Photo By Sgt. Meredith Vincent | Participants in the Adjutant General's Match ready themselves in the prone position as...... read more read more
CAMP GUERNSEY, Wyo. - The skies are clear and the weather is mild as 12 soldiers line up along their marked points.
As the instructor gives the command, a dozen rifles are raised to the ready position. A horn lets out a piercing squeal and the surrounding hills echo with the sounds of dozens of bullets exploding through their chambers and whizzing through the air toward their targets.
It is late May and the Adjutant General's Marksmanship Match is underway.
Every year, the Wyoming Army National Guard hosts the AG Match for soldiers who want to improve their marksmanship skills and shoot competitively.
The event took place May 29-31 this year at the Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center, a dry weekend during a month of unseasonable rain. However, the main take away for both instructors and participants was the positive experience of the event.
“I didn't think it was going to be this much fun,” said Spc. Felicia Jo Stamen, a logistics technician for the Wyoming Army National Guard’s Training Site Command, at Camp Guernsey. “When you [qualify with the M16 each year], your military career depends on it. Here it's just fun. If you mess up, people here are really understanding and they've actually been really helpful.”
While this year was Stamen’s first time participating in the match, for many shooters it was a return to form. Master Sgt. Morgan Jenkins, a senior marksmanship coordinator for the Wyoming National Guard, and one of the coordinators of the event, explained there are many different levels of proficiency at this specific match.
“This is a beginner's level match. We shoot rifle, pistol and shotgun,” he said. “This is kind of a gateway into other levels – we have a regional match and then a national level match. We use this to select people to participate on the team for the regional level and then we use the regional level to select people for the national level match.”
This year, 27 Soldiers participated in the match, coming from seven units, including the Joint Forces Headquarters, in Cheyenne; the Regional Training Institute, in Guernsey and the Recruiting and Retention Battalion, in Cheyenne. Jenkins, who has helped coordinate Wyoming marksmanship matches and clinics for 11 years, said there is a reason why they try to encourage involvement in this particular match.
“We want everybody to come to this level. It's a good training event,” he explained. “The more people we have show up, the more people we can pull from to go to the other level matches.”
The benefits for the soldier from participating in events like these are easily recognizable, said Jenkins. “The matches give soldiers feedback on their marksmanship levels. They can try different techniques, and get the results from using those techniques, and then they can take them to the units, train the soldiers in their units and it increases the marksmanship level at the units.”
Sgt. Joey Whitley, an administrative non-commissioned officer for Joint Forces Headquarters, said he has experienced those benefits first hand. Whitley attended the AG Match for the last four years. He said he was inspired to improve his marksmanship by a noncommissioned officer.
“My NCO back when I was a private told me that to be a good NCO, you had to be well-rounded,” he recalled. “You've got to have every part about being a soldier – you can't just be good at one part, you've got to be good at every part.”
After four years, the sergeant said his scores have improved significantly.
“I've raised my score on rifle and pistol tremendously from what it was, and just keep on adjusting to get better,” he said. “So you've got to find your weakness and then build on that. This was my weakness, so I built on it.”
Whitley acknowledged his success is in no small part the result of the instruction found at these matches. Echoing Stamen, he said the environment cultivated by Jenkins and the team of volunteers is a big reason why he has become so successful.
“They definitely have the tools and techniques and the time,” said Whitley. “They put the time in to do it and they're very dedicated coaches. They want you to have fun, and they want you to learn, that's the two main things.”
“They do a super professional job,” agreed Stamen. “It's laid back, but not to the point of complacency; it's laid back to the point of, if you don't know what you're doing, you feel comfortable asking.”
There is a method to their success, said Jenkins, and it’s not very complicated.
“Usually at a qualification, everything's pretty locked down,” Jenkins elaborated. “They're trying to rush people through; they want to get through the qualification and get everybody done. And here we're laid back, we want them to enjoy shooting, we want them to enjoy the event. It's more about focusing on the fundamentals and techniques, trying different things, than it is just shooting the qual and getting through.”
In the time Jenkins has worked on these matches, six soldiers have moved from the beginners AG Match to the Wyoming All Guard Team, including himself. He said participating in these matches is always beneficial to the soldier’s skills.
“From what I've seen, it gives them confidence in their ability to handle a weapon,” he said. “They get to do things here that they won't get to do anywhere else. We move with weapons, transition with weapons, shoot different positions that you don't normally shoot in a unit qualification.”
“Plus,” added Jenkins, “they'll shoot probably three times the amount of ammo in a weekend that they would normally shoot [all year].”
Twelve more soldiers take their places and line up in front of their targets, readying themselves to take aim. Ammunition is definitely not a problem today.
| Date Taken: | 07.02.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.06.2015 17:14 |
| Story ID: | 169169 |
| Location: | CAMP GUERNSEY, WY, US |
| Web Views: | 14 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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