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You Say Sniper, I Say Marksman
Is this sloppy reporting? Or was the army less than forthcoming about the training of John Allen Muhammad? Initial reports claimed that “far from being a well-trained sniper, Muhammad was a subpar soldier with no sniper training; he was an Army mechanic.” Now it appears that Muhammad earned the highest level of achievement in marksmanship in the Army.
UPI also explains that Muhammad was a bit more than a mechanic: “Throughout his active duty career, he was a combat engineer, a broad field encompassing mine laying, removal, demolition and combat construction. He was also a metal worker and a water transport specialist.”
Comments
Mr. Carney, It’s nothing special to have an Expert Marksmanship award. In the Army, you have to qualify once a year on your primary weapon whether it’s an M-16 or 9mm pistol. How well you do against the 40 target with 40 cartridges course determines what level of award you receive. The M-16 qualifying course features random popup targets from 50-300 meters in distance with 2 targets per 50 meter increment execpt the single 300 meter target. Some of them are double popups. The course is performed using open sights. 21-28 targets hit = Marksman You must get re-rated every year. My lowest score was 29 and highest was 38. It’s seems Muhammed was a consistently good shot with an M-16. That doesn’t mean he’s a trained sniper or recieved training any different from any other soldier. I agree that he was not a simple mechanic and appears to have been a combat engineer. Of course, it matters little because that small amount of marksmanship training was all he needed to successfully pull off the “Beltway Sniper” stunt. Posted by: Jason Eubanks on October 25, 2002 12:54 AMI come from a different era in my Army service than Mr Eubanks writes about. Rather than random pop-up targets we fired what was then called the “Known Distance” (KD) range. From (I think) 100 yards out to 500 yards, from the prone position as I remember. The levels of marksmanship were the same, i.e. Marksman, Sharpshooter and Expert. All were required to fire their rifle until they qualified at least Marksman (this was the conscription Army not the volunteer Army and nobody was let out or put out for anything short of some really disreputable act). I seem to remember qualifying as a Sharpshooter easily and the first time. Many, many qualified as Expert. Some qualified as Expert by bribing the guy who marked your target. It was called qualifying with the M-1 pencil (the M-1 was the type rifle we carried). So I don’t give much credence to all this Expert marksman BS. Posted by: Larry R Duncan on October 25, 2002 9:03 AM |