Sabado, Disyembre 30, 2017

Why snipers are glorified, glamorized?

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Can you still remember that famous and courageous soldier who took off his Kevlar helmet and bullet vest as quid pro quo to ISIS rebels in Marawi City so he could save a four years old girl  and other Christian hostages from the ISIS rebels in Marawi City in exchange of containers of water, soft drinks, and biscuits?
Yap, he is Army Captain Jeffrey Buada, commander of the 15th Scout Ranger Company.
Image result for military sniper
 British Royal Marine snipers with their L115A1 sniper rifles.
After he was feted recently by his town Mangaldan in Pangasinan for his conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in Marawi, I asked Buada, a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy, about those incidents while we consumed our snacks treated by Mangaldan Mayor Bona Fe D. Parayno and the town’s chief of Police Superintendent Jeff Fanged.
 Buada’s wife told me that the spouse is a sniper, too.
Indeed he was as I saw earlier on his shoulder badge a sniper’s logo embroidered with a glaring red word “Sniper”.
Marksmen like Buada played a major role in the urban warfare in the Philippines where the State Security just won in a protracted Pyrrhic victory against the international terrorist Islamic groups and their associates’ Maute Muslim rebels in the now scorched to that ground Southern Philippines’ city.