Three shots, three kills, no exceptions Published April 16, 2009 Spokane News, KXLY SPOKANE, Wash. -- The captain of a US-flagged merchant ship who was rescued from pirates off Somalia over the weekend is on his way home, but the talk now has turned to the Navy SEALs who helped make his rescue happen. Navy SEALs aboard the USS Bainbridge were able to snap off three shots on three pirates, killing all three. All three were killed with headshots. It's quite a feat when you consider that they were in rolling seas off the east coast of Africa firing at three separate targets including one pirate who had an AK-47 leveled at the back of Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips. Out at Fairchild Air Force Base's Security Forces Shooting Range Monday that precision accuracy was the talk among airmen firing on the 25 yard range. "Impressive, bottom line, very impressive," firearms instructor Staff Sgt. Chris Jackson said. Sergeant Jackson is a firearms instructor at Fairchild's Security Forces Shooting Range where Monday his students were firing away at targets. While it might have been a similar distance to what the SEALs were engaging their targets from, it was definitely not under the same conditions. "Well he's got a target that's moving, you have the platform you're shooting from moving, it's night, limited visibility, multiple shooters multiple targets and it all has to go down at the same time and it has to be perfect, there's no second chance," Sergeant Jackson said. Sergeant Jackson thinks the SEALs had their night vision optics trained on their three respective targets long before they were given the order to open fire simultaneously. The fact the pirates were all shot at the center of their central nervous system was no accident. "Given this situation and the fact they were dealing with a hostage they probably wanted to stop the threat as quickly as possible. From what I understand all the hostage takers were shot in the head and yes they were probably trying to shut them down before they could get to a gun or cause any more damage," Sergeant Jackson said. Sergeant Jackson says the SEALs' deadly pinpoint accuracy was the result of the US military's commitment to training ... and lots of it. "Training is the key to everything, without training we fail the greatest armed forces in the world and it's because we train so hard it's key to what we do," Sergeant Jackson said.