One can only wonder what the Gunny would been able to do if he had the equipment the Canadian fellows had.
Tried find my Hathcock book, But couldn't. But if I remember right the Gunny blew the 2500 yard shot off as unremarkable. It was simply some VC who showed up at the same water hole where the Gunny had sighted the Ma duece in the day before.
Now for the Canadians. I had heard the story before but couldn't remember the details, so it was off to Google and here's what I found:
Subject: Canadian Sniper Makes War Record Shot, 2430Meters Canadian sets
record for a long-distance shot under combat
Wait due to 'Canadian protocol'
A kill from 2,430 metres
The United States wants to give two teams of Canadian snipers the Bronze
Star, a decoration for bravery, for their work in rooting out Taliban and
al-Qaeda holdouts in eastern Afghanistan, but Canadian defense officials
put the medals on hold, the National Post has learned.
The five snipers spent 19 days fighting alongside the scout platoon of the
United States Army's 187th "Rakkasan" brigade last month, clearing out
diehard fighters from the mountains near Gardez in eastern Afghanistan.
The Americans were so impressed by the Canadian snipers that they
recommended them for medals after the battle.
Sources told the Post that U.S. General Warren Edwards had already signed
the recommendation for five Bronze Stars for the sniper teams, drawn from
3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, last month.
Gen. Edwards, deputy commanding general of coalition land forces in
Afghanistan, had recommended three Canadians for a Bronze Star and two for
a Bronze Star with distinction.
The night before the troops were to be awarded the medals, about three
weeks ago, Canadian military officials in Ottawa put the decorations on
hold, according to a U.S. Army source in Afghanistan.
The Canadian military told their U.S. counterparts to wait before awarding
the medals for reasons of "Canadian protocol."
Spokesmen for the Department of National Defense would not comment on the
award last night, but a source within the department said the medals are
on hold while the military decides whether or not to award the men a
similar Canadian decoration.
However, Dr. David Bercuson, director of the Centre of Military and
Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, said the real reason for
the delay was likely official squeamishness.
"Canadians don't kill -- they don't even use the word kill; that's the
problem," he said. "I think the military is not sure that the government
is prepared to accept the fact, let alone celebrate the fact ... that
Canadian soldiers do sometimes end up killing people."
Many of the U.S. scouts who worked directly with the Canadian snipers were
incensed that the Canadians did not get the Bronze Star, the medal for
bravery the U.S. military usually gives foreign soldiers serving alongside
its troops.
The snipers themselves, all of whom spoke on condition their names not be
printed, have said they would prefer to receive a medal from their peers
in the field rather than from National Defense Headquarters in Ottawa.
Dr. Bercuson said there should be no objection to Canadians receiving a
U.S. decoration: As recently as the Gulf War, two Canadian CF-18 pilots
were given the Bronze Star.
He said the medals would be a badly needed boost to the morale of the
almost 900 Canadian soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan, especially
after four of their comrades were killed and eight others wounded in last
week's friendly fire incident.
"Absolutely they should get it," Dr. Bercuson said. "It would be good for
the morale of the guys and good for the morale of the whole unit, and they
need a morale boost right now."
Canadian snipers were reportedly outstanding in the fighting around the
mountainous al-Qaeda bastion east of Gardez, code-named Operation
Anaconda.
The battle pitted the two Canadian sniper teams against an enemy that
showered the assaulting coalition troops with mortars and machine-gun fire
as soon as they jumped from their helicopters.
One member of the team, a corporal from Newfoundland, said on his first
night in combat he and his partner got an al-Qaeda machine gun in their
sights as it was hailing bullets down on U.S. troops below.
Crawling up into a good position, they set up their .50-caliber rifle --
the Macmillan Tac-50, a weapon the corporal compares to having superhuman
power in your hands. "Firing it feels like someone slashing you on the
back of your hockey helmet with a hockey stick."
When he hit his first target, an enemy gunman at a distance of 1,700
metres, he said all that ran through his mind was locating his next
target.
"All I thought of was Sept. 11th and all those people who didn't have a
chance and the American reporter who was taken hostage, murdered and his
wife getting the videotape of the execution; that is my justification."
A master corporal from Ontario, the lead sniper of his three-man team,
said when they first landed in the combat zone "our spider senses were
tingling.... It was night and we didn't know what to expect."
By daylight, after coming under enemy machine-gun fire, he managed to ease
his rifle barrel between two rocks and quickly located an enemy sniper
hiding behind a small piece of corrugated steel between two trees. He
guessed the distance at 1,700 metres and fired one shot through the metal,
killing the man instantly.
He said afterward he remembered thinking: "That's one less bullet that's
gonna be coming at us, one less person we have to think about."
During the next four days of fighting, the Newfoundland corporal set what
is believed to be a record for a long-distance shot under combat
conditions, hitting an enemy gunman at a distance of 2,430 metres.
The days of crawling, shooting and long hours waiting in cover left the
Canadian snipers exhausted. "You don't realize what you've done to your
body and how tired you are till it's all done. I think we slept 14 or 15
hours when we got back," the master corporal said.
Three of them, along with U.S. special forces soldiers, also rescued a
company of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division that was pinned down by enemy
fire on the first day of Operation Anaconda.
They also participated in Operation Harpoon, with Canadian troops on "the
whale," a mountain overlooking the Shah-e-Kot valley where al-Qaeda
fighters were putting up stiff resistance.
Operation Harpoon, carried out in conjunction with Operation Anaconda,
consisted of 500 Canadian and 100 U.S. troops under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel Pat Stogran, who leads Canadian Forces in Afghanistan
in the biggest ground offensive since the Korean War.
Lieutenant Justin Overbaugh, of the American scout platoon to which the
Canadian snipers were attached, said it was a pleasure to work with the
Canadian troops.
"Their professionalism was amazing," Lieut. Overbaugh said. "The Canadians
were a very large asset to the mission. I would have loved to have 12
Canadian sniper teams out there. I'd have no problems fighting alongside
of them again."
He said the Canadian snipers had equipment far superior to theirs. Their
rifles had longer range than the U.S. weapons and better high-tech sights.
Lieut. Overbaugh said if another mission comes up, he will request the
Canadian sniper teams be sent with his unit.
Senior military officials in Ottawa made a point of praising their work at
the time. "The sniper teams suppressed enemy mortars and heavy machine-gun
positions with deadly accuracy," Vice-Admiral Greg Maddison said after
Operation Harpoon ended. "Their skills are credited with likely having
saved many allied lives
info/terms/
What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you
feel bad after.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), U.S. writer.
Death in the Afternoon.
Lot's of different stories of the incident, Query Google for Canadian Sniper.
I didn't find any Canadian News stories that mentioned "kill" or put the event in a positive light. But in fairness, I didn't read them all. I was too angry!
Here is another link;
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1026271952413_269/
