Just wondering, what difficulty setting are you playing on?
The easiest.
Also, on the subject of your grenade-throwing soldier becoming a Sniper; there's no way to predetermine which class your rookies will be come, it's based on a lottery system. When they level up, no matter how they got their kills, their class will be randomly chosen. Which is why I have about 94 Assaults and 2 Supports.
I knew that. It's still amusing.
Another mission: Rescuing an escapee of abductions, one Anna Sing. The team: Juan, Chase, and Azusomething of the previous mission, plus Akemi Okada, the Japanese rookie. Akemi (I'm assuming the game uses proper Japanese nomenclature) notes a human-looking alien. The scientist whose name escapes me requests that we try to capture it. I'm game, how do we do it? In attempting to kill/capture the thing, I discover that shifting even a single square prevents the sniper from firing. Oops. With help from an ally, though, his pistol takes down what was identified as a Thin Man, though well after it poisoned Hagana. No idea how to fix it, I'm thinking the black guy is going to die first. Eagle-eye Okada (Note to self: Make this her actual nickname) spots an alien moving to hide behind a big van thing. Sadly, en route to a decent position, she gets used in a lesson on how Overwatch works. Hagana fragged it (after it got off another shot), then Juan saw another of the little Sectoid things. Akemi, of course, spots Sing; it is thereafter discovered that two, rather than just one, of the Sectoids are present, seeming to be moving away from Ms. Sing, which would be good if they weren't probably moving to more efficiently kill us. And, of course, they are on the opposite side of the statue, etc, area from the entire team except her. While the others move into position, Akemi promptly frags the two sectoids.
Meanwhile, Anna Sing keeps pestering us to come "Over here!" instead of deal with the aliens who were shooting at us. Mills approaches her, and warns us that "they're everywhere". As we start to head back to the Skyranger, another Thin Man shows up and a car explodes (thankfully not near anyone). The Thin Man Overwatch-shoots at Akemi, but misses (as have most of the shots aimed at her). While the team moves to engage, I have Sing head straight for the extraction point. Terror is a scary thing. You know what else is scary? Akemi, who crits the Thin Man, killing it in one shot. (Come to think of it, everything's died in one shot. Except our agents.) We hurry onwards, Sing streaking ahead...straight into a Thin Man. (I was fully expecting something like this to happen. About frikkin' time.) This Thin Man continues to show their characteristic terrible aim, getting off a single miss before the sniper hit him with his pistol and Hangana finished the thinnie. The mission ended the instant Sing enters the magical rectangle, and promptly runs out in thanks.
Everyone except Juan Medina got wounded. The worst was Mills, at 16 days, but Akemi got nine and Hangana four. Hangana became another sniper, while Akemi became a nice assault. Fun.