In 1960, Lieutenant Land, who was then officer in charge of the Hawaii Marines shooting team, organized a scout/sniper school. He had spent the previous year as an infantry platoon commander with the 4th Marine Regiment—the same organization to which Private Carlos Hathcock belonged.
A chief warrant officer named Arthur Terry assisted Land with the shooting team. Gunner Terry had survived Wake Island in World War II and had competed on rifle and pistol teams throughout all his years as a Marine. Terry had been the one who turned Land’s attention to sniper warfare—not from his Wake Island experience, but from another angle. “If we don’t provide a service as a rifle and pistol team, we’re going to wind up losing our happy home. They’re not going to pay for us to run around the country and shoot—we have to deliver something worth the money.
’There are no sniper units in the Marine Corps, although we do have sniper rifles in every Marine infantry battalion’s inventory. I think that because sniping requires fine-tuned marksmanship, we might give the team new meaning by pushing the sniper angle.”
Land listened, and what the old Marine veteran said made sense. Both men dearly loved the shooting team, and Land liked the idea of an insurance policy to keep their competition-in-arms program going.
“Gunner, how will we sell it to the Marine Corps, though? You know that if they have the sniper rifles in the inventory, and they don’t have any sniper units, there has to be a reason.”
“I’ve thought of that, E.J. I’ve got the selling point to put it over. We send men back stateside every few weeks to attend scout school at Camp Pendleton. If we combine sniping and scouting into one school and call our graduates Scout/Snipers, I think that they’ll buy it for the scouting aspect alone. The sniper training will be just sweetening.”
Land did some homework and wrote a proposal that began:
There is an extremely accurate, helicopter-transportable, self-supporting weapon available to the Marine Infantry Commander. This weapon, which is easily adapted to either the attack or defense, is the M-1C sniper rifle with the M-82 telescopic sight in the hands of a properly trained sniper.
Every infantry battalion has twenty of these rifles. Too often it will be found that through lack of knowledge and lack of qualified instructors these weapons are packed away and virtually forgotten. Very little or no time is devoted to training personnel in the operation, maintenance, and employment of this valuable equipment.
There are several problems that will be encountered in organizing a training program for snipers. The first, and probably the most handicapping, is the lack of reference material. Most of the information found in the field manuals presently in use is very limited, and only through research can much of the needed information be found. Two excellent books on sniping and related subjects are A Rifleman Went to War by Captain Herbert W. McBride and Field Craft, Sniping and Intelligence by the late Major Neville A. D. Armstrong, O.B.E., F.R.G.S., Chief Reconnaissance Officer, Canadian Army. Although these books are written of World War I, it is evident that sniping is not outmoded with trench warfare, but is really just coming into its own with the present emphasis on dispersed units and on guerrilla warfare…
There are several prerequisites that need to be considered before selecting a Marine for training as a sniper. Due to the nature of his duties, a Marine selected for sniper training must have physical and mental capabilities not normally found in the average Marine. Excellent physical condition is a must. The sniper must be able to move rapidly over great distances. Good physical condition also builds the courage, confidence, arid self-discipline necessary for the Marine sniper who will be required to work in pairs and, at times, alone. He must have better than average ability with the rifle; while marksmanship can be taught, it is very time consuming. To achieve a highly skilled state of training in marksmanship, it is imperative mat the shooter have excellent noncorrected vision, both day and night. It is very desirable to use men with an out-of-doors background, such as experienced hunters, trappers, game wardens, or hunting guides. The late Major Armstrong expressed it in this manner:
The art of a hunger coupled with the wiles of a poacher and the skill of a target expert, armed with the best aids that science can produce, equal success.
A sniper’s mission requires that he be able to score a hit on small, and sometimes moving, targets at great distances with the first or second shot. To accomplish this feat, he should be armed with the best aids that science can produce. I would recommend an accurized, bolt-action rifle such as the Winchester Model 70, caliber .30-06, equipped with a variable-power telescopic sight. Although, I feel it is highly desirable that this equipment be made standard issue for Marine snipers, it is realized that such a change in Table of Equipment would create some problem. Nevertheless, the Winchester Model 70 is already available in sufficient number to outfit the Marine sniper in event of an emergency. Since they are presently in the supply system, it should not be difficult to acquire more as needed…
Our potential enemies have large numbers of well-trained snipers. With a Marine sniper’s knowledge of the art of sniping he would be the best man available to cope with the enemy sniper. Here, if I may use an old adage to illustrate, it takes a thief to catch a thief…
It was 1960, and in that year the first scout/sniper school commenced under Land’s and Terry’s direction. The course lasted two weeks—one week of marksmanship skills and a second week of field crafts and land navigation training. Hathcock graduated in 1961, from the second class that Land taught.
In 1965, the United States forces operating in Vietnam suffered under an unchecked sniper war leveled at them by an enemy who stalked and killed Americans at will. Land served then at Quantico, Virginia’s Marksmanship Training Unit, as a member of the Marine Corps Rifle and Pistol Team, and, by this time, he had written papers that advocated a sniper and countersniper doctrine.
That year, the Marine Corps, frustrated by the casualties inflicted by an unchecked enemy who moved with ease, set the wheels in motion. They took Land’s and other sniper advocates’ arguments to the drawing board and initiated sniper warfare against the enemy in Vietnam.
While in Miami, competing in a rifle match at Trail Glades Range, Land spoke with a reporter from the Miami News—Jim Hardie, their outdoor editor.
His December 6, 1965, story quoted Land:
I’ve helped in the initial planning of a new Marine Corps program to place snipers in Vietnam. A group of us interested in marksmanship had been trying to sell the Corps on the idea of training snipers for the past four years.
Six months ago the Corps decided to set up a special sniper program. Starting in January, a training program will begin at Camp Pendleton, California…
We have been sending out patrols in sizable numbers which the VC could avoid. But they can’t avoid a sniper slipping up on them. This will be an entirely new threat to them. Now they won’t be safe anywhere they go.
Major General Lewis W. Walt, 3rd Marine Division’s commanding general, organized the first sniper unit in Vietnam. Land and his counterparts at Quantico developed the weapons and a doctrine to support the sniper effort.
After several months of testing, the choice came down between two rifles—the Winchester Model 70 and the Remington 700. Remington won out. They mounted a Redfield 3-to-9-power scope atop the rifle. During that time, Land had been transferred to an ordnance job on Okinawa.