FORT DRUM, N.Y. (March 10, 2016) -- It's hard to say who is the best marksman in the 10th Mountain Division (LI). If you ask any of the 10 Soldiers training for the U.S. Army Small Arms Championship at Fort Benning, Ga., that's a distinction they are all aiming for this year.
From March 13 to 19, they will prove how their skills stack up against some of the Army's best, to include teams representing infantry, armored, cavalry and airborne divisions, the 75th Ranger Regiment and Joint Special Operations Command.
For now, the rivalry is all in-house.
"Oh, yeah, we want to beat everyone out there, but, especially, this guy," said Staff Sgt. Bruce Householder, pointing toward fellow team member, Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Klein.
The camaraderie is strong for a team that was just assembled several weeks ago. While they might egg each other on with snipes like, "I'm going to kick you in your soul," it becomes all business once they move onto the weapons range. There, any smiles or laughter are the by-products of having shot particularly well.
"Don't get me wrong -- we're all here to help each other and build one another up," said Spc. Ryan Casner, from C Troop, 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team. "But at the end of the day, we all have this competitive mindset that we want to beat each other, and that's what makes you better."
"We want to go down there as the 10th Mountain Division, but come out as the winners of the whole competition," Klein added. "I think the team ethics and team camaraderie that we have (are) going to push us a lot farther than some other teams."
Klein is one of four team members from F Company, 2nd Battalion, 10th Aviation Regiment, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade. The other Soldiers from the "Pathfinders" company are Spc. Arthur Brown, Spc. Addison Stroud and Pfc. Brett Klebe.
Klebe is considered a new shooter at the Small Arms Competition, but this won't be his first contest.
"I fired my first assault rifle when I was 5, but I've been trap shooting competitively since I was 9," he said.
Klein just shakes his head in envy when he hears that. He comes from a military Family where both parents served in the Army, as well as uncles, grandparents and a brother-in-law. Klein said the idea of shooting guns for sport or for fun wasn't encouraged, so he didn't fire his first weapon until he enlisted. He jumped at the chance to enter his first shooting competition.
"I'm a fairly competitive guy, so any chance I get to compete at something I think I'm fairly awesome at, that's what I'm going to do. It's really cool because, for a lot of guys, this is a once-in-a-career opportunity," he said.
The competition requires participants to demonstrate proficiency in their primary and secondary weapons, that being the M4 carbine and M9 pistol. Klein said the M9 might be the primary weapon for military police, but for the most part, enlisted Soldiers have little opportunity to train or qualify on the pistol.
"I hadn't shot an M9 but once in my entire 10 years in the Army until I came out here," he said. "When I began shooting the pistol, I really thought that was the end of my days on the team. But then, just through working with the guys on the team and the coaches available to us, I focused on that skill, turned it around and became pretty good at it."
Staff Sgt. John Brady, team coach and a marksmanship instructor at the Light Fighters School, said last year's 21-day schedule didn't afford the team enough time with the pistol. He made sure that didn't happen this time.
"I've shot more with the M9 in the past two months than I have in the past five years," said Sgt. Jeremy Irving, C Company, 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. "When we're training with the M9, we'll usually shoot 100 rounds a day, and we've probably gone through at least 10,000 rounds among the 10 of us."
Training began in early January, and the team spends several hours daily on the range -- depending on weather conditions. They had a week dedicated to just M9 training and then began transitioning between both weapons on any given day.
"Because so many of us had never shot the M9 before, we really needed to get proficient at it," Klein said. "To be able to shoot as much as we have -- shooting every day for two months, that's amazing."
This type of training shouldn't seem out of the ordinary for infantry Soldiers like Klein, but he said there is a different mindset that they had to develop. In unit training, combat scenarios require speed and lethal accuracy. That doesn't apply in competitive shooting events.
"It's completely different, because we're shooting for perfection every time, and not just being good enough to pass weapons qualification," Klein said. "Here, we focus more on slowing down and taking the time needed to put that single round into the target 500 yards away."
That level of concentration and mental tenacity is hard to maintain all of the time.
"Every single person here will have a bad day once in a while, myself included," Klein said. "The key is that when you are having a bad day out there, it is just one day. You move on from that and build up your resiliency to improve on that bad day or that bad round."
"Now, this is a good day," Householder would say a few hours later while picking himself up from the prone position.
Householder, from the 110th Transportation Company, 548th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 10th Mountain Division Sustainment Brigade, said he's been shooting for 40 of his 45 years. Still, being able to have a good day at the 500-yard range is not something every Soldier gets to do. Shooting between 100 and 300 yards is, as Brady called it, a Soldier's "bread and butter."
"That's what they are used to doing. But not many Soldiers get to shoot from 500 yards," he said. "That's what makes this competition interesting for a lot of people, just having a chance to train and practice this precision shooting."
As difficult as that was at the beginning, the results of continuous practice on the range became evident, said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Anders Keller from 3rd General Support Aviation Battalion, 10th Aviation Regiment, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade.
"Over the years, I've shot out to 300 yards / 300 meters fairly often, and so that wasn't going to be a hard shot for me," he said. "Going out to 500 was rather challenging, but at this point those shots are feeling like what 300 used to feel. We've received a lot of good feedback and a lot of good coaching from Sgt. Brady. He has some good insights and knowledge about the things we needed to work on."
This is Brady's second year coaching the Small Arms team, both times composed entirely of new shooters to the competition.
"Ideally, you want to have Soldiers who might have some competition experience," he said. "I am always willing to take those guys, but I will try them out alongside those with zero experience. Sometimes it is easier to mold and mentor those who have no experience at all, compared to someone who has been shooting a certain way for a long time."
With deployment rotations, prior commitments and Soldiers transitioning out of service, just assembling a full team can be challenging in itself. At first, recruiting was mostly by word of mouth, and Brady said that was too time-consuming and wasn't yielding many candidates. He supplemented that with some well-placed flyers around the division, but Brady also credits senior leaders who supported this event. He said it's no coincidence that four members are "Pathfinder" Soldiers, in part because they have a battalion commander who encouraged his troops to try out for the team.
"Being 'Pathfinders,' they are one of the more elite units on post, so they have Soldiers who might be more mentally and physically prepared for competition, even if they haven't done anything like this before," Brady said.
For most matches, Brady said a coach can train Soldiers in that particular skill set to succeed just through a repetitive training schedule. So, team members will constantly move from 100-, 200-, 400- and 500-yard targets, transition between iron and optic sights and shoot in prone, seated, kneeling and standing positions.
Training through the winter months hasn't been easy. A few sessions were postponed due to severe weather, and team members always needed to bring enough cold-weather clothing to adapt to range conditions -- not knowing whether they would be lying prone on solid ice or in a puddle after the snow melted.
"One disadvantage that we talk about a lot is the type of vegetation on the range and how to judge the wind," Klebe said. "Out here, everything is covered in ice and snow, so there's nothing we can use to judge how the wind is blowing. It shouldn't be as hard at Fort Benning."
"It's hard core out here, man. And we're tougher," Klein said, only half-joking.
Klein is one of two sniper-qualified Soldiers on the team. The other, Sgt. Allen Koppenhaver, from 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, competed in the 2015 International Sniper Competition and helped his team place third for U.S. Army Forces Command. Brady also coaches that team, which had previously been named best in FORSCOM for three consecutive years under his purview.
Klein said Brady has the perfect resume to coach both teams.
"I mean, he's the best you can ask for," he said. "He's been a Marine Scout Sniper School teacher, a U.S. Army Sniper School instructor -- actually, he was an assistant instructor there when I went through -- and so he knows this like the back of his hand. I wouldn't question anything he tells me, and no one else would either."
If all goes well, team members will return to Fort Drum in a couple of weeks with more than just bragging rights. Klebe said the Excellence in Competition (EIC) match is probably the main reason that everybody is attempting to best one another.
"That's where the top 10 percent of shooters can earn an EIC badge in rifle, pistol, or both if you're that good," he said. "You wear it on your (Army service uniform) in place of your regular marksmanship badge. That's a goal for pretty much everyone."
Last year, four Soldiers from 1st Brigade Combat Team placed fourth overall and third in a multi-weapon event. Two members from that team earned the bronze EIC badges.
Rounding out this year's team is Spc. Raymond Flick from A Company, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. Coaching support was provided by Sgt. 1st Class Rodney Medley, from A Company, 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team; Sgt. 1st Class John Jean, Special Forces Recruiting Command; and Spc. Michael Jacob, formerly with 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team.
The competition is hosted by the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit and the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning. For more information about this event, visit www.usamu.com.
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