Marine snipers, often overlooked, build a memorial for their fallen

The Marine Corps sniper neighborhood is in search of honor their neighborhood’s fallen through a brand new warfare memorial.

Members of the Marine Scout Sniper Heritage Basis have a long-term plan, design and are elevating the mandatory $5 million it can take to construct the Marine Scout Sniper Warfare Memorial on the Nationwide Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia.

The crew is promoting raffle tickets now for its first annual raffle of an genuine Marine M40 sniper rifle utilized in fight within the Vietnam Warfare.

The rifle and its parts are valued at about $15,000. These should purchase raffle tickets on the muse web site. The drawing might be held on Thanksgiving.

Retired Grasp Sgt. Tim Parkhurst heads the muse, which is partnered with the Marine Scout Sniper Affiliation, and is attempting to attraction to a large swath of veteran supporters to boost funds for the venture.

“Our mission is to recollect the sacrifice and honor the legacy of 105 years of scout sniper service,” Parkhurst stated. “We really feel like your common patriotic American out to have the ability to get behind this.”

The names of the fallen might be included on the memorial when accomplished, and Parkhurst and his crew are digging via hundreds of personnel data from over greater than 100 years to determine who served as snipers and who amongst them died due to fight motion.

The venture began earlier this yr, and to this point, the crew has practically 3,000 names, with seemingly a couple of thousand extra to be added.

Parkhurst estimates that they’ve found practically 250 Marine scout snipers killed in motion to this point.

The muse has already paid the $105,000 payment to safe the spot for the memorial on the Marine museum. As soon as the full quantity is raised, building may very well be accomplished in beneath 18 months, Parkhurst stated.

Parkhurst joined the Corps in 1986 and graduated scout sniper coaching in 1991. He later served as a sniper crew chief with the Surveillance and Goal Acquisition Platoon, third Battalion, fifth Marine Regiment earlier than briefly leaving the army.

“It was one of the best time of my life,” Parkhurst stated.

Parkhurst rejoined the Corps 5 years later, finally serving 25 years and retiring in 2014.

However he didn’t serve the remainder of that point as a sniper, as a result of within the Corps’ infinite knowledge, they made him a parachute rigger.

The grasp sergeant’s story is a standard one amongst generations of Marine snipers – early coaching, maybe a deployment after which it’s time for these snipers to return to their major jobs.

The job of sniper isn’t a major army occupational specialty, and that has ramifications on the work that Parkhurst and his crew are doing to honor the fallen scout snipers going again to not less than 1918.

“It was by no means handled like an actual job,” Parkhurst stated. “It’s one thing they form of grudgingly acknowledged they want when the warfare begins.”

And on this present interwar interval, snipers have as soon as once more fallen sufferer to protection cuts.

Marine Corps Occasions reported that the service held its last Scout Sniper Course commencement on the Faculty of Infantry-East at Camp Geiger, North Carolina in December 2023.

Earlier that yr, the Corps introduced it will minimize scout sniper platoons from its infantry battalions and exchange them with reconnaissance scout platoons as a part of restructuring the service has carried out lately to organize for potential conflicts with nations reminiscent of China and Russia.

Scout sniper coaching will proceed on the service’s Reconnaissance Coaching Middle and the Marine Raider Coaching Middle, Marine Corps Occasions beforehand reported.

As a result of the scout sniper platoons have been handled as an add-on to infantry battalions, their members have typically fallen beneath their respective infantry communities, Parkhurst stated.

Whereas the Marine Raiders, Navy SEALs, Military Inexperienced Berets and even Recon Marines have an identifiable mother or father unit, major MOS and officer and employees noncommissioned officer with the identical job, most snipers noticed their careers as shooters finish on the rank of employees sergeant.

It wasn’t till the early 2000s that snipers acquired devoted officers to command their items. Earlier than then, Parkhurst stated, one of many infantry battalion or division employees officers would oversee snipers.