Plaster, Major John L.

Major John L. Plaster, USA (ret.), is an authority on sniping and special operations and the author of eight books, including The Ultimate Sniper, the world’s most-used sniper training handbook. As a U.S. Army Special Forces staff sergeant, he served three years with the Vietnam War’s covert operations unit, MACV-SOG. A Green Beret weapons specialist, he led top secret intelligence gathering missions deep behind enemy lines in Laos and Cambodia on the Ho Chi Minh trail. While running 22 missions, Plaster was wounded once and decorated for heroism four times. During his third SOG tour he flew 350 missions with USAF Forward Air Controllers in support of SOG operations. Due to his combat experience he received a direct commission. Combining his SOG experiences at stealth, camouflage and stalking with his postwar experiences as a competitive shooter and State Marksmanship Coordinator, in 1983 he co-founded a sniper training program which quickly became a national school, instructing hundreds of students from all military services and many law enforcement agencies. After retirement he continued to instruct for police agencies, trained U.S. Army snipers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan and was a Precision Rifle Instructor at Gunsite Training Center. He twice served as the Chief of Competition for the U.S. and European Military and Police Sniping Championships. In 2004 the USAF Air Commando Association inducted him into their Hall of Fame, the first Army member ever so honored. Two years later he was inducted into the U.S. Army Special Forces Hall of Fame at Ft. Bragg, N.C.