I have a friend that was a legit sniper in the Marines. We were friends for a while before he told me he was a sniper.

I've met a few dozen "snipers" over the years at various gun stores.

One that I got the biggest kick out of was a few years ago at Simmons. This guy literally walked up to me and said he was a SEAL and a sniper for the Teams. I asked him who drove the boat. He gave me a puzzled look so I asked again, who drove the boat. He said he didn't understand. I said since everyone I meet that was in the Navy seems to be a SEAL....who the hell drives the boats and I turned and walked away. The guy behind the counter about pissed his pants laughing.

I went to high school with a guy who ended up having a son my sons age. They were on the same baseball team in park ball a couple of times. The kids was one of the worst players I've ever seen. So, the dad claimed that he has been in the marines after high school and said that he was a sniper. He claimed, even to his family, that he still "worked for the government" in some capacity. He also claimed to be a sniper for several police departments, even though he job was a salesman for Mayer Electric. I never bought any of it. The story really fell apart when he ask another dad to help him change the stock on a rifle because he didn't know how. While helping him, the other dad ask him some questions about how his scope was sighted in and he has no idea what he was being ask. But, he had all kinds of cool "sniper" tools and outfits.

The Designated Marksman comment is so true. I was the corpsman picked to go out with the dm's and snipers because I was prior service Marine Corps and had an infantry background in the national guard. The first meeting we had discussing missions and objectives, the school trained SSgt. walked in and the first thing he said to those dm's was, " let's get this straight right from the get go. Y'all are not snipers you are dm's!"

Outside of my time in the Army, 4. Two while in college, both Marine Recon, one SWAT member and one that we came to know pretty well at the local rifle range who was a retired govt contractor. Can’t tell you how many pretenders though, way too many to keep up with.