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.
British Royal Marine snipers with their L115A1 sniper rifles.
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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.
What price glory when the entire city was not only obliterated but
turned into smithereens? JesusMariaHusef!
When Lieutenant Colonel Fanged, an alumnus of the Philippine National
Police Academy, posed what Buada was thinking when he was saving each of
the hostages unarmed while enemy snipers lurking around ready to shoot him.
“Siguro
magda –dive din ako doon sa (inaudible). Parang tinitingnan ko na rin medyo
tumaas na rin ang confidence ko alam ko marami naka secure and nakabantay sa
amin. Pag may nangyari sa amin sigurado ako may makapag react ng mabilis.
Naka focus sila sa pag secure sa amin (I’ll duck for cover. I have
self-confidence because I know my comrade in arms were watching. In case
something happened to me and my companion I know they were there to fire at the
enemies. They were focus on our security),” Buada said.
“How many
rebels you negotiated? Those who hid around? Do they have snipers?” I posed.
“They were
40 to 60 (combatants),” The
Scout Ranger’s warrior told me on the tough but easily annoyed and hungry Moro
ideologues they were chasing and exchanging shoots for several days.
Sharpshooter
The other day I was browsing the book I bought at Book Sale in
Robinsons - Calasiao titled “Into the Fire”. It was a firsthand
account of the most extraordinary battle in the Afghan War. It was narrated by
Marine Corporal Dakota Meyer, a recipient of the Medal of Honor - an award that
happened after three decades in the history of U.S combat, and written by Bing
West, a Marine combat veteran who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense in
the Reagan Administration. Bing is also a veteran of the wars in Vietnam, Iraq,
and Afghanistan. He is also an award winning war correspondent and book authors
that suit him best as he had an actual experiences of what he penned.
I relished Page 32 of the book as Dakota said that the U.S Marine Corp
emphasizes on marksmanship.
“Every
Marine is a rifleman. It makes no difference what rank you are or how
sophisticated your job is. Marine General Jim Jones was the Supreme Allied
Commander in Europe and served as President Obama’s first national security
adviser. Even in those prestigious top jobs, he still signed his emails as
“Rifleman,’ Meyer cited.
He said the U.S Marines were acknowledged as having the finish sniper
training program. He cited that in that training school of the Corps if you
qualified, where 50% of the candidates failed, one received a special “Military
Occupancy Specialty” – 0317 that the holder, just like those pin or badge given
to the Scout Rangers and Navy SEALs, is given pride and fulfillment.
Meyer said that civilians are wowed and mystified with the
sharpshooters that many of them posed when they meet one: “How many
enemies have you killed?”
He cited that the greatest snipers in the world so far were Finnis
Sniper Simo Hayha who held the world record of most killed enemies in World War
II when the Soviets invaded his tiny country.
“He killed
more than 500 Russian soldiers. He was called the “White Death” because his
white camouflage uniform blended into the snow”.
The other celebrated sharpshooters were a platoon of South African
soldiers, recruited from big animal game hunting, to fight in World War 1
in Europe. Each of these former hunters average by 125 Germans and their allies
killed in that mostly trench battles.
“In
Vietnam, Marine Sgt. Carlos Hatchcock, killed 93 of the enemy. In Iraq, Chris
Kyle, a SEAL, recorded 160 kills”, Meyer said.
Son of a gun, my favorite Vasily Grigoryevich Zaytsev, whose true- to-
life story was put into film titled Enemy at the Gates casting
actor Jude Law as Zaytsev, was not mentioned by the Marine Medal of Honor
Awardee and Bing West.
MARKSMAN- Sniper of the elite Philippine Army's Scout Ranger.The Rangers in this South East Asian country are veterans of jungle combats in Mindanao. They lately found themselves battling in an urban warfare the ISIS terrorists in Marawi City's siege in that Southern Island. Despite the rank either he is a plain private or a lieutenant, arrays of patches like these earned this warrior a respect to those who understand the ugliness and complication of the Kill Business. "Hanga ako sa iyo Bunny, hinde ka lang airborne, hinde ka lang sniper, Scout Ranger ka pa!" I told a Corporal assigned at the Tactics Department in the PMA when I was working there in the late 1980s. Photo Credit: Philippine Army's Scout Ranger. |
Vasily was a sharpshooter of the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist
Republic in World War – II. Before November 10, 1942, he killed 32
German soldiers with a standard-issue rifle. Between November 10, 1942 and
December 17, 1942 in the Battle of Stalingrad Zaytsev killed 225 enemy soldiers,
including 11 snipers that probably included that swashbuckling German Major the
Fuehrer Adolf Hitler ordered sent to haunt down the effing pain- in- the- ass
Russian’s marksman.
Glamorized
and Glorified
What romanticized and glamorized the sniper, for me, came from the
chutzpah of British Director Stanley Kubrick in his Full Metal Jacket’s flick,
critics said the best combat movie ever produced, where Marine Drill Master
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman showed his antics and skills.
Hartman, who in real life is Marine Corps Retired Staff Sergeant Ronald Lee Ermey (born March 24, 1944), was a former Marine Drill Instructor and a student at the University of Manila when he was assigned at Subic Naval Base when the Yanks were still here in the early 1980s.
In Full Metal Jacket, based on the novel “Short Timers” by Gustav Hasford, the foul mouthed drill sergeant lectured the Marine recruits at Parris Island, South Carolina before they were transported to Vietnam by citing historical events and characters about the greatness and danger of an excellent or a rogue Marine marksman.
Hartman, who in real life is Marine Corps Retired Staff Sergeant Ronald Lee Ermey (born March 24, 1944), was a former Marine Drill Instructor and a student at the University of Manila when he was assigned at Subic Naval Base when the Yanks were still here in the early 1980s.
In Full Metal Jacket, based on the novel “Short Timers” by Gustav Hasford, the foul mouthed drill sergeant lectured the Marine recruits at Parris Island, South Carolina before they were transported to Vietnam by citing historical events and characters about the greatness and danger of an excellent or a rogue Marine marksman.
Here are the excerpts from those exchanges:
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Do any of you people know who Charles Whitman was? None of you dumbasses knows? Private Cowboy?
Private Cowboy: Sir, he was that guy who shot all those people from that tower in Austin, Texas, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: That's affirmative. Charles Whitman killed twelve people from a twenty-eight-story observation tower at the University of Texas from distances up to four hundred yards. Anybody know who Lee Harvey Oswald was? Private Snowball?
Private Snowball: Sir, he shot Kennedy, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: That's right, and do you know how far away he was?
Private Snowball: Sir, it was pretty far! From that book suppository building, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: All right, knock it off! Two hundred and fifty feet! He was two hundred and fifty feet away and shooting at a moving target. Oswald got off three rounds with an old Italian bolt action rifle in only six seconds and scored two hits, including a head shot! Do any of you people know where these individuals learned to shoot? Private Joker?
Private Joker: Sir, in the Marines, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: In the Marines! Outstanding! Those individuals showed what one motivated marine and his rifle can do! And before you ladies leave my island, you will be able to do the same thing!
Geez whiz!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Do any of you people know who Charles Whitman was? None of you dumbasses knows? Private Cowboy?
Private Cowboy: Sir, he was that guy who shot all those people from that tower in Austin, Texas, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: That's affirmative. Charles Whitman killed twelve people from a twenty-eight-story observation tower at the University of Texas from distances up to four hundred yards. Anybody know who Lee Harvey Oswald was? Private Snowball?
Private Snowball: Sir, he shot Kennedy, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: That's right, and do you know how far away he was?
Private Snowball: Sir, it was pretty far! From that book suppository building, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: All right, knock it off! Two hundred and fifty feet! He was two hundred and fifty feet away and shooting at a moving target. Oswald got off three rounds with an old Italian bolt action rifle in only six seconds and scored two hits, including a head shot! Do any of you people know where these individuals learned to shoot? Private Joker?
Private Joker: Sir, in the Marines, sir!
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: In the Marines! Outstanding! Those individuals showed what one motivated marine and his rifle can do! And before you ladies leave my island, you will be able to do the same thing!
Geez whiz!
By the way, according to Corporal Dakota Meyer the standard sniper rifle is the 16.5 pounds M40-A3 equipped with an adjustable cheek rest, a heavy twenty-four-inch barrel, and a bipod stand. It has a 7.62 millimeter (.308) rifle based on the Remington 700 short action fired the M118LR 7.62x51 HPBT military action-only cartridge that retained supersonic speed out to nine hundred meters.
“In
addition, we used the standard infantry M4 5.56 millimeter rifle and the
monster M107 Barret. 50 –caliber,” he stressed.
The Barrets were the favorite show boat of the Moro rebels in the South
but expert said since they were locally and crudely manufactured their accuracy
and lethality are doubted.
The first time I touched, held, and wielded an empty sniper M24 Sniper
Weapon System (SWS) was when Police Superintendent (Lieutenant Colonel) Noel Vallo
acquiseced to my request when he was the Chief of Police of the 86 villages’
San Carlos City, Pangasinan several years ago.
Vallo’s Uncle Vivencio Vallo, a former town administrator and a lover
of combat history, told me his nephew whom he considered his son is a sniper
and a graduate of the PNPA – the police version of the elite PMA where Scout
Ranger Captain Buada graduated in 2007.
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TumugonBurahinComments taken from reactions of readers in Face Book
Francisco Dulguime: snipers why dont you aim your finger on the problem of the country .....be sure its the problem of the country
Enrico Tan: You will be a hero.
Aris Jariol GLORIFIED SNIPERS are those who fight against AGRESSION from another country..
BUT SNIPERS who do ASSASSINATIONS are NOT GLORIFIED..
magkaiba ang MILITARY, POLICE na SNIPERS dahil ON THE LINE OF DUTY yun..pero ANG MGA NANG ASSASSINATE, walang glory dun!
bakit, may award ba na BEST ASSASSIN???
ibahin niyo ang ASSASSIN at yung MILITARY SNIPERS..HINDI SILA KA LEVEL..
Ricky Padilla Balingbing: Drugs is the problem of the country thas why they must be shoooot!!!!
Pol P Page Sniper: always a Hero while Assasin are well hired Criminal just for money only not patriotic love of Country .
Jarrence S Williams: bakit hindi binaril si P. D