It was my good fortune to attend the 4th Division Sniper School at Camp Radcliffe (An Khe), Viet Nam. I went there in 1970. I was NOT a part of the 4th Division. I was a paratrooper assigned to the 173D Airborne (Separate) Brigade out of L.Z. Uplift. The 173D fell under "operational control" of the 4th Division but was a separate unit. I was originally a member of the 1/503rd Recon Platoon which was a part of Echo Company. I was originally a forward observer assigned to one of the Hawk (Recon) Teams. By pure good luck I managed to con my way into the school via the 1st Battalion CSM. I loved it! We ended up with about a total of 10 to 12 snipers within our battalion. I have no doubts at all that EVERY one of our snipers ended up with multiple confirmed kills. The leading sniper in my battalion, an older man from Arkansas, had about 50 kills or so when I left Nam to go home. For more information about the snipers in the 173D Airborne read the book titled "Soldier" by James Gibbore. The ISBN # for the book is: 0-7394-2694-X. Gibbore was two classes in front of me and his Sniper School Certificate, like mine, was signed by the same Captain Arthur D. Helton, Jr. See page 212 of his book. Gibbore's recon team was also based at L.Z. Uplift just down the road from where my team was housed. He and I, from the sounds of his book, worked in a lot of the same areas. From the way he describes things, his teams would work an area and my teams would work a different area. Later on, they switched his teams' area of operations with the area of operations that my teams had been working and vice versa. If you were a sniper in ANY unit in Nam, you could draw a working assignment from the Sniper School, Special Observations (Operations) Group (aka: SOG), your Corps command people, your division headquarters, your brigade, your battalion, your company and even your own platoon leader(s). And then you could also luck into the periodic target of opportunity too. Snipers in Viet Nam were ALWAYS busy doing something. Believe it or not, a guy REALLY could get tired of shooting at people, even if they were lowlife communists. I think that Gibbore also covers that issue in his book and it is valid as he describes it. What was sometimes funny was HOW the snipers were deployed. I was moved from the Recon Platoon to a line platoon in the Crescent Valley below the Hawk's Nest. This platoon had periodically been drawing sniper fire on an irregular basis. About the second week at the new location, we started getting rifle fire from our northeast. I got into position, found where the enemy sniper was shooting from, took aim and returned fire on him. Intelligence later confirmed that not only had I gotten the other (enemy) sniper but I had also splattered parts of his head over his two assistants/trainees. According to the intel guys, it all happened so fast that the two assistants/trainees heard him shoot and then got covered with parts of him. At first the two assistants thought that their buddy's rifle had blown up and killed him. The enemy team had no idea that an American sniper had been moved into the area until their sniper ended up dead. No, my bullet did NOT go down the enemy's rifle scope. It just happened to be a pretty lucky shot, done at dusk, with a decent rifle and scope in my possession. Besides, if those guys had been any closer, I might not have needed to open my eyes to hit the enemy sniper like I did. They were way under 200 yards, next to the base of a palm tree with a dark area slightly behind them to silhouette the shooter when he shot. It was almost like a "gimme" type of shot. Okay, so I'm kidding about not opening my eyes to shoot at closer ranges. But, enjoy the book by Gibbore and learn a little bit more about what the guys in the 173D while they were in Viet Nam. Airborne all the way!!!