get their attention and if you're lucky you'll take out your target if necessary, a second shot can be taken but at that point it's usually up to the receiver to decide whether it's a single individual. or a unit will be able to detect where that sound came from and at that point your position will be compromised and anything from return fire to automatic weapons or even mortars can enter that position, so you want to get out of it. there, as quickly as possible, the sniper has evolved from the lone rifleman to the two-man team, the sniper and his spotter, but in today's modern warfare even that has changed, these men are highly trained, they are highly skilled, they are very disciplined.

We are dedicated not only to the Marine Corps, but they are also dedicated to their brothers that are within that platoon that they operate in, due to the fact that you are operating in such a small team, a small element, you know the days of operating in the two man team is almost gone, you know, we're now operating in much larger numbers as a sniper unit, so with that being said, you have to be able to trust that guy to your right and to your left, um and that. that brings out the heart of that individual brings out that emotional bond, you know, that piece of trust, uh, you know in some places you won't find that kind of thing for every sniper, that moment will come, the moment when he will find himself confronted. with pulling the trigger pulling the trigger with a human being centered in the crosshairs of your scope when we get a mission and we travel with the infantry normally the infantry will leave us and from that moment on it is our responsibility to find a good position to hide where we can observing the battlefield or where targets of opportunity would present themselves, typically a day could go by two days without any activity, boredom would set in only followed by observing multiple targets at one point and you pick up the sniper. rifle begins your assessment of the situation for which you have already done your homework in terms of writing down known distances to certain terrain features road intersections buildings so that you have prior knowledge of how far away certain distances are when the enemy comes into view and If you are ready to attack them, check with your spotter about distance, wind and trajectory in terms of elevation.

Are you higher than the target you are going to attack? Normally you are because you are on high ground. and that has to be calculated at that moment your heart goes from a very sedentary position on the table to a very high and intense heart rate because you know that you are about to pull the trigger on another human being and with that comes the mental discipline to Being able to monitor the heartbeat because the pulsation coming out of the carotid artery is transmitted through the rifle and of course there is a scope that bounces up and down and you have to time it between the bounces to hit the target, so It requires a tremendous amount of mental discipline before you even turn on the power, so one night in Afghanistan we were on this plateau, we crossed a river, and we were doing a mounted presence patrol in an area where we had a lot of contact, so we crossed the river.

We get on this floor and we decide to do what we call a seal stop, we stop without looking and sniffing, so we get out of the Humvees and we just turn them off, wait and see what happens in front of us about five or six hundred meters. a tight restricted kind of pass and that's where they like to hit you and we know the enemy operates in small teams that way if they ever get busted they're not that bad they only lose a few people and we'll run around at night with two three man teams and they will gather together to hit you and then they will take off so we can see some lights pointing occasionally with flashlights and we can see them out there so everyone has a pbs 14. which is a night vision monocular but it only works up to about hundreds of meters.

It had the PVS-10 night sight. I was fine up to 800 meters, so I pulled out my rifle and fired it up. I started looking around and saw three. guys and they're about 700 meters away or so, maybe a little further away, and two of them have Aks and one has an RPG and they're moving towards us like a little line of rangers, one behind the other, so We know immediately that the enemy is moving towards us, at least one team is approaching us, so how many other teams are here I don't know until the fight starts, or they will hit us here if we stay here the time. enough or they will attack us.

They'll move at that pace and hit us there if we pass by, they'll also have a chance to hit us at the river crossing we just made if we decide to go back that way, so knowing I can see further than the other guys. Because of his limited night vision, he had an M14 rifle on that mission with the site mounted and he had a tracer-only magazine, so I called the patrol leader and said, "Hey, this is what we have." My plan is if we get all the Gunners oriented. I'm going to shoot a guy in the back so when the bullet gets there and hits him.

All the gunners will be able to fire on impact from my tracer because they can't see the guy, but they will see him. the tracer hits and then they can shoot at that spot with everything they have before the others have a chance to actually escape over 700 meters, the bullet will hit before the sound gets there, hence the old saying: never you hear the one I understand, that's why if you heard it, it's already over, so if I hit the guy in the back, the other two will hopefully do what happened to Ahmed and that gives us enough time to put some machine guns, so that's what we did.

He shot the guy in the back, uh, in the back of the little file, he stood pretty sure for about a second, they turned to look and then they realized what was happening. Well, at that time there were a lot of ordinances here because the round I fired, went through the abdomen of the last guy, we called it a scream shot and I jumped into the air from a rock pit that was easy to identify, so a couple of 240 machine guns , a pair of 50 caliber machine guns and a Mark 19 grenade launcher in a few seconds. Later that was over, they were over and then just so you know your battle damage assessment, I was able to see through the scope what happened to the three of them, so it was easy, it was three deaths, no one else in the area did it. , but that's all. an example of how you really shoot the movers after all the training after mastering all the sniper equipment after becoming one of the best shooters on the planet after becoming one of the fittest young men in the world after everything the sniper will still be combat tested proven when he has to kill for the first time is a very personal and strange kind of job because you are looking the guy directly in the eyes when you are killing at some point the situation can get to the point where You have to set your sights on that individual and look him in the eye and shoot him and kill him and it's not something that everyone in the world has the emotional makeup to be able to do, so that's one of the things that sets snipers apart from everyone else. others.

You voluntarily and intentionally shoot and kill another human being and then live with the consequences knowing that you did not do it out of anger or malice but that you did it because it was your job and because circumstances forced you into that situation where you had to do it, that it's what the sniper has been trained to do and one of the key factors in sniper selection in the marine corps sniper selection is that the sniper is a very stable human being if you have a guy running around with a kill t-shirt swinging through the trees they don't want him you know he's a loose weapon, he's a potential problem you want a guy who's not bragging about himself who's very happy with himself who has no doubts who's at ease with the world we want a guy who value life highly, you don't want a murderer, you want someone who holds human life sacred, so when he pulls the trigger, that's a big reason to do it that way, you maintain discipline, there's no one out there looking for revenge. corrupt your mind you have to concentrate on executing the mission it's about the mission it's another day at the office and these bad guys the impact they have if we don't kill them they kill a lot of people who are innocent they kill my brothers and sisters so in I am actually saving lives.

Some people may have a misconception that you know killing is what attracts people. You know that those who are snipers or looking to be snipers want to be snipers only by order. kill now that's not completely outside the realm of you know a fact, uh, but it's more of a challenge, it's like a kind of hunting trip, you know, it's the adventure and the challenge, but um, I know me myself and most of the people I've had contact with during those times or because we really felt like we were doing more than one service in terms of saving Marines.

Let's face it, I'm talking about the NVA and what, uh, what little. vc activity that was left at that time they went out to kill marines and I never did anything to anyone who wouldn't have done the same to me first if we had had the opportunity and uh or to anyone else he wouldn't have done it too. The same thing would happen to another Marine if he'd had the chance, so now that we're older and maybe mellowed a little, I'll say I harbor nothing. My conscience is either clear or I have nothing. a conscience, I mean, but I don'tI know, you know, I don't look back or worry or regret the training that we were always taught that you're protecting your fellow Marines, so it was never in the context of killing another.

Individually, from my perspective, I was taking care of my fellow Marines and that's what made it easier for me to deal with having made peace with what you were going to do, having understood the higher purpose of your act, having completed your training. That moment when you take your first human life is unlike any other moment a scout sniper is trained, he anticipates the fact that he knows he's going to go out and start engaging the enemy and taking lives, and I'll give you a personal example. . The first kill bothered me and I went back and had a hard time dealing with the fact that I just cold-bloodedly killed another human being without him even knowing I was there, unlike the infantry who move through the brush, spray and pray, what's his name. with bullets that have who it belongs to our sniper bullet has the name of someone who is that someone is the son father brother of a family that you have to deal with and that is something that you try to separate that emotion from which I have never heard about a sniper who shot once and then left the profession one of the things I can talk a little bit about is the first kill seems to be a thing and you know through training in the marine corps there is a lot of mental conditioning in the brain.

The washing continues whatever you want to call it and even in sniping, the mental conditioning is that we actually got to a point where we wanted to get that first kill, at least I did and once I got into sniper two and I was close. The other snipers from the 7th Marine Regiment there, I wanted to be in that club, they talked about their murders and what they had done and stuff, and it was really something I thought I wanted to do and then the day it actually happened, I was I came out with a I hadn't been in the platoon for a long time and I was with Sergeant Webb and he actually handed me the rifle.

We saw a column of vc coming up the hill and said, "Take this one and one of them passed by." I stopped on the road and shot him and that was the first one. I really knew that he had beaten and killed. There was no doubt about it. It was a headshot and it wasn't what I thought it would be. I knew it. I couldn't go back, I just killed a man standing there and it was different, I mean it wasn't what I expected, part of me was glad I got it and part of me just knew, you know, I have done.

I just broke one of the commandments of you shall not kill and I killed a man just by standing there and you know it left an impact, but I got over that the problem was at the time that I hadn't dehumanized those people and I think to keep my sanity and as time went on I watched other marines get hurt and killed, I watched my friends get killed and I completely learned to dehumanize those people and I went from it affecting me to it really having no effect at all. It got to the point where I felt like if I could kill them all we could go home around 2005.

We had an incident in the city I work in where our patrol officers had responded to a scene in which a subject who had been identified in several armed robberies he was in a certain apartment they confronted this guy he had threatened the officers that he was going to shoot him and he basically barricaded himself inside the apartment so the page went out again to the tactical team that we arrived at The scene surrounded the place again. We always try to establish communication initially. Try to let them know. Hey, come out for your safety and ours.

You are under arrest. Just surrender. That is always the best option for us. It doesn't always happen. that way, but initially we always started with that, so the guy didn't want to leave, we continued trying to establish communication, we tried to use various tactics and, you know, things to expel him from the place, he wouldn't come out. eventually, this guy had made out that he was in a third floor apartment building and had gone up into the attic spaces, so at one point our team had to move into the attic to try to, you know, get him into custody, well, He had gone up through an apartment he had crossed and had gone down to another apartment.

We had already evacuated the building, so there was no one inside, however, in the last building he had entered he had armed himself with a gun and, like the team. He started approaching that apartment from the roof, he started shooting at the team that was in the attic, so at that point, you know, there was an exchange of gunfire between the team in the attic and him and he continued shooting at him again. I had the location surrounded and at that time you know we fear for the safety of our operators in the attic or any citizen, you know that a stray bullet could come out of that apartment and hurt, so in particular it was in the back of the apartment and, you know, he walked up to the window that I was basically covering, so I shot him and I shot the guy and the tactical team came in and we initially arrested him and brought in the medics. as quickly as possible, however, he had passed away at that time.

The one thing you can't prepare a military sniper or a police sniper for. You can train them all on stalking. You can teach them to have great shots and to jump ropes from helicopters. but the one thing you can't train them enough for is the reality of pulling a trigger on a live human being and then seeing the results of your work on the scope, people react differently to that, in my experience it's just my experience, the first one is the hardest you know, but after that it gets easier, I mean there are a lot of sniper legends and lore, but that part is right, it gets easier as you go, but the For the first time you know that you have some fundamental questions that you need to answer, and hopefully, if you have been adequately prepared for this work, when that time comes, many of those questions will have already been answered in your heart before you get to that place where you're pulling a trigger on someone, they need to be immediately needed in the police.

The sniper case, otherwise you wouldn't be there. Sniping today in the US military is clearly a young man's game and at the end of their training, military snipers are ready to deploy in the country to engage the enemy on the battlefield. American sniper is the best. combat-trained warrior ready to aid his comrades and take on any mission you throw at him