sniper and spotter

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Akkar
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sniper and spotter

Post by Akkar » Sun Aug 24, 2014 8:03 pm

The other day I was at the range shooting my 91/30 and there was a pair of men in their late 70s it looked to be, They had what looked to be a 30-06, One was looking thru a spotting scope and the other was shooting. I was curiuos to why they were shooting pulling out the shell and putting another in by hand because it was a 5 shot bolt action. They were a sniper and spotter in vietnam and even thru all these years they still choose to do what they were forced to do. I guess some things never change haha I would have given up the sniper rifle as soon as I got home anyone agree?
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Post by charlesb » Sun Aug 24, 2014 8:39 pm

Snipers are not generally forced in the US forces, they volunteer and it is and only the best who are accepted. - Most don't make the cut.

Those guys were having fun, though it might not have seemed like it. Most likely they were practicing for service rifle matches. It takes a lot of practice to do well in a match.

When I'm trying to get all of the bullets to go into one hole at 100 yards, I am concentrating and probably look pretty grim, when actually I'm have a ton of fun. - It just doesn't look like it.

I'll bet it was the same with those guys you saw.

Most guys who have been in the service would take their guns home with them when they muster out if they could - but they can't. I think that they ought to let them do so, but that's just me.

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Post by Akkar » Sun Aug 24, 2014 10:31 pm

What I was saying was the draft in vietnam, No one wanted to be there. But your right the best were chosen... Poor souls I'd hate to be a sniper in vietnam they had a high rate of capture and I don't think the vietnamese exactly had jailcells and POW camps all over the place.. But your right they were probaly training they looked seroius as crap to
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Post by greener » Mon Aug 25, 2014 7:33 am

The last active draft was from 1940-1973, so it was not that unusual to get the letter from your friends and neighbors at your local draft board. Once you got in people could and did volunteer for specialty and selective military occupations. The 82nd wasn't manned totally with people who volunteered for service, they had draftees who volunteered to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. Most of the soldiers going ashore at Normandy were draftees. Viet Nam was much the same, most people accepted being drafted as inevitable and made the best of it. Like all conscriptive service, there were those opposed and those who found loopholes to avoid service.

I was one of those who refused to show up for induction when I got the letter. I was drafted 3 years after signing the ROTC contract and 3 months after I was commissioned. I was also in the first lottery and, by virtue of a good date of birth had a lottery number of 355 (women and children weren't that far behind me in the draft line). When we got down to letters about Federal Marshals I decided to take being conscripted a bit more seriously.

[Edit] The reason I wasn't taking my draft board seriously was I had my orders for Branch and component assignment as well as my date for Artillery Officer Basic. I sent all that as well as other paperwork. Those folks were dead set on drafting me.
Last edited by greener on Mon Aug 25, 2014 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by charlesb » Mon Aug 25, 2014 8:03 am

They dropped the Vietnam draft about the time my number was supposed to come up.

In a major, wide-ranging conflict the draft is sometimes necessary. Today though, the only people lobbying for the draft are democrats who dislike the volunteer Army, as it makes it harder to portray our troops as helpless victims.

Proud volunteers are of no use whatsoever to progressive propagandists, in fact they are regarded as being counterproductive.

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Post by greener » Mon Aug 25, 2014 8:31 am

The first Viet Nam era draft lottery was a classic. It's still used as an example of how not to hold a random drawing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_lottery_%281969%29

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Post by ruger22 » Mon Aug 25, 2014 1:10 pm

I got my card just a few weeks before they dropped the draft, I think about the same time Saigon fell?
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Post by blue68f100 » Mon Aug 25, 2014 1:20 pm

They stopped the draft just before my number was up. It was in the next group to be called. One of my best friends was #1 (first date), he got killed in action the first year over there.
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Post by Akkar » Mon Aug 25, 2014 2:51 pm

Your lucky man, The life expectancy in a hot LZ was 7-15 seconds.. If you didn't get hit in the chopper. But yeah I've heard several stories of snipers in vietnam, They all seem pretty skilled. I would love to get my hands on one of those m14's, I heard about a sniper who fought off over 100 VCs after surviving a helicopter crash! He kept missing and just looked for the dust his rifle kicked up and recompesated, Thats thinking fast in a firefight for sure.
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