Inside the Crosshairs Page 9

  According to Russell, except for expediting the supply system to provide equipment and asking the headquarters at Quantico to develop sniper doctrine, General Walt left the sniper program up to him. In his later speeches, Russell recalled that, despite being only a captain at the time, he was left mostly on his own. His guidance from the 3rd Marine Division Operations officer, Colonel Don P. Wyckoff, was simple and direct: “You’re Russell, huh? Fine. Start a sniper school. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

  Walt had selected exactly the right officer to “start a sniper school.” Russell, a native of Vista, California, and a veteran of three wars, had spent much of his twenty-two years in the corps on firing ranges as a member of various shooting teams. In several later interviews, Russell exclaimed, “For years I’ve been emphasizing the fact that the purpose of the Marine Corps’s Competition-in-Arms (annual shooting matches) is to make a Marine more proficient in combat.”

  In Vietnam, Russell had his chance to prove that skills learned in competition shooting could be successfully adapted to the battlefield. While the division staff expedited requisitions for equipment, Russell used his carte blanche authority to requisition personnel for his team. According to Russell, “I couldn’t have been more fortunate. There happened to be five of the finest Distinguished Marksmen in the Marine Corps serving in various infantry outfits throughout the division. I knew them well, knew their capabilities, and I knew at that point, we were in business.”

  The senior sergeant of the five, and therefore the NCO in charge of the sniper school, was Master Sergeant George H. Hurt, forty-two, of Bristol, Virginia, a veteran of seventeen years of competitive rifle and pistol shooting. Joining Hurt were Gunnery Sergeant Marvin C. Lange, thirty-five; Staff Sergeant Donald G. Barker, thirty-four; Sergeant James R. Bowen, twenty-eight; and Sergeant Robert L. Goller, twenty-six. All four had won individual and team shooting honors at national and international shooting matches. Lange wore the Bronze Star with Combat “V” for valor from the Korean War.

  As Russell gathered his instructor team and the logistic system procured equipment, documents to support Marine snipers floated between Vietnam, Pacific Headquarters, and Washington, D.C. Sometimes the messages initiated action; in other cases they acknowledged or approved measures already taken. At times, the need for snipers and Russell’s enthusiasm often exceeded the progress of paperwork. Even though Russell had begun work several weeks earlier, the first official document that mentions “Scout-Sniper Training” is dated September 17, 1965.

  Russell assembled his team at the 3rd Marine Division Headquarters, Da Nang, and in mid-September received sufficient Winchester Model 70 rifles with 8-power Unertl telescopic sights to begin training.[25] In their early meetings, Russell and his sergeants realized that they knew much about marksmanship but little about actual sniping. Because existing sniping literature was insufficient to make up for their own inexperience, Russell understood that the only way to gain sniping expertise was to actually take his team to the field in pursuit of the enemy.

  The future sniper instructors began operations with infantry units at the end of September in the sand and scrub jungle area about fifty-five miles south of Da Nang near Chu Lai. They then went forty-five miles north of Da Nang to practice their skills in the mountains and plains around Hue and Phu Bai. During six weeks of operations, Russell and his team developed, practiced, and perfected the sniper tactics they would teach in their school and that Marine snipers would use for the remainder of the war. The Marine marksmen learned their craft well during the training phase, with several successfully engaging enemy personnel. Russell and others credit team member Staff Sergeant Don Barker with their first official sniper kill.

  Back in Da Nang in early November, Russell reported that they were prepared to begin sniper training. Division Headquarters then solicited volunteers from the infantry battalions, requiring that applicants be combat veterans, qualified as expert in their last range firing, and recommended by their company commanders. Meanwhile, Russell made arrangements to use an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) rifle range, known as Hoa-Cam (near Hill 327, a few miles south of Da Nang) as his training center.

  The ARVN range had several limitations. Because it had been designed for basic rifle marksmanship, the most distant targets were only 300 meters from the firing line. Beyond them stood thick elephant grass and scrub jungle. Russell requisitioned a bulldozer and a crew from a nearby shore party battalion to clear the range to a distance of 1,000 meters. He then gathered mess hall food cans, ammunition containers, and anything else that could serve as targets.

  The second limitation to the ARVN range was that it was available to the Marines only three days a week. Again Russell had to adapt. Instead of the week-long course the team wanted, the entire sniper training program would last only three days. On day one the sniper instructors issued weapons and scopes and oriented the students on the equipment. Day two included shooting demonstrations by the cadre and dry fire by the students. For the entire day three the sniper students practiced firing at targets at various ranges.

  Along with testing the sniper-training curriculum, Russell and his staff established the procedures that stood the rest of the war. In the forefront of these procedures was the marriage of man and gun. The rifle issued to each sniper student remained his weapon when he returned to his unit and stayed in his possession as long as it continued to be serviceable and he served in-country.

  During the initial three-day sniper schools, Russell and his staff trained volunteers from all of the 3rd Marine Division’s infantry regiments. Russell later admitted that the emphasis during the early classes focused on quantity rather than quality, but that the brief course still produced “fair snipers.”

  It is important to acknowledge that Russell and his team organized, prepared, and actually conducted training in the midst of the escalating fighting. Even their rifle range was not totally secure from enemy attack. Yet, despite the austere and dangerous conditions, Russell’s sniper school provided the training and the weapons that quickly fielded reasonably qualified marksmen to meet the needs of the combat commanders.

  Throughout the war, advances in Marine sniper training in Vietnam continued at a pace faster than rear echelon officials could produce the paperwork to authorize or record it. In the midst of combat that was increasing in frequency and intensity, the small sniper-training program received little notice—either at the time or in later official studies.[26]

  In the nine chronologies by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division about the conflict in Southeast Asia prepared during the decade that followed the Vietnam War, snipers rarely gained a mention. U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup, 1965 devoted only three paragraphs to sniper development. An entry in the chronology for 1965 at the end of the study notes that on October 14, “a USMC sniper team was formed in the Hue-Phu Bai TAOR (Tactical Area of Responsibility). The team used Winchester Model 70 rifles with 8-Unertl telescopic sights and killed two Vietcong at a range of more than 700 yards in the first exercise of this new tactic.”

  Within the text of the study a single paragraph about sniper development explains, “The Marines experimented with specially trained and equipped sniper teams. Fifty of the best marksmen were selected from each of the regiments. These troops were divided into four-man teams and equipped with Winchester Model 70 rifles and telescopic sights. During November and December, 20–30 teams operated in the Marine TAORs daily.” The paragraph concludes, “On 23 November a sniper team at Phu Bai killed two VC and wounded another at a distance of more than 1,000 meters.”

  While the news must have circulated quickly among the VC and NVA that the Marines had suddenly acquired long-range killers, little information about the newly fielded Marine snipers reached the States. On November 3, 1965, the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) Public Information Office released a news story stating that ninety-two men of the 3rd Marine Division were being trained and armed as snipers.
The release generated little interest among the media covering the war, and it was not until about six months later that articles about snipers began to appear in military and civilian magazines, including the Marine Corps Gazette, Leatherneck, Saigon Observer, and American Rifleman. Most of those stories focused on Russell and his fellow instructors rather than actual sniper operations in the field.

  The early successes of the snipers brought official recognition and authorization for their continuation. On December 29, 1965, the commandant of the Marine Corps, General Wallace M. Greene, signed a letter that approved the organization of sniper platoons in each infantry regiment and reconnaissance battalion. According to the letter, the sniper platoons were to locate and destroy the enemy by precision fire, destroy or neutralize enemy personnel who opposed the approach of friendly personnel to an objective area, and deny enemy movement in the TAOR.

  Along with the approval of sniper platoons came additional requirements for equipment and training. Beginning in December, Russell and his staff increased the number of sniper classes. During the first few months of 1966, as the regiments requested slots for volunteers who would form their sniper platoons, demands exceeded capabilities. According to participants, a group of thirty-three men from the 3rd Marine Regiment attended sniper training in December 1965, returning to their unit in January 1966. The 4th Marines also organized its platoon about the same time, but there is no official record as to which regiment can legitimately claim to have fielded the first Marine sniper platoon of the Vietnam War.

  In a later interview Russell recalled that the sniper school effort could best be described as informal and that he and his staff cared more at the time about producing trained snipers than about recording history. Russell kept the records of the 3rd Marine Division Sniper School in a wooden box, which has since disappeared.

  Upon completion of his tour in Vietnam in 1966, Russell, then a major, returned to the United States to continue his advocacy of sniper operations as a member of the Landing Force Development Center at Quantico. In addition to presenting lectures about the progress of sniper training and use in Vietnam, Russell began writing the first official sniper-training manual in Marine Corps history.[27]

  When the lead elements of the 1st Marine Division arrived in Vietnam in August 1965, they quickly discovered the same need for snipers as had their fellows in the 3rd Division. Some companies brought sniper weapons with them and designated their better marksmen snipers. However, the division made no efforts to develop formal sniper training until Major General Herman Nickerson Jr. assumed command in 1966. Nickerson advocated that to successfully combat the VC and the NVA the Marines had to adopt guerrilla tactics and procedures. In addition to emphasizing the use of the battalion and force reconnaissance units, Nickerson firmly believed in the effectiveness of precision marksmanship.

  To initiate his sniper training, Nickerson called on Captain Jim Land, founder of the sniper-training school in Hawaii. In August 1966, Land was in command of an ordnance company at Camp Butler, Okinawa, when General Nickerson stopped at the island for a briefing on his way to Vietnam to assume command of the 1st Division. At a chance meeting, Nickerson, aware of Land’s experience as a shooter, offered the captain the chance to join him in Vietnam to organize and train the division’s snipers.

  Land, who had assisted in providing weapons and training materials for Russell, did not arrive in Vietnam until October. With him he brought a list of every competition shooter currently assigned in-country. The captain discovered that many on his list were already serving in the 3rd Division’s scout-sniper school, but he was still able to assemble a group of proficient shooters.

  Master Sergeant Donald L. Reinke joined Land as the senior NCO along with Gunnery Sergeant James D. Wilson, Staff Sergeant Charles A. Roberts, and Sergeant Carlos N. Hathcock. All were experienced competition marksmen, but only Hathcock, soon to become legendary in the annals of Vietnam precision shooters, had previous sniper training. The young sergeant had, in fact, graduated from the second sniper class offered by Land in Hawaii.

  Land established his scout-sniper training at division headquarters using a conex shipping container as a temporary office. As soon as he had assembled his staff and sufficient sniper equipment, he transferred his school to Hill 55, about seven miles south of Da Nang. In a manner similar to that of Russell in the 3rd Division, Land and his fellow instructors trained themselves in the art of sniping by actually participating in field operations.

  Hill 55 itself lay in the midst of an area heavily populated by the Vietcong. Terminating enemy sniper fire and harassing fire against the Marines occupying the hill was the first objective of the newly formed 1st Division sniper school staff. Beginning in October 1966, Land and his fellow snipers accompanied infantry patrols and established observation posts on Hill 55 from which to engage enemy marksmen and to direct artillery fire on suspected enemy locations.

  Land and his men learned quickly. In their first month of operations, they reduced the number of enemy firing incidents against Hill 55 from thirty a day to only a few a week. In addition to their success, Land and his NCOs gained the information and experience they needed to begin training new snipers.

  A little more than a month after assembling his instructors, Land started the 1st Marine Division’s initial sniper class at the Hoa-Cam Firing Range, which he shared with the 3rd Marine Division sniper school. For one week Land and his staff trained volunteers how to shoot and to employ the other needed skills of the scout-sniper. A second week of training took place “on the job,” with the new scout-snipers actually conducting missions in surrounding countryside and on Hill 55.

  By early 1967, graduates of Land’s sniper training were operating throughout the 1st Division. The February 1, 1967, issue of Sea Tiger, the III MAF’s newspaper, led with a page 1 headline: 1ST DIVISION SCOUT-SNIPERS KILLING TWO VC A DAY. Training continued at the Hoa-Cam Firing Range while Land also transported his instructors to regimental headquarters to train new snipers and to provide refresher skills for those already operating in the field.

  For the remainder of the Marine Corps’s participation in the Vietnam War, the 1st and 3rd Marine Division scout-sniper schools continued to operate. The need for trained snipers, however, often rose above the schools’ capacity to turn out graduates. Wounds, injuries, illness, and the thirteen-month tour of duty depleted the ranks of snipers sometimes faster than the division schools could train new ones. In recognition of the inability of the in-country schools to keep up with the demand, the corps authorized the establishment of a scout-sniper school at Camp Pendleton, California, in the fall of 1966. Graduates of the Stateside school were soon joining their fellow snipers trained in Vietnam in operations against the VC and NVA.

  Marine sniper operations in Vietnam developed and advanced quickly from the time of their arrival until their departure from the war zone. Marine units had arrived in Vietnam with no snipers, sniper equipment, sniper training, or authorization for sniper units. Less than a year later there was a sniper school in each of the divisions; each regiment had an operational sniper platoon and a variety of sniper weapons, scopes, and other equipment; and orders from the commandant of the Marine Corps authorized it all. An old concept had been adapted to fight a new kind of enemy.

  CHAPTER 7

  Snipers in Vietnam: U.S. Army

  Two months after the first Marine infantry regiment landed in Vietnam, units of the U.S. Army began arriving in-country. When the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed on August 7, 1964, fewer than 24,000 Americans were serving in Vietnam. By the end of 1965 that number had increased to 184,000, and it continued to rise until it reached 536,000 in 1968.

  When the 173rd Airborne Brigade arrived in Vietnam on May 7, 1965, from its Okinawa base, it represented one of only three U.S. Army units specifically trained for jungle operations.[28] The paratroopers of the 173rd, however, shared a deficiency experienced by their Marine counterparts and by every army unit that followed—not a singl
e one arrived in-country equipped or trained as a sniper.

  Army units arriving in Vietnam had much to learn in order to successfully combat the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army regulars. In a manner similar to that of the Marines, field commanders quickly recognized the need for accurate, long-range fire with which to engage distant targets and to provide a countersniper capability. A few units requisitioned C- and D-Model M1s with telescopes or acquired M14s to issue to their best marksmen. Some officers and enlisted men had families or friends back home mail them commercial 2X and 3X hunting scopes, which they fitted to the newly issued M16s. Many of these improvised snipers proved remarkably successful: one lieutenant in the 25th Division accounted for more than fifty individual kills in 1966 with his scoped M16.

  More typical, however, were the experiences of James W. Sotherland of Glen Allen, Virginia. An infantryman assigned to the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, in the Bong Song area of Binh Dinh Province in 1966, Sotherland experienced considerable frustration. He recalls: “There were occasions when enemy personnel were observed several hundred meters away and not successfully engaged by our grunts with their M16s. I attributed this to poor state of the weapons that we had then, inadequate marksmanship training, and the lack of a proper weapon to engage enemy personnel at 300 to 600 meters.”

  After six months in the field, Sotherland, then a sergeant and a squad leader, located two M14s recaptured from an enemy weapons cache and on no U.S. unit-property register. Sotherland traded one of the rifles to a quartermaster company in exchange for spare parts, magazines, and cleaning materials for the second rifle. According to Sotherland, “My father sent me a Weaver 6X scope and a mount. I had an armorer install the mount and scope.”