'Confidence firing' final test to becoming a marine sniper

A marine in camouflage uniform stands at the end of a firing range. His left arm is tucked behind his back, holding a balloon that’s visible just to the right of his stomach. Bang. The balloon pops. The marine smiles and holds two thumbs up. It’s a modern-day William Tell shot, and the marines call the dangerous live-fire exercise “confidence firing". GMA-7's newscast “24 Oras" on Tuesday reported going to the firing range where the Phillipine Marine Corps' elite sharpshooters hone their shooting skills, and was told that it was the last obstacle before trainees are deployed to the field as certified snipers. “They will be deployed in a two-man team, a spotter and a sniper. So they must have confidence in each other," a military official said. The sniper does the shooting but his equally important spotter helps pick out the targets and calculate factors that could affect the shot. In the “confidence firing" exercise, the shooter must hit the balloon held up by his partner at a distance of 50 meters. Obviously, failing the test could result in the serious injury, or death, of his closest comrade-in-arms. Sgt. Reynaldo Rivera, one of the sniper trainees, admitted the exercise could get to one's nerves but suppresses the feeling by “trusting" in his buddy. “May kaba rin pero di naman gaano kasi may tiwala naman kami isa’t-isa," Rivera said. (I get nervous too but not so much because we trust each other.) A trainee must hit a peso coin three times before he can earn a spot in confidence firing. Out of 40 would-be snipers who undergo the grueling six-month training, only half qualify to become part of sniper teams.-GMANews.TV