With the United States Marine Corps celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, an elite force within that branch is collecting funds to remember the service and sacrifice of its fallen with a dedicated memorial in Quantico, Va. The Marine Scout Sniper Heritage Foundation, as part of a larger project to tell the story of Marine scout snipers across more than a century of service, has the stated goal of placing a Marine Scout Sniper War Memorial within the grounds of the Marine Corps Semper Fidelis Memorial Park, joining dozens of other monuments on the park grounds that honor the long history of the U.S. Marines.
The foundation identifies the spring of 1918 as the origin point for the Marine scout sniper concept, which involved highly trained Marine infantrymen skilled in fieldcraft and marksmanship who delivered long-range precision fire in support of Marine combat operations. The memorial concept, developed by Ben Cantwell, displays a scout sniper pair, with an observer outfitted as a Marine scout sniper of the World War I era and armed with a scoped Model 1903 Springfield rifle, pointing out targets for a Marine scout sniper in the era of the Global War On Terror. The memorial will honor the hundreds of Marine scout snipers killed in action over the past century. The Marine Scout Sniper Heritage Foundation continues to research those Marines who served as scout snipers and identify those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. To support their research and the construction of the memorial, visit scoutsniperheritage.org.
