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As this is strike two in this thread for me.. I’ll step away from it, and leave the discussion to others.

Please don't do that. I, for one, will be disappointed if you do. The voice of experience is always valuable.

Yes and no.
Students must be of Combat Arms MOS

Thanks for the correction. I knew that but was in too much of a hurry and botched the information.

IMHO, it would be better to say, The SAPPER course is a leadership course, but that is about the only thing the same as the Ranger course.

Not taking anything away from the SAPPER course,, but, it is not compairable to Ranger School.

I wasn't trying to say they were comparable, just that I didn't feel they should necessarily be viewed as above or below one another. Much like when people try to say that SF, SEALs, Rangers, etc., are better than each other. They are different units with different missions and different training, not better or worse than each other.

My son-in-law-to-be is Sapper qualified, so I've been studying up on it. It is a qualification below "Ranger" and involves passing a 28 day course at Ft. Leonard Wood (In one of the classes I heard about, less than half passed).

I think it would be more accurate to say that it is a different qualification, rather than below. Both Sapper School and Ranger School are leadership courses. They just go about it a bit differently and put emphasis on different things. Any Soldier sporting any one of the tabs earned it through a lot of hard work and probably a good bit of pain and suffering as well.

G26ster wrote:When did the Airborne tab become an "individual" tab? In my day the tab was part of a unit shoulder patch for units designated Airborne as an entire unit (i.e. 101st Abn Div., 82 Abn Div., and 173 Abn Brdg.

That is exactly how it is still. There are quite a number of Soldiers who wear the Airborne tab as part of their unit insignia who aren't airborne qualified. Especially at the 101st since they only sport the Airborne name for historical reasons. They are not on jump status.

EOD and Sappers are not eligible to attend sniper school. Only Infantry, Cavalry Scouts, and Special Forces are authorized to attend. Also, there is no official sniper tab. There are only four tabs authorized, President's 100, Special Forces, Ranger, and Sapper. Soldiers can only wear three, which isn't a problem for very many Soldiers. Getting all four would be rare.

The Barrett isn't only used by guys who have graduated sniper school. My son was the designated Barrett guy on his team in Iraq.