I’m a US Army Sniper. the Biggest Challenge Isn’t Shooting, It’s Hiding

• Staff Sgt. Phillip Cho is a sniper with the Army’s 11th Airborne Division in Alaska.
• Cho said the hardest part of being a sniper is not aiming and shooting, but rather staying hidden.
• It has a habit of remaining hidden for hours in the frozen terrain of the Arctic.

This essay as told is based on a conversation with Staff Sgt. Phillip Cho, a U.S. Army sniper with the 11th Airborne Division based in Alaska. It has been edited for length and clarity.

What I’ve been preaching for years is that to be successful as a sniper in the Arctic, you have to be imaginative.

We take a lot from World War II Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä, nicknamed “the White Death.” He was responsible for over 500 deaths during the Winter War and operated in environments very similar to those of Alaska.

That’s where a lot of our ideas come from, like wetting the surroundings of your firing point so that when you shoot, a plume of smoke doesn’t give away your point, or putting snow in your mouth so that when you breathe , you didn’t know it. I don’t see your breath freezing in the air.

We built many of our tactics, techniques and procedures from Häyhä’s experience in this real war.

There are certainly differences between concealment in other environments and in the Arctic. We use different procedures in the Arctic compared to the jungles of Asia or the deserts of the Middle East. We obviously try to stay warm because we can sit for hours. I think my longest position in the Arctic was probably 10 hours.

And then you have to maintain your weapon systems and make sure they’re optimal. You even have to be careful with your breathing because if you breathe on your equipment it adds condensation to your equipment and could freeze and prevent it from functioning properly.

Certain principles of concealment remain the same in all environments. You want to blend naturally into your foreground and background, eliminating any contrast, strange lighting, shine, odd shapes, misplaced colors, and inconsistent textures, without moving.

In the Arctic, we simply use extra layers to stay warm enough to stagnate for these extended periods.

Fieldcraft is what makes the difference between a sniper and a sniper. Items like a ghillie suit and everything that complements it allow a sniper to be invisible in their operational environment.

Even if they are not wearing a ghillie suit, the surrounding concealment may be sufficient to be effective. It’s about mastering the depth disappearance and shadows of your environment. This is something we must learn as snipers and what sets us apart.

Everything else, like range estimation and the ability to detect targets, can be trained. And we can practice this at any time. But being good on the field and being self-reliant is probably more valuable than just being able to determine distance, for example.

And now, with drones, our main task is to train ourselves to remain hidden from all adversaries while maintaining freedom of maneuver and eyes on the objective. This is why field craftsmanship is so important, which is why we insist on it.

I felt like we had to earn our place

I joined the military because I am a first generation American. My family is from Korea, so I felt like somewhere we had to earn our place in the country by serving.

When I enlisted, I thought being a sniper was more of a pipe dream than anything else. Many of the snipers I saw when I was a junior soldier were the rock stars of our battalion. I never thought I could be a part of it.

But then, after an overseas training rotation, I was invited by my old team leader to try my hand at reconnaissance. And then I got first-hand experience and realized I could do it. Then I tried out for marksmanship and got picked. The opportunity sort of presented itself.

I was deployed to Iraq in 2019 in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the international fight against the Islamic State. We were primarily attached to our scouts and participated in various operations, primarily surveillance, key leadership engagements, dismounted operations, and base security. It was pretty standard stuff.

Today, when serving in the Arctic, the terrain presents a unique set of problems for which snipers must be prepared. Failure to plan could result in injury in cold weather, or worse.

Like other environments, water is a priority. But you can’t just eat snow, because it will lower your body temperature, and you can’t always drink glacier water because it is not necessarily clean. So we have to transport fuel with us to heat the water, and we usually carry a tent, just to protect us from the elements. All of this is packed into a sled and we pull it for miles and miles.

When I was in the Middle East, there were challenges. There too we had to have water. But our vehicles were constantly running. They didn’t have to work harder like they do in the cold. Our equipment did not break down. The conditions did not slow us down. The time it takes to travel in the Arctic is still about twice as long as anticipated.

As snipers, we have to carry a ton of extra gear. In the summer, our equipment – ​​observation and communications equipment, extra batteries, as well as the weapons and ammunition themselves – weighs approximately 60 to 80 pounds. In the winter we need our bunny boots, different layers to keep us warm, and other extremely cold weather gear that adds to that. Snipers typically carry between 90 and 120 pounds of extra weight in cold weather.

The Arctic can be an insatiable beast and devours some of the strongest soldiers I have ever seen. But you can thrive there just like in any other environment.