FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- For the first time, a 10th Mountain Division (LI) four-Soldier team participated in the U.S. Army Small Arms Competition (All Army) at Fort Benning, Ga., during the first week of February.
During the competition, four infantrymen of C Troop, 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, finished fourth place overall, third place in a multi-gun competition, and individually placed in every match during the championship. The championship is an advanced combat live-fire training event. It was created to develop combat firing skills at the entry and intermediate levels and to raise the standard of marksmanship across the entire force.
Two of the participants, Spc. Michael F. Jacob and Cpl. Jonathan F. Mummey, earned the "Excellence in Competition Badge," which is presented to the top 10 percent of competitors who have not previously earned the award.
Staff Sgt. John M. Brady, who has coached the 10th Mountain Division's Sniper Team to be the U.S. Army Forces Command top sniper team for three years running, and Sgt. Tyler Chapple, a Light Fighters School rifle marksmanship instructor, coached the team.
Brady and the four-man team had to work around severe weather in the 25 days they had to prepare for the competition. Some days were unavoidably postponed due to winds as strong as 25 miles per hour, but the team was able to tolerate the North Country winter enough to get the most training they could.
"In order to apply proper marksmanship fundamentals, you have to be able to hold a (pistol) with your bare hands," Brady said. "Some days it was 22 degrees below zero, and we had to heat up the (pistols) on dashboards to get competitive precision marksmanship training."
With many training days lost to the cold winter, the team members and coaches sacrificed their weekends and trained until they were as confident as they could be for the competition.
"We were optimistic about how well we would do at the competition because of how much we trained," said Jacob, who placed highest among active-duty junior-enlisted Soldiers during the competition. "We were surprised at how well we did, and then we began to push each other to perform better."
The Soldiers used pistols and their assigned rifles to fire at targets from point-blank-range to 500 yards using only the weapons' iron sights, meaning no scopes or other optical aids.
Championship rules mandate that each team has at least one new shooter, so most teams have three previously distinguished members who would compete every year.
The 10th Mountain Division's shooters were all first-timers, including Spcs. Sebastian Gaiton and Michael G. Walpole.
The competition gave Gaiton an experience he normally would not have as a gunner, and he said that the chance to shoot more with a pistol and rifle was "nice."
"I have shot more rounds in the past two months than I have in the rest of my Army career," Walpole said. "I had a good time."
The experience the team members gained from others during the competition, which included teams from the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, gave new skills that many of them said they could use back at their units.
"I can already see how my experience is going to trickle down to my Soldiers when I get back to my unit," Mummey said.
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