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Over lunch, cold MREs (meals ready to eat) that looked and smelled like dog food, Tom Fitzpatrick explained the allure of the sniper lifestyle. In the Marines, he said, "I wanted to be the Rambo, the lone soldier. I'm better in a small team than a large one. That's why I like sniping; it's just you and the spotter. I don't like to rely on people."
Asked why, Fitzpatrick recalls his strained relationship with his father. "My mom and him got divorced before I was born, then my mom passed away when I was 8 and I went to live with my dad. Hunting was the only thing we had in common. I didn't know the guy other than that."
Conversation turned to a chilling training video. In slow motion, sharpshooters were seen blowing the head off a bank robber who had nudged the muzzle of his pistol into the Adam's apple of a terrified hostage. This image moved some students to wonder whether they had the stomach to take the head shot, but not Fitzpatrick: " I have lots of confirmed kills on animals -- elk, deer, prairie dogs. When I first started hunting I had remorse. I don't anymore. I think I could look at a human target like a deer with a gun in its hands."
Vice nearly gagged on the wad of chewing tobacco lodged in his cheek. Unlike the others, he knew what it was to shoot another human being. A few years back he was working undercover when a drug dealer put a gun to his head.
"I look him right in the eyes. You can tell everything from the eyes. He broke [eye contact] and I fired first," Vice said soberly. "The only reason I'm here right now is because of a gun, so I guess my kinship with firearms is a little stronger than most."
Turning this ragtag platoon of plebes into sharpshooters vexed Ryan; during the following three days most students fumbled in the field. On the firing range, the instructors easily rattled several snipers by screaming in their ears while they tried to blast out the brains of a paper thug with one shot. The distracting dialogue got creative: "Sniper, are you on that target? What's the range? Green light! Green light! Green light! Take the head shot. You are taking too long. There's a snake on your back. Is that your grandfather's rifle you're shooting? What the hell was that? Was that a head shot? Why the fuck did you shoot?"
"Stalking," the art of sneaking up on a target, also confounded the cadets, who must belly-crawl through rattlesnake-infested woods, evade detection, and fire two blanks at instructors stationed at least 100 yards away. To blend in with the bush, the students wore snug, sweaty ghillie suits. These hooded camouflage cassocks are covered in shredded, stringy mesh and adorned with leaves, shrubbery and wildflowers. The men also smeared camouflage makeup on their faces. Still, few accomplished their objective without being spotted.
"This is not a long-range rifle class. This is a fucking sniper course," Ryan fumed, red-faced. "Look, two friends of mine were killed in Somalia. I cannot lower my standards."
Vice often earned the wrath of instructors for insubordination. Disobeying orders, he helped less capable students survive a stalk, an exercise meant to test each man's mettle. Nevertheless, Vice continued to secretly guide others through the backwoods.
"I was a Boy Scout but I was no boy scout. Always in trouble," he said with a chuckle during a cigarette break by a mountain stream. "The one thing I gain from this is the knowledge and self-confidence to take a person that's not that familiar with a rifle, focus in on him, and help him to achieve what needs to be done."
As the temperature climbed above 80 degrees, even Vice felt fatigued. He greedily sucked on his canteen, heeding Ryan's repeated warning to drink plenty of water: "Some of you will fall to heat casualty. If you are a heat casualty you will get an IV, maybe two." The policy stems from an incident a few years ago when a student suffered heat stroke. He was found face down by Ryan's German shepherd, Yogi.
When Fitzpatrick complained of a headache after a grueling two-hour hike, Ryan ordered a mandatory IV. "This is tougher than boot camp," Fitzpatrick griped, as the EMT from Florida jabbed a needle into his forearm.
The course got no easier for Fitzpatrick. On the final exam, he tripped and fell during the graded stalk, damaging the 24 X "Super Sniper" scope on his Savage .308 caliber rifle. He hit only 20 percent of the man-shaped metal targets during the crucial live fire test. Only Fitzpatrick and his pal Circo failed the course, earning none-too-consoling "Certificates of Attendance."
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