Ten Years in the Making: The Growth of a "Sniper Vanguard"
■ Cui Wenbin, Wang Yi
In summer, rain swept across the firing range of an Army brigade, blurring the firing line and the soldiers' lines of sight.
"Bang, bang, bang—" Gunshots pierced the curtain of rain, breaking the stillness above the range. Chen Kexin, a sniper instructor of the brigade, lay prone on the ground, rifle held steady, gaze locked on a target one hundred meters away, fingertip slowly squeezing the trigger. Despite the cold rain lashing his face and his clothes soaked through, his posture remained solid as a rock, his eyes burning with focus.
"48 rings!" The target-caller's voice came through the radio. Against adverse weather conditions, Chen Kexin had still posted the best score on the range, drawing admiration from all the officers and soldiers present.
Rewind to 2016. Drawn by a longing for the sniper's image—concealed among mountains and wilderness, dropping a target at a hundred meters with a single shot, neutralizing the enemy in one strike—19-year-old Chen Kexin enlisted.
During basic training, Chen Kexin held himself to exacting standards and consistently ranked at the top of his recruit company across multiple subjects. In early 2017, the brigade organized preparations for the "Sniper Frontier" event of the "International Army Games-2017," and Chen Kexin immediately signed up for the selection assessment of the training team. Thanks to his strong physical fitness foundation, he became the only private soldier to pass the selection and enter the training team.
Within the training team, Chen Kexin's physical conditioning stood out, but his shooting scores were not satisfactory.
"It's perfectly normal for a new soldier to shoot poorly—keep practicing and you'll improve!" Faced with the encouragement of the veterans, Chen Kexin made a silent resolution: "I will absolutely never concede defeat on my own."
With the help of instructors and comrades, Chen Kexin came to understand that the root of his poor shooting was "unstable weapon hold." Because he had been in service only a short time and had fired relatively few live rounds, he set himself a strict training plan to close the gap. During prone weapon-hold training, while comrades would rest after completing one set of 20 minutes, Chen Kexin required himself to complete three sets before resting, lying on the ground for a full hour at a stretch. For kneeling and standing weapon-hold training, he hung a military canteen filled with two kilograms of water from the muzzle and stacked cartridge cases on top of the barrel—whenever a case fell, he would start over. He also built a file for every round he fired, recording detailed data including the time of firing, distance, wind speed, firing position, scope parameters, and shot-group distribution. In his spare time, he would carefully study the parameters in the file; his notebook was filled densely with his daily shooting reflections, bearing witness to his growth and progress……
Two months later, at the 100-meter precision shooting assessment, the moment instructor Guo Jiujiang gave the "fire" command, Chen Kexin was the first to fire, expending all five rounds in just 25 seconds.
"He shot too fast." Watching this private, Guo Jiujiang had his doubts. But when the target paper came back, the entire range fell silent—Chen Kexin had posted the best score of the entire group.
Despite the obvious progress, Chen Kexin did not become complacent. Under the instructor's guidance, he began tackling one by one the finer details: how to regulate breathing, how to squeeze the trigger, how to "read the wind" (修风). He wrote down every insight, and whenever he had a question he would never let it go—he had to get to the bottom of it.
Sweat yields results. In subsequent training assessments, Chen Kexin's scores consistently ranked near the top. In the end, he stood out from nearly one hundred competitors in the training team and became the only private soldier from our military in that year's "Sniper Frontier" event.
In August 2017, the "Sniper Frontier" event was held in Kazakhstan. The anemometer showed instantaneous wind speeds reaching 5 meters per second; yellow sand filled the sky and visibility was extremely low. Facing the demanding rules of engaging three targets at different distances with five rounds, Chen Kexin lay on the scorching sand, right eye pressed to the scope, identifying the target, calculating wind speed, eliminating mirage (排除虚光), correcting for deviation…… After a single shot, the target fell.
At that moment, wind speed on the course continued to increase; Chen Kexin's eyes were streaming from the wind and he could no longer see the target clearly.
Just as everyone was growing anxious, the rifle fired again. Spectators at the sideline held their breath. As the dust obscuring the view gradually settled, someone suddenly shouted: "Hit—Chen Kexin hit the target!" The course erupted, and all present marveled at this Chinese competitor.
In that competition, Chen Kexin achieved second place in "Sniper Attack" in the individual event stage, second place in the individual event overall standings, first place in "Moving Target Point" in the team event stage, and first place in the team competition.
In 2022, after being commissioned as an officer, Chen Kexin took up the role of sniper specialty instructor for his unit. He passed on his training techniques and competition experience to his comrades without reservation. On the training ground, he adhered to scientific training organization (科学组训) and instruction tailored to the individual (因材施教), crafting customized training plans calibrated to each officer and soldier's capability level. He also innovated and introduced training methods such as "combined live-fire and dry-fire training" (有弹无弹结合训练), "extreme stress-resistance shooting" (极限抗压射击), and "complex scenario simulated sniping" (复杂场景模拟狙击), enabling everyone to improve their shooting ability in an environment approximating actual combat. Under his guidance, multiple officers and soldiers grew into sniper backbone personnel (狙击骨干) of the unit, repeatedly achieving outstanding results in competitions and assessments at various levels. Watching his comrades improve their shooting level step by step—gaining progress in training and winning medals in competitions—Chen Kexin was filled with joy.
Ten years in the military, forged through a thousand trials, Chen Kexin has grown from a green private into a "sniper vanguard" (狙击尖兵).
As the sun set in the west, the gunfire on the training ground gradually fell silent. Looking back on his military career, Chen Kexin spoke with firm resolve: "The sniper's mission is to neutralize the enemy in one strike and win through precision. Training for war never has an endpoint. In the future, I will continue to hold my post, advance shoulder to shoulder with my comrades, and on the journey of strengthening the military, keep breaking through and winning new merit."