As a squad leader currently serving in an MP Company in Iraq, honestly, I think the problem is almost the exact opposite—very few soldiers in the Army really understand how to boresight, zero, use and maintain the optics and lasers issued to them. Soldiers, even initial entry, have shot hundreds of rounds thru iron sights, but most have not shot a single round using an M68 or ACOG.

During the mob and train up for this deployment I too had a chance to shoot on an EST and I thought it was great. At our mob station our company shot the Army CQB course and we fired it again in Kuwait, good stuff. However, a class on boresighting the M68 at the mob station would have been great. My unit didn’t zero our M68 CCO’s until we arrived at our FOB in Iraq. I was the only one in the company to construct a boresight board and boresighted the entire platoon’s M68’s, consequently our zeroing was finished in hours, other platoons took an entire day. My company in Iraq has a dizzying array of optics and lasers, CCO’s, ACOG’s, some MARS optical sights, PEQ2 and PAQ4 lasers. Few soldiers take the time to read the manual. “Spray and pray” is an unfortunate reality.

While in Iraq I noticed something wrong, most units didn’t take advantage of issued equipment. My platoon was the only one to mount our PAQ4 lasers to our M2 .50 cal machine guns. Some of my soldiers found the mounts abandoned in a recently vacated barracks. Used in conjunction with our AN/PVS 14 passive night sights, our gunners can night fire as accurate as daytime, resulting in more kills and less collateral damage. Although this technique required effort, I had to consult the 2002 SAIB for the proper offsets, it’s proved useful.

I currently carry an M4 with a CCO and backup iron sight and have shot hundreds of round with both. Simply putting the dot the target and not having to worry about aligning anything else is a relief.