Interservice and National Matches

I had the honor to be a member of the Marine Corps Rifle Team in 1976 and 1977. That included being on the famous GySgt Carlos N. Hathcock’s Infantry Trophy Team “The Green Team”. We beat the Army in the Virginia State Match in 1976. I have a prized photo of our team.

I attribute his expert training to me becoming the 1976 Interservice Service Rifle Long Range Champion (600 & 1,000 yards). My score established a New Match Record that stood for two years. Additionally, I was the High Service Rifle Shooter in the Wimbledon Cup Match, winning the George R. Farr Trophy, at the National Matches that year. I have a few stories about the occasion. I'll mention a few here.

It was my first year on the Marine Corps Rifle Team after 17 years of service. I had gotten married in January of that year. I didn't learn until after winning the trophy that my best man, Joe W. Dozier, had won the Farr Trophy the year before. What are the odds of that?

As an experiment, 1976 is the only year that 30 shots were fired plus the two sighters. On the day of the match, the wind was blowing the hardest it had blown during the time we were there. I was on the last relay; that made it worse. In preparation to go to the firing line, my coach and I discussed the amount of windage required. I started putting that amount on my M-14 rifle.

As I was doing this, the windage knob stopped; it would not go far enough. So, we calculated the distance between the center of my target and the target on my right and recalculated the required windage. During the match, I fired on the target to my right to hit mine. This may sound easy enough. However, when I was ready to fire my next shot, the adjacent target was not necessarily up due to the marking and disking of the target for the assigned competitor.

In the end, it all worked out. The black bullseye at 1,000 yards is 44 inches in diameter. However, it has an eight ring (44"), a nine ring (30"), a ten ring (20") and the X ring (10"). With a possible score of 300, mine was 296-10X. Of my 30 shots, I had four nines and 10 in the X-ring. The second and third place winners were also Marines; their scores were both 291.

I didn’t realize it during the match that my wife was behind the firing line watching my target through one of the coaches 100mm Unertl scopes. She was being briefed on my progress. Being on the last relay, as I was getting up from the prone position, it was known that I had won the match. While still buckled up in my shooting coat, my wife greeted me with a huge and a kiss saying “I guess we will be going out to dinner tonight.” Yes, we did … great steak and a good wine.