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Snipers deserve tabs too

Snipers are valuable assets to combatant commanders, serving in dual roles as force multipliers and reconnaissance experts. Their mission requirements and training are so rigorous that only highly qualified, motivated and disciplined individuals add the B4 additional skill identifier to their military occupational specialty.

However, in an Army that proudly awards tabs and badges for nearly every Army school, the sniper is not yet recognized for having graduated from one of the most difficult courses the Army has to offer, nor is he recognized for serving in one of the most demanding duty positions in the infantry, save for earning an additional skill identifier.

The Army awards Airborne, Air Assault, Pathfinder, Scuba diver, HALO, Expert Infantryman, Expert Field Medical, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Aviator and combat badges (to name a few), along with Special Forces, Ranger, President’s Hundred and, most recently, Sapper tabs to qualified individuals to recognize a level of competence in training based on the successful completion of a particular course of instruction.

It is high time the Army begins to award a Sniper tab to qualified graduates of the Army Sniper (B4-producing) School as well.

With the approval of the Sapper tab, many snipers began to talk about why a Sniper tab is not also authorized for wear. While the vast majority would approve of wearing the tab, a few key arguments have been made, primarily by those not sniper-qualified.

One argument: Being a sniper is not something you want to advertise, as a sniper is a priority target for other snipers, not to mention that if you were captured, you may be more severely tortured because of your status.

While at first glance this may seem like a valid argument, for any qualified sniper it is a ridiculously moot point for the following reasons:

• No qualified sniper would wear any tab or badge into a combat environment, much less a sniper tab. Snipers “strip” their uniforms in combat environments.

• A sniper who is employed as such will be wearing a type of camouflage (if not a ghillie suit), which would prohibit the detection of any badges or tabs by enemy combatants, should the sniper be poorly trained enough to wear badges and tabs into combat. Though snipers are taught to conceal the M24 sniper rifle as much as possible in order to hide their identities as snipers when traveling with an infantry formation, should a sniper be foolish enough to wear a tab into combat, an M24 is far more difficult to conceal than a sniper tab is.

• If a sniper is captured in combat while in the sniper duty position, such a sniper would also likely be captured with sniper-associated camouflage, spotting scope and M24 sniper rifle, all of which would give the duty position of the sniper away much more than a tab would.

• Finally, being a qualified sniper is not something that should be hidden from comrades. A sniper has a wealth of knowledge and training in marksmanship, reconnaissance, camouflage, range estimation, target detection and many other key skills that are of great assistance in aiding and assisting fellow infantry soldiers as they attempt to become more skilled infantryman.

Some say sniper school is not a school worthy of a tab. But sniper school is certainly a school worthy of a tab if Sapper school is. Sniper school is a difficult school to be selected to attend. Sniper training is grueling, both mentally and physically, and the attrition rate is a respectable one. Graduates receive a level of training that greatly increases their expertise in a variety of key areas.

For these reasons, the sniper tab should be approved for wear immediately, in order to properly recognize some of the Army’s most highly skilled and trained soldiers.

Staff Sgt. Patrick Clay is an instructor at Fort Benning, Ga.