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"One Shot - One Kill" "Be the sniper or be the hunted" SHOOT FIRST TAKE BODY COUNTS LATER! Carlos Norman Hathcock II (Interview) Snipers Blasting Away Canadian Forces Sniper Rob Furlong CBC Sunday Report More Information on Mercenary & Military Snipers Links below.
Mercenary Sniper
Also a Mercenary is any person who takes part in an armed conflict who is not a national of a Party to the conflict and "is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party". As a result of the assumption that mercenary is exclusively motivated by money, the term mercenary carries negative connotations. There is a blur in the distinction between a Mercenary and a "foreign volunteer", when the primary motive of a soldier in a foreign army is uncertain. For instance the French Foreign Legion and the Gurkhas are not mercenaries under the laws of war, but some journalists do describe them as mercenaries.
A Mercenary Sniper is not an regular infantry soldier but one who is paid and specializes in shooting from concealment or longer ranges than regular infantry, often with a specially designed or adapted sniper rifle. It requires skill in field craft, camouflage and marksmanship.
The term Sniper is attested from 1824 in the sense of “sharpshooter.” The verb to snipe originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India in the sense of “to shoot from a hidden place,” in allusion to snipe hunting, a game bird known for being extremely difficult to locate, approach, or shoot. Those who were skilled at the hunting of this bird were thus dubbed “sniper”.
During the
American Civil War, the common term used in the United States for much the same function was “skirmisher.” A Civil War army often protected itself when on the move by using such concealed marksmen, who were deployed individually on the extremes of the moving army. Generally, such skirmishers were selected on the basis of prior proven hunting and marksmanship skills, and they were often older men in their 40s or 50s.
The earliest sniper rifles were little more than conventional military or target rifles with long-range "peep sights" designed for use on the target range. Only from the beginning of World War I did specially adapted sniper rifles come to the fore, with one of the first scoped military sniper rifles being the SMLE Mk III* (HT).
Typical World War II-era sniper rifles were generally standard issue rifles (hand-picked for accuracy) with a 2.5x telescopic sight and cheek-rest fitted, with the bolt turned down (if necessary) to allow operation with the scope affixed. By the end of the war, forces on all sides had specially trained soldiers equipped with Sniper Rifles, and they have played an increasingly important role in military operations ever since.
In the last few decades, the term Sniper has been used rather loosely, especially by media in association with police precision riflemen, those responsible for assassination, any shooting from all but the shortest range in war, and any criminal equipped with a rifle in a civil context. This has rather expanded the general understanding of the meaning of the term. It has also given the term sniper with connotations. Alternative terms are usually more specific, especially for police Sniper such as “counter-sniper, precision marksman,” “tactical marksman,” “sharpshooter” or “precision shooter,” some of which have also been in use for a long time but the Mercenary Sniper is the ultimate sniper to Fear. They have no remorse but only money gain. Now to the real snipers
True American Sniper Hero's
Carlos HathCock II Marine Corps career Before deploying to Vietnam, Carlos Hathcock had won many shooting championships. In 1966 Carlos Hathcock started his deployment in Vietnam as an MP and later became a sniper after Captain Edward J. Land Jr. pushed the Marines into raising snipers in every platoon. Land later recruited Marines who had set their own records in sharpshooting; he quickly found Carlos Hathcock, who had won the Wimbledon Cup, the most prestigious prize for long-range shooting, at Camp Perry in 1965. During the Vietnam War Carlos Hathcock was confirmed for killing 93 North Vietnamese Army and Viet-Cong personnel. (During the Vietnam War, kills had to be confirmed by an acting third party; this was feasible on a battlefield, but snipers usually worked in pairs (shooter and spotter) and often did not have an acting third party present, which made confirmation difficult). He is ranked fourth, behind U.S. Marine Corps snipers Eric R. England and Chuck Mawhinney and United States Army sniper Adelbert Waldron on the list of most confirmed kills for an American sniper. The North Vietnamese Army even put a bounty of $30,000 on his life for killing so many of their men. Rewards put on U.S. snipers by the N.V.A. typically amounted to only $8. The Viet Cong and N.V.A. called Carlos Hathcock Lông Tr?ng, translated as "White Feather," because of the white feather he kept in a band on his bush hat. After a platoon of trained Vietnamese snipers were sent to hunt down "White Feather," many Marines in the same area donned white feathers to deceive the enemy. These Marines were aware of the impact Carlos Hathcock's death would have and took it upon themselves to make themselves targets in order to preserve the life of the true "White Feather". One of Carlos Hathcock's most famous accomplishments was shooting an enemy sniper through his scope, hitting him in the eye and killing him. Carlos Hathcock and John Roland Burke, his spotter, were stalking the enemy sniper in the jungle near Hill 55, the firebase Carlos Hathcock was operating from. The sniper had already killed several Marines and was believed to have been sent specifically to kill Carlos Hathcock. When Carlos Hathcock saw a flash of light (light reflecting off the enemy sniper's scope) in the bushes, he fired at it, shooting through the scope and killing the sniper. Surveying the situation, Carlos Hathcock concluded that the only feasible way he could have put the bullet straight down the enemy's scope and through his eye would have been if both snipers were zeroing in on each other at the same time, and Carlos Hathcock fired first, which gave him only a few seconds to act. Given the flight time of rounds at long ranges, both snipers could easily have killed one another. The enemy rifle was recovered and the incident is documented by a photograph. Carlos Hathcock only once removed the white feather from his bush hat while deployed in Vietnam. During a volunteer mission days before the end of his first deployment, he crawled over 1,500 yards of field to shoot an NVA commanding general. He wasn't informed of the details of the mission until he was en route to his insertion point aboard a helicopter. This effort took four days and three nights, without sleep, of constant inch-by-inch crawling. In Carlos's words, one enemy soldier (or "hamburger" as Carlos called them), "shortly after sunset", almost stepped on him as he lay camouflaged with grass and vegetation in a meadow. At one point he was nearly bitten by a bamboo viper but had the presence of mind to avoid moving and giving up his position. As the general exited his vehicle Carlos fired a single shot that struck the general in the chest, killing him. He had to crawl back instead of run when soldiers started searching. After the arduous mission of killing the general, Carlos Hathcock returned to the United States in 1967. However, he missed the Marine Corps and returned to Vietnam in 1969, where he took command of a platoon of snipers. Carlos Hathcock generally used the standard sniper rifle: The Winchester Model 70 .30-06 caliber rifle with the standard Unertl scope. On some occasions, however, he used a different weapon: the .50-caliber M2 Browning Machine Gun, on which he mounted the Unertl scope, using a bracket of his own design. This weapon was accurate to 2500 yards when fired one round at a time. At one point, he took careful aim at a courier carrying a load of assault rifles and ammunition on a bicycle. He had second thoughts when he saw a 12-year-old boy in his sights, but after considering the intended use of those weapons, he decided to disable the bicycle, hitting the bike frame. The boy tumbled over the handlebars, grabbed a gun, and immediately began firing back, so Carlos Hathcock returned fire, killing him. Carlos Hathcock's career as a sniper came to a sudden end outside Khe Sanh in 1969, when an amphibious amtrack he was riding on struck an anti-tank mine. Carlos Hathcock pulled seven Marines off the flame-engulfed vehicle before jumping to safety. He was told he would be recommended for the Silver Star, but he stated that he had only done what anyone there would have if they were awake, so he rejected any commendation for his bravery. Nearly 30 years later, he was awarded the Silver Star, the third most prestigious award in U.S. military. Carlos Hathcock said in a book written about his career as a sniper: "I like shooting, and I love hunting. But I never did enjoy killing anybody. It's my job. If I don't get those bastards, then they're gonna kill a lot of these kids we got dressed up like Marines. That's just the way I see it." After the Vietnam War After returning to active duty, Carlos Hathcock helped establish a scout and sniper school at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia. Due to his extreme injuries suffered in Vietnam, he was in nearly constant pain, but he continued to dedicate himself to teaching snipers. In 1975, Carlos Hathcock's health began to deteriorate and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis — an incurable, degenerative nerve disorder. He stayed in the Corps but his health continued to decline and was forced to retire just 55 days short of the 20 years that would have made him eligible for full retirement pay. Being medically retired, he received 100% disability. He fell into a state of depression when he was forced out of the Marines because he felt as if the service kicked him out. During this depression his wife Jo almost left him, but she finally decided to stay. Carlos Hathcock eventually picked up the hobby of shark fishing with the locals, which helped him overcome his depression. Carlos Hathcock often paid visits to the sniper training facility at Quantico, where he was welcomed by students and instructors alike as being "bigger than life" due to his status in shooting circles. Carlos Hathcock once said that he survived in his work because of an ability to "get in the bubble," to put himself into a state of "utter, complete, absolute concentration," first with his equipment, then his environment, in which every breeze and every leaf meant something, and finally on his quarry. After the war, a friend showed Carlos Hathcock a passage written by Ernest Hemingway: "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really care for anything else thereafter." He copied Hemingway's words on a piece of paper. "He got that right," Carlos Hathcock said. "It was the hunt, not the killing". After retirement, Carlos Hathcock began training Law Enforcement almost exclusively. Carlos Hathcock instructed the Virginia Beach Police Department’s SWAT snipers from 1984 until he died in February 1999. This training was done on a weekly basis at no charge to the city. Carlos Hathcock was the chief instructor of the Virginia Beach Police Department Annual Law Enforcement Sniper School, which was established in 1987 and continues to train SWAT officers from all over the country. Carlos Hathcock died on February 23, 1999, in Virginia Beach, Virginia, after a long struggle with multiple sclerosis.
Adelbert Waldron was born March 14, 1933 in Syracuse New York. He joined the US Navy in 1953 and left that branch after successful service as an E-5 (GMG2) in 1965. Adelbert Waldron enlisted in the US Army in May 1968 as a Sergeant, the equivalent rank he held in the Navy. Sgt Adelbert Waldron found himself attached to Company B, 3d Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment (Scouts Out!) of the 9th Infantry Division in South Vietnam the same year. An expert marksman with a rifle he was chosen to attend the 9th Infantry's in-country sniper school run by members of the Army Marksmanship Unit and formed with the blessing of the division commander Lt Gen Julian J. Ewell. The 9th Infantry was the only major U.S. Army combat unit to conduct operations in the Mekong Delta where it was part of the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF). Riding shotgun on US Navy brown water 'Tango Boats” and PBRs the MRF attempted to clean out the multitude of insurgent units operating in that lawless area. In this high tempo hazardous environment Adelbert Waldron was placed as a sniper.
In the first half of 1969, 36-year old Sgt Adelbert Waldron was credited with 109 confirmed kills, making him the highest scoring US sniper in history. Unique among the highest scoring US snipers, who were all marines with bolt action rifles, Adelbert Waldron was a soldier with a semi-automatic weapon. He used an accurized M-14 rifle, known popularly as an M-21. The M-21 Adelbert Waldron used was a National Match quality weapon with a Leatherwood 3X-9X Adjustable Ranging Telescope (ART) and the standard leather M1907 sling. Rock Island Arsenal converted some 1,435 of these weapons for use as sniper weapons and sent them to Vietnam in 1969. From then on it was the primary Army sniper rifle until 1988. The M21 was accurate out to 800m and fired the M118 standard NATO 7.62mm round. Adelbert Waldron at times used an early Starlight night vision scope coupled with a suppressor and sniped targets in the middle of the night. On one such night he took no less than nine confirmed targets. He was also credited with making one of the most famous mythical shots in sniper lore:
From Lt Gen Ewell in the US Army’s Center for Military History's archives "..., our most successful sniper was Sergeant Adelbert F. Adelbert Waldron, III, who had 109 confirmed kills to his credit. One afternoon he was riding along the MekongRiver on a Tango boat when an enemy sniper on shore pecked away at the boat. While everyone else on board strained to find the antagonist, who was firing from the shoreline over 900 meters away, Sergeant Adelbert Waldron took up his sniper rifle and picked off the Viet Cong out of the top of a coconut tree with one shot (this from a moving platform)."
Promoted to Staff Sgt Adelbert Waldron finished his tour in Vietnam with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, a Presidential Unit Citation, and two Distinguished Service Crosses. He taught at the US Army Marksmanship Unit as a senior instructor before leaving army service in 1970. In later years he worked for noted Chuck Mawhinney, the son of a World War II Marine Corps veteran, was an avid hunter in his youth. Chuck Mawhinney joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1967, spending sixteen months in Vietnam starting in 1968. Although less well known than his more famous counterpart, fellow Marine sniper and legend Carlos Hathcock, Chuck Mawhinney currently holds the record for confirmed kills for Marine snipers, with 103. (A US Army sergeant, Adelbert Waldron, holds the record for most confirmed kills by any American sniper at 109.) He had another 216 that are listed as "probables" by the U.S. Marine Corps.
Chuck Mawhinney left the Marine Corps in 1970. He slipped into obscurity, and went without notice for his number of confirmed kills for more than two decades, which was his preference. He returned home to Oregon, married, and began working for the U.S. Forest Service, where he worked until his retirement in the late 1990s. Chuck
Mawhinney never spoke of his exploits as a sniper, and found himself exposed unwittingly in a book titled Dear Mom: A Sniper's Vietnam, written by fellow Marine sniper and author Joseph T. Ward. After the book recognized him as having 101 confirmed kills, many disputed the claim. However, research revealed that Chuck Mawhinney actually had 103 confirmed kills and 216 "probable kills", which led to his replacing Carlos Hathcock II, who had 93 confirmed kills, as the leading USMC sniper of all time.
Chuck Mawhinney's rifle is on display in the National Museum of the Marine Corps. After this, Chuck Mawhinney slowly came into the limelight. Following his retirement from the Forest Service, he began speaking at conventions and public events, as well as attending national sniper shooting competitions. As of 2006, Chuck Mawhinney continues to speak to classes of professional snipers in training. Mawhinney's rifle below that he used during his service in Vietnam is now on display in the Vietnam Gallery of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
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