As the 56th Armed Services Skeet Championship concluded May 13 at the Nashville Gun Club here, organization officials announced the victors from among the contending five-member teams representing the branches.
The Navy took top honors as High Overall Average military champions, while the Air Force earned High Overall Average runner-up spoils from scores in the 12-gauge, 20-gauge 28-gauge and 410-bore shotgun events, as well as the doubles.
The High Overall Average individual military champ was Navy Lt. Michael Lee of Manassas, Virginia, a 484x500 score; High Overall Average individual runner-up was Navy Cmdr. John Snyder of Manassas, 483x500, and Marine Corps Maj. Matthew Esposito of San Diego earned third place with 483x500.
Behind the Trigger
The competition has sustained popularity because it occurs at various locations and is open to active and retired veterans from all services, as well as the participants’ spouses and dependents, said retired Marine Corps Col. Chris Naler, Fort Worth, Texas, competition participant and the Armed Forces Skeet Association president.
This year’s competition featured more than 155 shooters from across about 36 states, with representation from all five services, he added.
Hopefuls can sign up through their units’ morale, welfare and recreation organization and can be either sponsored or command-supported through temporary duty assignment funding to accommodate a three-day pre-shoot followed by a five-day main shoot, Naler explained. About a year of evaluation and assessment from team leaders typically yields primary and development categories within each team.
“Ideally, you’re always growing a new group as well as you have a seasoned group that can really compete head-to-head – that’s where the camaraderie and good bragging rights come from,” Naler said.
While wartime obligations have hampered some attendance, interest among skeet enthusiasts has remained since AFSA’s emergence in the 1960s, Naler said. “As we came into more of a wartime footing,” he added, “obviously our personnel had been deployed for the last 15 years, and that did put a bit of a strain on our attendance for active military.”
Participation Has Rebounded
Though event participation is rebounding in recent years, Naler said, he hopes to see spikes in retiree and veteran attendance.
“When we look out and see those personnel shooting on the active military teams, we reflect on our time when we were there, on our time when we [served].”
With about 25 active duty competitors in this year’s championship, Naler said, he acknowledges the challenge military leaders face as they pursue funding and justify travel, fees, and other related costs, which he emphasized fits well into military training.
“Everything we’re doing here fits into marksmanship; everything fits into training,” Naler asserted. “[Nothing] is counter to any form of marksmanship that young soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen are going to perform in their day-to-day duties, so it all fits right to the heart of being in the U.S. military.”
Naler said he also hopes skeet competition and camaraderie extend to the local communities.
“You can’t go to a clay facility, skeet field or trap field and not run into someone that’s probably served in the military,” Naler said. “That’s where the relationships and the recruiting happen to bring more folks to this event.”
Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Mark Stewart, field artillery range operations chief at Camp Pendleton, California, shares Naler’s sentiment.
Experience, Patience, Focus
A junior Olympic trap shooter, 1996 Olympic team alternate and competitive shooter for much of his life, Stewart said that as the Marine Corps team’s most seasoned member, he looks forward to continuing teaching fundamentals to shooters of all ages in the local community.
Perhaps ironically, he said, the experience, patience and focus that come with age bring him the clarity to turn his brain off, which he noted ultimately yields better results.
“This sport is played on the subconscious level, it isn’t played on the conscious level,” Stewart said. “With most other shooting sports … you’re trying to steady the gun, and that involves a very conscious focus on sights and precision.”
Stewart, who still holds multiple records for fastest draw, characterized the shotgun as an imprecise weapon against a moving target, but noted the “instant gratification” that comes with accuracy.
“It’s all hand and eye -- they know what to do, but when your subconscious brain gets in the way … that’s when you screw it up,” he said candidly. “You would be amazed how fast your hands and eyes can work if you stay out of their way.”
Trap, Stewart said, is the oldest form of the outdoor sport, and earned the name from its genesis in the 1600s, when people would release live birds from a trap. Glass balls and clay pigeons eventually replaced the birds, and mechanical throwers eventually replaced human lobbers.
But whether the target is birds, glass balls or clay pigeons, repetition and comfort are among the sport’s most important elements, said Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Winders of the 673rd Medical Group at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.
“It’s really about just practicing and fine-tuning your game,” Winders said. “With so many types of shooters, it’s about finding what works for you to make it happen and break the targets.”
Fun Regardless of Age or Gender
And while competition is always a factor, both Winders and his Navy competitor Lt. Meagan Makarenko from USS Lake Erie said it primarily comes down to having fun without being hampered by age or gender.
“We see men and women and people of all ages here, and one of the speakers at the opening ceremony this year was about 90 years old,” Makarenko said.
At the other end of the age spectrum, Army Capt. Jake Stewart, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, Fort Carson, Colorado, said he’s been shooting since he was about 9 with his father at sporting clay competitions and charity events in west Texas.
Though deployments and other duties whittled his practice time to just under a month, Stewart said, balancing focus to avoid mental fatigue has been a reliable method. “You have to get through the zone while you’re on the pad, and then relax until the next pad to get back into the same zone,” he said.
He also said he prefers the 410-gauge, because it’s the smallest with the fewest number of pellets. “If you break a target, you know exactly where you were and you know exactly that you shot it well -- if you break a target, you earned it.”
Ultimately, Naler said, skeet and trap ranges remain on almost every military installation, and he’d like to see more people use them.
“We’ve all served shoulder to shoulder. We’ve all supported one mission, and that is the defense of our nation,” Naler said. “When we come out here, it’s a chance to let our hair down a little bit but also represent our respective services –- active, retired or veteran.”
(Follow Amaani Lyle on Twitter: @LyleDoDNews)