Marine Scout Sniper AJ Pasciuti told Shawn Ryan that one of the most intense moments of his career began with a problem that no range table can fully prepare a sniper to solve: a suspected enemy sniper hidden near civilians, inside a vehicle, in the middle of an active Iraqi market.
Speaking on the Shawn Ryan Show, hosted by former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan, Pasciuti described watching a vehicle through his rifle while trying to determine whether the man inside was part of a sniper team. The problem was not simply making a shot, he explained, but making a shot through medium tempered glass while people moved through the area around the car.
Pasciuti said he could see only part of the scene clearly. The vehicle had a small triangular window, and through it he could make out a hand and the position of a Sony Handycam, which he believed was being used to record the enemy sniper’s next attack.
That detail mattered because the enemy sniper known as “Juba” had become infamous in the Marine sniper community for recording attacks on American service members. According to Pasciuti’s account, the suspected sniper was not just hiding in the market; he appeared to be preparing to film another kill.
The decision in front of Pasciuti was brutal. If he fired through the glass, the round might deflect, miss, or ricochet into a civilian. If he waited too long, another Marine could be killed.
“The math stops mathing at that point,” Pasciuti told Ryan, explaining that the uncertainty of firing a 7.62 round through glass created a risk he had to weigh in real time.
The First Shots And The Chaos Afterward
Pasciuti said he tried to settle himself before taking the shot, focusing on his breathing and firing at the natural pause in his respiratory cycle. He told Ryan he fired one round first to break the glass, then followed with two more rounds immediately after.
As soon as the shots went out, the market erupted.
Pasciuti said families in the nearby building began screaming because they thought they were in the middle of a firefight, while people outside reacted to the sound of an unsuppressed Marine sniper rifle. On the radio, the situation also became chaotic as Pasciuti tried to direct Marines toward the vehicle and prepare for the possibility of an ambush.
That fear was not theoretical. Pasciuti said an improvised explosive device could be used to start an ambush, and at that point, he still did not know exactly what was inside the car or whether more fighters were nearby.
He ordered Marines to move toward the vehicle, but they had to maneuver around a wadi before reaching it. In the meantime, Pasciuti said he shifted from being the shooter to trying to control the broader scene.
At one point, he told Ryan, he handed the rifle over to Kevin Homestead, who was not a sniper but was an experienced hunter. Pasciuti acknowledged that Marine snipers can be particular about who gets behind a sniper rifle, but in that moment he said there was no time for pride or tradition.
The situation was still moving, and the vehicle still had to be covered.
A Spotter Walks Back To The Car
What happened next, Pasciuti said, confirmed that the team was dealing with more than one person.
After the initial shots, a man sitting at a nearby chai shop finished his drink, stood up, brushed himself off, and began walking casually toward the car. Pasciuti said the man appeared calm, perhaps because the chaos looked like the normal aftermath of an insurgent sniper attack: shots fired, Americans reacting, vehicles moving, confusion spreading through the street.
Pasciuti had already told Homestead what to do if the man touched the vehicle. In his view, once the man engaged with the car, he had made himself part of the fight.
When the man opened the side door and looked inside, Homestead shot him in the side of the chest, Pasciuti said. After the man turned and grabbed at the vehicle, Homestead fired again into his sternum, and the man fell to his knees.
Even then, Pasciuti said, the man continued moving and crawled into the car, creating another layer of uncertainty. Pasciuti could not see clearly into the driver’s side or the back seat, and Marines were closing in on the vehicle without knowing whether it contained explosives, a tripwire, another armed fighter, or a wounded man still capable of setting off a device.
Trying to stop any possible threat, Pasciuti said he fired into the man’s legs, immobilizing him as the Marines approached. It is a grim detail, but it also shows how quickly a tactical problem can change from one precision shot into a desperate attempt to protect friendly forces moving into a blind danger area.
The Rifle In The Back Seat
When the Marines reached the vehicle, Pasciuti said they found the spotter dead and then discovered another dead man in the back. He directed Kyle Burton to recover the Sony Handycam from the rear window area, because the camera had been central to what Pasciuti believed he was seeing before he fired.
Then Burton saw something else.
According to Pasciuti, Burton said it looked like there was a rifle inside the vehicle. At first, he began moving it away, but Pasciuti told him to stop and hold it up where he could see it.
The moment was immediate. Pasciuti said he recognized a McMillan stock, a Remington 700 short-action barrel, and the general profile of a Marine sniper rifle, though the optic and some details were unfamiliar.
He then asked Burton to read the beginning of the serial number.
Pasciuti said his team realized that the rifle was not just any weapon. It was a stolen Marine sniper rifle, one belonging to 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, and associated with Tommy Parker.
That discovery changed the meaning of the entire fight. The team had not only killed an enemy sniper team, in Pasciuti’s telling; they had recovered a Marine sniper rifle that had been taken nearly two years earlier.
“That Round Was Never Mine”
Pasciuti told Ryan that once the rifle was in Marine hands again, he removed the last round chambered in it and treated it as something symbolically larger than a piece of ammunition.
In the Marine sniper community, a “hog’s tooth” is a term tied to the round associated with a sniper’s first kill, and Pasciuti described taking that final chambered round from the enemy sniper’s rifle as a meaningful reversal. He said he had killed another sniper and taken that round from him.
But he also made clear that he did not see it as his personal trophy.
“That round was never mine,” Pasciuti told Ryan. He said the round belonged to the Fifth Marines, because the rifle had passed from 2/4 to 3/5 and was finally brought home.
Pasciuti said the round was placed on a plaque marked for the two battalions and later given to the regimental commander. That part of the story gives the moment a kind of battlefield closure that is hard to manufacture; it was not just about winning an engagement, but about returning something that had been taken from Marines.
For a community built on precision, discipline, and memory, the symbolism was obvious.
The Target On The Camera
Perhaps the most chilling part of Pasciuti’s story came after the fight, when the Marines reviewed the camera.
He said the video showed that Kyle Burton had been the next target. According to Pasciuti, Burton was in Juba’s sights, and the enemy sniper appeared to be preparing for a shot before something caused him to lose the opportunity.
Pasciuti said the camera also showed that the enemy sniper had been looking directly in his direction, though Pasciuti himself was concealed behind the field of view. It was, as he described it, a three-way cat-and-mouse game: the enemy sniper watching Burton, Pasciuti watching the sniper, and everyone operating inside a crowded and unstable environment where a single wrong decision could have killed the wrong person.
Ryan reacted with visible disbelief as Pasciuti described identifying the camera, tracking the hand, firing through glass, and then discovering the stolen rifle in the vehicle. His response reflected what many listeners likely felt: the story sounds almost impossible because of how many things had to line up at the same time.
Pasciuti said the first call he made afterward was not to his family, but to Quantico Sniper School. He and another Marine called his former sniper team leader, Sergeant Blake Cole, and gave a full after-action report.
From there, Pasciuti said, the news spread through the Marine sniper world.
He called it “the shot heard around the world for the Marine sniper community,” not because it was the longest shot or the cleanest tactical problem, but because of what had been recovered and what it represented. A stolen rifle connected to fallen Marines had been found, an enemy sniper had been stopped, and the weapon was back in Marine hands nearly two years after it had been lost.
The story, as Pasciuti told it to Shawn Ryan, is not a simple war tale about a single trigger pull. It is a report from the narrow space where training, hesitation, risk, luck, and responsibility all meet, and where the weight of a single decision can follow a community long after the shooting stops.
Gary’s love for adventure and preparedness stems from his background as a former Army medic. Having served in remote locations around the world, he knows the importance of being ready for any situation, whether in the wilderness or urban environments. Gary’s practical medical expertise blends with his passion for outdoor survival, making him an expert in both emergency medical care and rugged, off-the-grid living. He writes to equip readers with the skills needed to stay safe and resilient in any scenario.
