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Scout Snipers have a mantra. I learned that mantra years ago when I was assigned to lead a platoon of these Marines. My chief scout in the platoon, a title held by the most experienced Scout Sniper, was Damon. When we met in 2012 on Camp Lejeune, Damon was in his late twenties. His guys were at-home in the woods and with a load on their backs; they rarely complained about being dirty, tired or uncomfortable. I learned quickly that Scout Snipers were the best in the battalion, regular infantrymen who had started out carrying an assault rifle or lobbing...

Ukraine said it invented an "invisibility cloak" to help soldiers evade detection from thermal-imaging devices. One of the developers told Newsweek it was made with specialist units like snipers in mind. It is unclear what the jackets are made of or if they differ from space blankets made of Mylar. He attributed the invention to Brave1, which is a Ukrainian government initiative to promote innovation in battlefield technology. A member of the Brave1 development team, Maxim Boryak, told Newsweek that their production capacity for the jackets was currently limited to 150 units per month but that they are "ready for...

'You're going to end up stone cold dead at the border.' Florida’s Governor says the United States has every right to execute people crossing the Mexican border if they seem to be members of “drug cartels.” During a recent “tele-town hall” with supporters, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the American government is “entitled” to take such action. “Some of the things that we’ve already highlighted as part of our agenda, our border policy, I’m the only one that’s willing to send the military to the border and to use deadly force against the Mexican drug cartels,” DeSantis said. “We’re entitled to...

Two years later, people are still paying the price for the catastrophe of Old Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. And people will be paying the price for decades to come. The Associated Press reported on August 22 that “more than 200 extrajudicial killings of former Afghan government officials and security forces have taken place since the Taliban took over the country two years ago, according to a U.N. report.” These were people the Taliban had promised not to kill, but as Muhammad said, “War is deceit” (Bukhari 4.52.268). Nine days before that, the Daily Mail reported that “militants who left...

Oh, dear God. I am sick to my stomach and my heart is broken all over again.A Marine Corps sniper stationed at the Kabul airport the day of a deadly suicide attack wept on Wednesday as he described in horrific detail the chaos and bloodshed surrounding the U.S. military’s hectic withdrawal in the final hours of the war in Afghanistan.Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who was seriously wounded in the attack, described the scene at the airport as “surreal,” with hundreds of Afghans rushing toward the airport gate in a frantic attempt to flee the brutal Taliban regime.It was a hellhole in...

The United States Marine Corps disbanded its elite and historic scout sniper program as part of its extensive revamp to adapt infantry battalions to future warfare. The age-old MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) has been around since World War II, and one nonprofit organization representing the renowned Scout Snipers is calling the Corps move “misguided” and “ill-advised.” “We’re shocked and saddened that our Marine Corps leadership seems to have forgotten the lessons learned in combat, paid for with the blood of our members,” the USMC Scout Sniper Association wrote on Facebook. A memo from Deputy Commandant for Plans, Policy, and Operations...

The criticism from the USMC Scout Sniper Association comes after Marine Corps leadership issued a memo ordering "immediate transition of Scout Sniper Platoons to Scout Platoons" as part of the Force Design 2030 plan to restructure how the branch operates.

Florida snipers gave cover for divers who jumped into an alligator-infested pond to search for a missing mother and son, according to reports. Nieves Matos, 80, and her son, Mario Laza, 56, were traveling along the Florida Turnpike in Miami Friday when they lost control of their vehicle and careened into a retention pond off the highway. Witnesses dove into the water, and police rescue teams followed behind them, according to WSVN.

Snipers rely on specialized training, accurized, high power rifles and quality optics to reliably hit targets that are often mere specks on the horizon.Here's What You Need to Remember: The technology does have a few downsides. If EXACTO {Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance} does use a laser designator to mark a target that laser is visible under the right circumstances, alerting those being targeted. Even worse, the laser beam will point directly to the the person lasing the target. The system will also need a long-lasting power supply, as a sniper may need to wait for hours for the opportunity to...

The Siege at Ruby Ridge is often considered a pivotal date in American history. The shootout between Randy Weaver and his family and federal agents on August 21, 1992, is one that kicked off the Constitutional Militia Movement and left America with a deep distrust of its leadership – in particular then-President George H.W. Bush and eventual President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno. The short version is this: Randy Weaver and his wife Vicki moved with their four kids to the Idaho Panhandle, near the Canadian border, to escape what they thought was an increasingly corrupt world. The...

Three Former Marine Corps Scout Snipers Talk About Their Profession - A while back American Sniper movie was a big hit on the silver screen, we checked in with three former Marine Corps snipers for their thoughts on the profession, how it changed them, America's deadliest marksman Chris Kyle, and advice for aspiring snipers. Caylen Wojcik Former 1st Marine Division Scout Sniper School instructor; deployed as a chief sniper during Operation Iraqi Freedom II; over 100 combat missions; severely wounded by enemy rocket fire during Operation Phantom Fury; founded Central Cascade Precision; now with Magpul Dynamics. Jason Mann Twenty years...

In 1944, the War Department Basic Field Manual FM 21-75, Infantry Scouting, Patrolling and Sniping defined the sniper as “… an expert rifleman, well qualified in scouting, whose duty is to pick off key enemy personnel who expose themselves. By eliminating enemy leaders and harassing the troops, sniping softens the enemy's resistance and weakens his morale.” That definition remains consistent through the broader history of sniping, before and since, whether the weapon was a crossbow or a high-powered, telescopically sighted rifle. The sniper is an incredibly efficient fighter, compared to the typical infantryman. Consider that in World War II, American...

It is ironic that a country built on a tradition of rifle marksmanship took nearly 200 years to formally embrace the sniper, the man that represents the military apex of that long tradition. In each major war, through Vietnam, our armed forces began with no snipers and had to create training programs, usually in the theater of operations, to train them on the spot. Training varied from none to good, but the typical formula that has made many a successful American sniper is a rural background with early and continuous exposure to hunting or competitive, rifle shooting. Time after time,...

In February 2017, the Washington Post’s Miller had the lead byline on a story based on leaks of Trump’s conversations with Australia’s prime minister and Mexico’s president. Six months later, the Post published the entire transcripts of both conversations in another Miller story. It was through such national security correspondents that anti-Trump sources -- intelligence officials -- pushed leaks of classified information and other tidbits intended to damage Trump into the media. There it merged with other anti-Trump currents in nearly every corner of the press, where it blossomed into Russiagate. After a nearly two-year investigation, the special counsel found...

John Allen Muhammad was born in 1960 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as John Allen Williams. At age three Williams’ mother died of breast cancer, and his father left town. His maternal grandfather and an aunt subsequently raised the boy. In 1978 Williams enlisted in the Louisiana Army National Guard and trained as a Combat Engineer. Seven years later he transferred to the Regular Army. In 1991 he deployed to Kuwait in support of the First Gulf War. While in uniform Williams qualified Expert with the M16A1 rifle and trained as a mechanic, truck driver, and metalworker. He would later put...

A Baptist pastor was arrested and jailed on Saturday after refusing to move across the street from the Spokane, Washington Public Library while exercising his free speech against a “Drag Queen Story Hour.” The event had a significant militaristic police presence, including camouflaged snipers positioned atop the roof to oversee the large crowd that stood both for and against the men dressed like women reading stories to children.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Attorney General nominee William Barr have focused heavily on Barr’s views on Special Counsel Robert Mueller. But nobody is asking about Barr’s legal crusade for blanket immunity for federal agents who killed American citizens. Barr received a routine questionnaire from the Judiciary Committee asking him to disclose his past work including pro bono activities “serving the disadvantaged.” The “disadvantaged” that Barr spent the most time helping was an FBI agent who slayed an Idaho mother holding her baby in 1992. Barr spent two weeks organizing former Attorneys General and others to support “an FBI...

Staff Sgts. Johnathan Roque and Brandon Kelley clinched the competition for the 75th Ranger Rgt for the second time in as many years (Photos: U.S. Army)A two-man team from the 75th Ranger Regiment bested a crowded field of snipers from around the world last week. The 18th Annual International Sniper Competition was won by Staff Sgts. Johnathan Roque and Brandon Kelley from 75th Ranger Regiment who edged out 29 other teams from across the U.S. Department of Defense and civilian law enforcement agencies, and from international forces.The five-day competition held at the US Army Sniper School at Fort Benning saw...

Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the IDF head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, wrote a letter to Tedros Adhanom, the head of the World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations concerned with international public health, warning that Hamas’ plan to burn a massive amounts of tires on the border with Israel on Friday would be an “ecologic catastrophe.” “The Hamas terrorist organization, which controls the Gaza Strip, has issued an order to burn about 10,000 tires this Friday along the border with Israel,” Mordechai wrote. “The burning of tires in such a huge quantity will...

How law enforcement snipers can avoid the dreaded ‘institutional inertia’ that often slows progress at agencies. As I travel around the nation providing instruction to various law enforcement agencies, I see a consistent trend that greatly inhibits growth and development in the areas of training and equipment. That trend is a lack of time, money and resources related to sustainment training, and identifying advancements in equipment and tactics. A man far wiser than I once told me that the three critical assets needed to accomplish tasks were time, money and resources. He continued on by saying that if you’ve got...