"A Marine Sweeps the Top Marksmanship contest in all categories since 1959"

 I was reading this off "Yahoo News" and a line on this article caught my eye,  For some reason it reminded me of my friend "Old NFO" and his grayman series of books with "PaPa Cronin and Jessie" shooting and embarrassing all the highspeed shooters with all the racegear.

“I got beat by a 68-year-old man and a 12-year-old little boy,” Garcia remembers. “And that’s when it lit a fire, like, realizing that there’s so much more to marksmanship. I was a Marine who thought that he was a really good marksman, and then getting humbled up in town made me realize how much we don’t know about marksmanship.”

   Well anyway I figured it was worth a post.

   I'm not sure if the pictures will come through.   THey Did but will not let me resize*dang it*

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Payton Garcia holds up an M1 Garand rifle presented to him at the Marine Corps Championships at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, April 18, 2025. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Joshua Barker.

Long before Marine Staff Sgt. Payton Garcia matched a 66-year-old Marine Corps marksmanship record last month, he was pretty sure he was a good shot.

“I did my first [Marine Corps marksmanship] match in 2021, and I did relatively well. I got a silver pistol badge on my first time,” Garcia told Task & Purpose. “Then I went to a match on the civilian side, thinking that I was, like, ‘The Shooter.’ The best ever.”

He was not.

“I got beat by a 68-year-old man and a 12-year-old little boy,” Garcia remembers. “And that’s when it lit a fire, like, realizing that there’s so much more to marksmanship. I was a Marine who thought that he was a really good marksman, and then getting humbled up in town made me realize how much we don’t know about marksmanship.”

Now a member of the Marine Corps Shooting Team, Garcia may still not be “the best ever,” but his performance in April at the Marine Corps Championships — the top annual marksmanship competition for Marines across the service — was so dominant officials had trouble finding a historic equivalent.

Shooting against 80 Marines and competitors from other services and nations, Garcia won both the rifle and pistol categories, a sweep that no shooter had pulled off since 1959. He also won the competition’s multi-gun contest, an event added in recent years.

“We were curious about that during the actual conduct of the match, and we dug through all of our history books and records,” said Capt. John Bodzoich, the shooting team commander. “And what we found is, in the 124 years the team’s been around, and since the establishment of all these matches, Sgt. Garcia is the second Marine in history to do a clean sweep of the championships. So of the thousands of Marines that have come through, he’s the second one ever to win both high rifle, high pistol, and high overall [score].”

Garcia’s path to the top marksmanship awards in the Marine Corps, he said, traces directly back to getting smoked by a senior citizen and a grade schooler.

“One of the biggest things that went into my improvement was actually learning how to train,” Garcia said. “Actually sitting down and deep-diving into the fundamentals of shooting.”

Shooting against civilians and absorbing non-military training techniques, he said, was different than traditional Marine marksmanship training.

“Just like any other sport, there are build-ups to each one of those fundamentals that you need to do,” he said. “Structuralizing training and isolating skills that I’ve learned from those local matches, and realizing that it’s not all just about shooting. There’s a lot of mental aspects that go into shooting, where you’re competing at any level, realizing that you need to be in the right headspace.” 

Trained as a fuel specialist rather than in combat arms like infantry, Garcia says he’s often asked if competition-style shooting is applicable in the field. 

“You ask me what my MOS is, and I answer, I’m a bulk fuel specialist,” he said. “I don’t know much about tactics, but I do know that putting rounds as accurately as possible on a target as quickly as possible will translate to the tactical world. ”

The Marine Corps Shooting Team was established in 1899 to bring together top shots who would compete with elite shooters of all kinds, then share what they learned with Marines in the fleet. Based at Quantico, Virginia, the full-time team members spend about half their time training for and sponsoring competitions, and the other half training and working with marksmanship instructors and experts inside the Marines.

Marine Staff Sgt. Payton Garcia moves towards a firing line at the Marine Corps Championships marksmanship competition in April 2025. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Daniela Chicas Torres.

Garcia said his success demonstrates that marksmanship can be taught to almost anyone. Growing up in Lawrence, Kansas, he said, he had virtually no exposure to firearms beyond a few unsupervised moments that would probably terrify a Marine instructor.

“Before I joined the Marines, I had just shot a pistol or a rifle into a dirt berm or the trash with no target,” he remembers. “It was more for fun.”

The annual Marine Corps Championships, held in Quantico, is a culminating event among shooters who advance through qualification competitions at major bases like Camp Pendleton in California and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Across 30 events, shooters face scenarios that the shooting team has dreamed up based on their experience in civilian practical shooting competitions. This year’s stations included shooting lanes from boats, from a balance beam, and even with a mandatory bench press set before shooting.

In one event, Garcia said, they created a shooting lane in which Marines had to shoot around a barricade while balancing on one leg with a 45-pound ruck on. In another, shooters arrived on a station that appeared to be a trash pit, with tires, ammo cans, pallets, wheels and other debris. From that, they had to build a barrier up to a preset level to shoot from. 

They also shot a wide range of weapons. “We were able to shoot the M1 Garand, the M1014,” Garcia said in a Marine Corps press release. “We shot M16A2s, a lot of iron sights, and it was such a breath of fresh air.”

The competition covered eight days.

“I went into this year with the expectation that I just wanted to make it difficult for someone else to win,” Garcia said. “I’m going to shoot my match and support anybody that I can.”

As the top shooter, Garcia was awarded a historic trophy: his own M-1 Garand rifle, the same kind used by Marines in World War II.

He didn’t keep it and instead gave the rifle to Sgt. Kai Byrom, the highest-scoring first-year competitor, a mortarman and marksmanship coach with Weapons and Field Training Battalion, Parris Island. 

“I thought it was more important to isolate and kind of award the next generation of Marines,” Garcia said. “So I thought it was important to spread marksmanship knowledge and to light a fire under some of the newer guys by awarding or deferring the M1 to that Marine. It’s more important for the next generation, and not about us.”

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Payton Garcia holds up an M1 Garand rifle presented to him at the Marine Corps Championships at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, April 18, 2025.

Matt White

May 29, 2025 at 8:00 AM EDT·

6 min read

 

"Which Soldiers that volunteer in the Ukraine War have the Best Skillset"

I saw this on Quora, while taking a break at work, and I thought it was interesting viewpoint.  THe views are that of the Author(Not Me, lol) but it does track with my experiences, and what I have seen of 3rd world armies it does track. 

by 

Roland Bartetzko

I’ll probably make some enemies with this answer, but who cares?

Let’s start with the worst foreign fighters (and why they perform so poorly):

Colombians. It’s not that they lack experience or knowledge, but every foreigner who comes here needs to learn additional skills their home country's military likely didn’t teach them.

These skills are mostly in the areas of drone and electronic warfare, adaptation to the battlefield environment, and TCCC (Tactical Combat Casualty Care). Even training from “richer” Western armies isn’t enough to survive on the Ukrainian frontlines.

Even if you’been serving in your home country's best army unit before you came to Ukraine, there's some machinery here you haven't learned to operate. (Picture: all rights by the author of this post)

Fortunately, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will teach you most of this—if (and that’s a big “if”) you’re willing to learn.

Unfortunately, with the Colombians (and other South Americans as well), the motivation to train and acquire new skills is rather low. Some might say they’re a bit lazy. As a result, they suffer a high number of casualties.

That said, this problem isn’t limited to South Americans. Some combat veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq came here thinking they were untouchable—that their sh*t didn’t stink and they didn’t need any “stupid” training. They quickly learned otherwise—the hard way.

On the other hand, there are many professional soldiers who recognize their limitations and are eager to learn. These individuals make up the majority of foreign volunteer fighters.

Especially among the Americans (many of them former Marines) and the Brits, the mantra is always: “Training, training, training!”

That’s the right attitude. It doesn’t matter where you’re from—an enemy artillery shell or drone doesn’t care about your passport. If you’re too lazy or too arrogant to learn new things, you’ll quickly perish.

"Fehsenturm Berlin"

 I was doing some research for another post and I ran across this post I did back in 2012 and I thought it was worth a "Repost"....Yeah I'll see myself out

    I have an attachment to Berlin like Stuttgart where I had spent a lot of time where I was stationed at so long ago.  One day I will fly there and see how it looks.

When I went to Berlin for the first time in 1987, I drove the  Helmstedt Berlin Autobahn with Check Point Alpha to Check Point Bravo. I was attached to Field Station Berlin via Det Wobeck. We used "flag orders" that basically had a picture of the American Flag with our names on it in both English, French and Russian.  It gave us travel rights to Berlin through the corridor.  We had to stop at 2 Soviet Checkpoints on the autobahn and unless you "donated" a porn magazine to the Russians behind a wall, you waited exactly 45 minutes for them to stamp your flag orders all the while surrounded by Soviet propaganda for example "Why the American Pershing II missile was a threat to world peace, but somehow the Soviet  SS-20 was exempt, funny how that worked out with the protestors, but I digress.  After your flag order was stamped( I framed one of mine) so you can proceed to the next check point.

 Generic Flag orders.  I wouldn't use mine for

the pic because it has my SSN on it.

  You also had an opportunity to give the guard some money for a soviet military badge or something.( I have a couple laying around).  After you got to  West Berlin it was a 24 hour party.  I had an opportunity to go to East Berlin through the Famous Checkpoint Charlie.
     there were Other Berlin Border Crossings but we couldn't use them by the status of forces agreement and the 4 powers occupation of Berlin.  Berlin still was considered an "occupied" city outside the purview of West Germany and it was run by the Garrison commander of Berlin. 

We were not told to acknowledge the East German Guards since we considered East Germany not the "real" Germany...That was West Germany for us.  The Soviets had the same attitude toward the West Germans.  Once we crossed over to East Berlin, it was dour compared to West Berlin.  We saw scaffolding everywhere so it looked like it was under construction but I still saw the bullet holes in the walls where Marshall Zhukov 1st Bellerussian front crashed into the city in what the locals called Gotterdammerung. or the End of the battle in the east.  If we were hassled by the GDR, we were told to say "Ich Musche mit eine Soviet officer mit zum sprechen."  Here is one of the sights I saw in East Berlin
      
   One of the sights of East Berlin was the Fernsehturm

This is called the "Popes Revenge"  The reason for that was that the Church gave money to the East German government to repair and fix the churches in East Germany, well the East Germans being ardent Godless communist took the money and built this tower instead.
When the sun shines on the Fernsehturm's tiled stainless steel dome, the reflection usually appears in the form of a crucifix. This effect was neither predicted nor desired by the planners. Berliners immediately named the luminous cross Rache des Papstes, or "Pope's Revenge". For the same reasons, the structure was also called "St. Walter" (from Walter Ulbricht).
U.S. President Ronald Reagan mentioned this phenomenon in his "Tear down this wall" speech on 12 June 1987:

"Years ago, before the East Germans began rebuilding their churches, they erected a secular structure: the television tower at Alexanderplatz. Virtually ever since, the authorities have been working to correct what they view as the tower's one major flaw: treating the glass sphere at the top with paints and chemicals of every kind. Yet even today when the sun strikes that sphere, that sphere that towers over all Berlin, the light makes the sign of the cross. There in Berlin, like the city itself, symbols of love, symbols of worship, cannot be suppressed."

The Fernsehturm (German for "television tower") is a television tower in the city centre of Berlin, Germany. Close to Alexanderplatz and part of the World Federation of Great Towers (WFGT), the tower was constructed between 1965 and 1969 by the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) administration who intended it as a symbol of Berlin, which it remains today, as it is easily visible throughout the central and some suburban districts of Berlin. The Fernsehturm is the tallest structure in Germany.

In 1964, Walter Ulbricht, leader of the Socialist Unity Party which governed East Germany, decided to allow the construction of a television tower on Alexanderplatz, modelled on the Fernsehturm Stuttgart. IT was intended as a show of the GDR's strength, while its location is thought to have been deliberately chosen so that it would impose on views of West Berlin's Reichstag building (when viewed from the front). The architecture traces back to an idea from Hermann Henselmann, and Jörg Streitparth. Walter Herzog and Herbert Aust later also took part in the planning. Construction began on 4 August 1965. After four years of construction, the Fernsehturm began test broadcasts on 3 October 1969, and it was officially inaugurated four days later on the GDR's National Day. It is among the best known sights in Berlin, and has around a million visitors every year.

Construction of the tower had initially begun at a site in southeast Berlin's Müggelberg. However, the project was stopped because such a tall tower in that location would have obstructed aircraft entering and leaving from the nearby Schönefeld International Airport

"Informer" By Snow Monday Music

 

  Was rolling into work and this was playing on the 90's on 9 again and I thought it was worthy of a bring back.

 I heard this song way back in the 1990's and forgot about it until I happen to hear it on the Sirius/XM channel "90's on 9" and I recalled it and it was an intriguing song and I thought it was pretty neat song and it reminded me of some of the stuff I was doing in the early 90's because I associate music where I am and what I am doing. 

"Informer" is a song by Canadian reggae musician Snow, released in August 1992 as the first single from his debut album, 12 Inches of Snow (1993). The song is well known for the line "a licky boom boom down"^[ and for Snow's fast toasting and often unintelligible lyrics.

Produced by MC Shan, who also contributed a rap verse, "Informer" was a chart-topping hit, spending seven consecutive weeks at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. It was his biggest hit in the United Kingdom, where it reached number two. Its music video was directed by George Seminara. In 2007, "Informer" was ranked number 84 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s". Conversely, the song was included in Pitchfork's 2010 list of "The Seven Worst U.S. Number One Singles of the 90s".^[

In 2019, Puerto Rican singer, songwriter and rapper Daddy Yankee released a new version of "Informer" as "Con Calma" together with Snow, who recorded new parts. The Spanish-language remake topped the charts of 20 countries and reached the top 10 of 10 others.

Snow grew up as Darrin O'Brien in Toronto, Canada. He was raised on classic rock, but after Jamaicans moved into his neighborhood, due to then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's revised immigration policies, reggae became a huge part of his life.

In 1992, while on vacation with DJ Marvin Prince in Queens, New York, Prince introduced Snow to American rapper and record producer MC Shan, and they produced a four-song demo. MC Shan then introduced Snow to producer–managers Steve Salem and David Eng, who signed him to their Motor Jam Records company, and licensed the music to East West Records.^[4] Shortly thereafter, Snow began serving an eight-month sentence in Toronto for assault. "Informer" began getting radio and MuchMusic airplay while he was incarcerated.

The song is based on a separate 1989 incident when Snow was charged with two counts of attempted murder. At the time, he was detained for a year in Toronto before the charges were reduced to aggravated assault, and he was eventually acquitted and freed. In a 1999 interview, he referred to his criminal history as "a couple of bar fights."

AllMusic editor Ron Wynn called the song "patois-laced", noting further that it "shattered the myth that pop audiences wouldn't embrace any tune whose lyrics weren't in pristine English; when his video was released, it included a rolling translation at the bottom." M.R. Martinez from Cashbox felt it demonstrate Snow's "unique delivery which sounds less imitative than some dancehallers or rappers from the bonafide hood." Havelock Nelson from Entertainment Weekly declared the song as "slippery and tuneful". Swedish Expressen described it as "hard-boiled Jamaican crime fiction". Katrine Ring from Danish Gaffa viewed it as an "excellent pop-number". Dennis Hunt from Los Angeles Times felt "he adds a nifty dimension to dancehall by smoothly integrating pop textures."^[ In his weekly UK chart commentary, James Masterton concluded that it "must surely be a contender for No.1 within a week or two."

Alan Jones from Music Week complimented "this infectious, instantly appealing dancehall" song for achieving "the right mix between reggae and hip-hop." He added that it "should make quite a splash here." Cermak and Ross from The Network Forty commented, "You'd swear you were listening to a Jamaican straight out of Kingston, but this 22-year-old white male hails from Toronto's ghetto. Along with mixer DJ Prince and record producer and rapper MC Shan, Snow creates a hooky low-groover with infectious dancehall toasting."^[ Jan DeKnock from Orlando Sentinel labeled it as "dancable". A reviewer from People Magazine felt that Snow's "incarcerations flavor the pumped up, hip-hop-infused single "Informer"."^[ James Hamilton from the RM Dance Update called it both "excellent" and "jaunty". Parry Gettelman from The Sentinel named "Informer" one of two "best tracks" of the album, remarking that it "pair powerful rhythms with killer choruses - hear "Informer" once and just try to get it out of your head."

"Informer" peaked at number one on the singles chart in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as on the Eurochart Hot 100. It entered the top 10 in Austria, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In the latter country, the single peaked at number two during its third week at the UK Singles Chart, on March 21, 1993. Outside Europe, it reached number one in Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, and on the US Billboard Hot 100. In Snow's native Canada, "Informer" topped The Record's singles chart and was a top-10 radio hit, peaking at number nine on the RPM 100 Hit Tracks chart. "Informer" was awarded with a gold record in Austria and the Netherlands, a silver record in the UK, and a platinum record in Germany, New Zealand and the US. In Australia, it received a double-platinum record.

Directed by George Seminara, the accompanying music video for the song shows Snow entering a jail cell. His producer and friend, MC Shan, is also featured in the video; he explains how he got into prison by not turning informer. DJ Marvin Prince is seen enjoying a sauna with a couple of women. There are bikini clad women throughout and Snow is accompanied by female dancers glossed in black and white. When first shown, the video had no subtitles, but they were added because few people could comprehend what Snow was saying.