July 28, 1997 - Grass Week

970728 - Yesterday we moved to our new squad bay at Weapons Battalion. It was relatively painless. Today we had PT (3-mile run, Rifle PT) and learned about the fundamentals or marksmanship, how to prepare our sling, and we practiced marksmanship in the prone (lying down) position. It was pretty fun. I'm a little less worried about the rifle qualification but I'll have to see what happens when we actually start shooting. 32 days left...
The first week at Weapons Battalion was spent learning how to shoot. Prior to going through marksmanship training, I just thought shooting was simple: aim the gun, pull the trigger, hit the target. Well, as I was quick to learn, it's not quite that simple. Actual marksmanship includes things like:

  • breath control
  • trigger control
  • sight alignment
  • sight picture
  • windage adjustment
  • lots of other stuff
Prior to my first class on the rifle range, I already knew that I didn't really know anything about shooting. The marksmanship instructor assured us that those of us in my position (those with no previous shooting experience) were better off because we didn't have anything to un-learn. Yay me! Something I came prepared for (being unprepared).

There were (are) so many components to shooting well that I am really amazed anyone actually hits the target, myself especially. 

Day one of Grass Week brought some introductions to the many, many components of accurate shooting. I wasn't overwhelmed yet.

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