AMU hosts high school championships

[USAMU]

RORT BENNING, Ga. - Sixty of the country's best high school shooters came head to head and battled it out for the title of National Junior Air Rifle Champion recently at the Pool International Shooting Complex.

The 2007 Army Junior Air Rifle National Championship was conducted at the Pool Indoor Range Aug. 8 to 11. The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, with the assistance of the Civilian Marksmanship Program of Camp Perry, Ohio, hosted the Junior Air Rifle National Championship.

Aug. 8, 15 teams from around the country registered and started training. The USAMU International Rifle Team, which boasts four Olympians including a 2004 Olympic Silver Medalist, conducted the competition and provided marksmanship training and shooting clinics.

The U.S. Army sponsored the annual U. S. Army Junior Air Rifle Championship to give Sporter and Precision class air rifle shooters of all levels of ability a unique opportunity to test their marksmanship skills in competition with other junior shooters in their home states and throughout the nation. The championship had two phases, a State Championship postal phase and a National Championship shoulder-to-shoulder phase. This postal state championship and national competition were previously sponsored by the National Guard Bureau.

Teams throughout the United States competed in postal statewide tournaments from November through March. The Civilian Marksmanship Program scored the targets and determined the state champions and teams that qualified for the National Championships.

The teams that competed in this National Championship and postal state championship for school-age junior shooters were:

Sporter class - Flowing Wells JROTC, Arizona; Homestead 4-H Shooting Club, Nebraska; R.L. Paschal High School JROTC, Texas; Ripley High School Army JROTC, Tennessee; Stephen Decatur Navy JROTC, Maryland; West Brunswick High School Army JROTC; North Carolina Zion Benton High School Navy JROTC, Illinois; and Manzano High School Navy JROTC, New Mexico;

Precision class - DuBois Junior Rifle Team, Pennsylvania; Lake Houston 4-H, Texas; MSSEC Timberwolves, Minnesota; Southeast Nebraska Shooting Sports, Nebraska; Texas Community Shooting Club of Kentucky, Kentucky; La Cueva High School Marine Corps JROTC, New Mexico; and Wyoming Antelope Club, Florida.

Three-Position Air Rifle Shooting is the most popular and fastest growing form of shooting sports competition for youth of high school age or younger, according to the Civilian Marksmanship Program.
Precision Air Rifle is modeled after Olympic-style shooting and allows the use of specialized target rifles and equipment. Sporter Air Rifle is designed for new competitors or those who desire to compete with a minimum of equipment and expense. In both types of shooting, competitors fire at targets at a distance of 10 meters in three different positions, prone, standing and kneeling.

The Civilian Marksmanship Program promotes firearms safety training and rifle practice for all qualified U.S. citizens with special emphasis on youth. The CMP operates through a network of affiliated shooting clubs and associations that covers every state in the U.S. The clubs and associations offer firearms safety training and marksmanship courses as well as the opportunity for continued practice and competition.

Aug. 9, the USAMU conducted Precision and Sporter clinics at the National Infantry Museum and at the range; the clinics covered the Prone, Standing and Kneeling positions.

Aug. 11, on day two of the competition, the USAMU hosted a Future Soldier Swearing-in Ceremony conducted by Maj. Gen. Thomas P.
Bostick, commanding general of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command. More than 35 future Soldiers and their family members from the Atlanta Recruiting Battalion participated.

An Awards Banquet recognizing the top shooters was conducted at the Columbus Trade and Convention Center (Iron Works) the night of Aug.
11. The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit provided trophies, plaques and medals to the winners of the National Championship individual and team competitions in Sporter and Precision class. Bostick was the guest speaker and an awards presenter; other awards presenters were former Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army Joel B. Hudson, who is now the military affairs consultant to the CMP, and Col. John Fenzel III, commander of the Accessions Support Brigade.

R.L. Paschal High School JROTC won the Sporter Team Championship, followed by Homestead 4-H Shooting Club in second place and Manzano High School Navy JROTC in third. The Sporter Individual Champion was Homestead 4-H Shooting Club member Micaela Jochum of Beatrice, Nebraska. In second place was R.L. Paschal High School JROTC cadet Daniel Hilario of Fort Worth, Texas, and Stephen Decatur High School shooter Matthew Bertino of Ocean Pines, Md., took third place.

The winner of the Precision Team Championship was DuBois Junior Rifle Team. Taking second place was the Southeast Nebraska Shooting Sports team and the Wyoming Antelope Club finished in third place.
DuBois shooter Emily Holsopple of Wilcox, Pa., won the Precision Individual Championship. Southeast Nebraska Shooting Sports member Sarah Broeker of Seward, Neb., took second place and DuBois participant Michael Kulbacki of DuBois, Pa., finished third.

At the awards ceremony, USAMU Commander Lt. Col. Frank Muggeo thanked the CMP for helping the U.S. Army with not only conducting competitions like this, but also for helping to run the USAMU's Squad Designated Marksman Program.

"Two-thousand people tried to get here, but only you made it; you proved yourselves," Muggeo told the competitors at the banquet.

Muggeo then introduced Bostick, calling him the "busiest man in the U.S. Army."

"The Army is happy to sponsor this event; we look forward to doing it again," Bostick said.

Bostick admitted that he did not know much about this sport before watching these matches, but added that he was very impressed with the discipline, self-control, precision, coordination and adherence to safety that it required.

"These lessons that you learn through sport will make a difference and help you to win in life," Bostick said. He added that it was "very inspiring to see the ladies and men competing head-to-head against each other."

Bostick concluded by thanking the Army Marksmanship Unit for conducting the match and clinics.

"The AMU is first rate; there's nothing like it anywhere in the world," he said. "They support the warfighters; they train Soldiers both here and overseas. Never forget that our Soldiers are in harm's way ensuring that we live in a country that is free."

(Formed in 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to raise the standards of marksmanship throughout the U.S. Army, the Army Marksmanship Unit is assigned to the Accessions Support Brigade of the U.S. Army Accessions Command. The Marksmanship Unit trains its Soldiers to win competitions and enhances combat readiness through train-the-trainer clinics, research and development. For more information on the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, contact the Public Affairs Office at (706) 545-5436, paula.j.randall@us.army.mil or http://www.usaac.army.mil/amu/. The Civilian Marksmanship Program is a federally-chartered, non-profit corporation dedicated to firearm safety and marksmanship training and to the promotion of marksmanship competition for citizens of the United States. For more information on the CMP and its programs, contact Christine Elder, (419) 635-2141, ext.
1111 or celder@odcmp.com.)