My parents did not allow toy guns in our household. Actually, no toy weapons, period. No suction-cup bows and arrows, no plastic knives, MAYBE a neon-tinted water gun or two, and eventually, two super-soakers. (Interesting… pretend combat seems to have escalated from finger guns to cap guns to water guns, paintball guns, and airsoft guns.)
I can vaguely recall my father hunting with my grandpa when I was quite young, and my oldest brother hunted in high school. By the time I was old enough for a hunting license, however, we lived in an urban area and hunting was no longer a part of my father’s life.
I should mention a little bit about my personality as a child. I was non-violent. Passive. I can only recall one punch being thrown with my hand, and it missed its mark, mostly. As far as a childhood dream of being an Army-man or hunter, it was quite the opposite. I was an unusually patriotic little boy, so I told myself the only way I’d join the military was if there was another Civil War or something. As for hunting, I thought I’d have made a terrible Pilgrim, because there was no way I could stomach shooting a turkey.
I think I did want to shoot a gun once I was climbing in my teens, though. More for the experience, than anything. I didn’t want to enter into adulthood not knowing how to handle a weapon. On a trip to visit my grandparents in North Dakota, my opportunity came. I must have been 16 or 17 at the time. My grandpa owned several guns, including a little .22 rifle. At the time, I thought it was like a hand-held cannon whose firepower could crush through any armor. My dad and brother and I took the rifle, bought a small box of ammo at the grocery store in town, and drove out to the city dump.
After a brief lesson on weapon safety, we began shooting at stuff. Microwaves, stoves, refrigerators, anything with glass. We shot at a cinderblock, which is when I realized the rifle may not have the penetrating power I thought it did. After being sprinkled with pellets of block, I grew much more selective in what I shot at. Shooting was so much fun. I remember being nervous at first, but the fears were shattered, along with an old tv tube. After a while, we wrapped things up, and my dad said maybe after lunch we could go to some fields to look for chipmunks to shoot. I did not like the sounds of that. I dreaded the thought in fact. When I was 8 or 9, I saw a squirrel run over by a car. I mourned his death the rest of the afternoon, and held a grudge against that yellow cutlass around the corner for some time.
Anyway, lunch ended and we headed into the fields north of town to look for innocent critters we could shoot through the head. After driving around a bit we stopped at a field and my dad said something to the extent of, “Do you guys want to hop out and see what we can find?” I seized the opportunity to nonchalantly say, “Not really.” I was relieved.
But now another thing happened on that same trip. There was a woodchuck making a home under a neighbor’s garage. My grandpa had seen it and shot at it a few times, but the woodchuck thrived. He was a bit of a nuisance, because woodchucks can chuck a lot of wood. I saw him once, but by the time someone grabbed the rifle and ran outside, the critter was under the garage. Then something in my competitive spirit took over. The woodchuck was under the garage. He couldn’t stay there forever. And when he came out, I’d be waiting for him. So I took the rifle, two rounds, and sat on a stump maybe 40 yards from the garage. And I waited. 5 minutes passed. Then 15, 30, 45 minutes, an hour. Nothing. An hour and a half. Nothing. I waited. My mom came out. “I’ll eat later”, I told her. Finally, the woodchuck appeared. My heart rate spiked, and I lifted the rifle sights to my right eye. I squeezed (probably jerked) the trigger. Dirt sprayed. The woodchuck kept moving. By the time I loaded the second round in the rifle, he was gone. No slowing down, no blood spilled. I missed.
A couple years later, I joined the Marine Corps. This is not the time to unpack all the factors that contributed to that decision. Entering bootcamp, all of my shooting experience was wrapped up in that little .22. I didn’t know how shooting was going to go for me. I hoped to qualify, and not be kicked out of bootcamp for my inability to shoot. As our rifle training week began, I was eating up all of the intricacies of shooting position, controlled breathing, etc. Then came the day to zero our rifle sights. 10 rounds at 30 yards, with my M16. Would it hurt? Would I get a good shot group? Would my shots even be on the page? My first three shots were a tight group, but fell in the lower right corner of the page, well off the target. I made the appropriate sight adjustments, and hoped for the best on the next three shots. “Okay, Jonathan, seven factors of a good shooting position, let the shot surprise you, pull the trigger during the natural respiratory pause, relax.” 3 shots center mass. No adjustments. 4 more rounds center mass, shot holes stacking on top of each other. My drill instructor looked at my card as I walked off the shooting line. “Did you grow up on a farm or something?”, he asked. “No sir, this recruit has hardly ever shot before.”
A few days later was qualification day. 50 rounds: 20 @ 100 yards, from various shooting positions, 20 @ 300 yards, and 10 @ 500 yards. There were 10 round courses of fire that were rapid fire, meaning all 10 rounds needed to be fired in 60 seconds or less, as well as a magazine change in the middle. If all ten shots in the rapid fire were in the center of the target, it was called shooting a possible. (All possible points) Our marksmanship instructor said he would get a Snickers bar for anyone who shot 2 possibles on qualification day. I never did get that Snickers bar I earned.
I did shoot well enough to earn the Expert rifleman shooting badge, the highest badge awarded. I continued to gain confidence in my shooting at the range, in tactical scenarios, and in combat. To me, though, the penultimate application of my ability was to try out for a scout sniper platoon. The Marine Corps definition of a Scout Sniper is, “A Marine highly trained in field skills and marksmanship, capable of delivering long-range precision fire at selected targets from concealed positions, in support of combat operations.” I passed the indoctrination, and was invited to join the Scout Sniper platoon.
But I’m bored of writing, so where am I now? After firing around 30,000 rounds in my military career, I’ve shot 24 rounds since, and that was to qualify on the shotgun for my current job. For all the rounds fired, and all the hours spent cleaning rifles and machine guns, my proficiency with shooting them hasn’t translated into an expensive hobby, post military. Why is that? Well, I just said it’s expensive. Also, it’s fun to play the piano, until you begin taking lessons and HAVE to practice the piano. Shooting was my job. It became burdensome to go to the range and shoot barrels 5,000 feet away with our m102 Barrett .50 cal. That should never be burdensome. I’ve had very slight pangs of desire to shoot sometimes, but time by myself or with my family has always won out. I’m also hesitant to keep trying to live in the Marine Corps years as my life goes on. That was then, it’s over, and I’ll continue to shoot, but only when I need to. Oh, there’s also the immense pressure and expectation that because I was in a sniper platoon, I will shoot better than anyone, always. Nope. I can’t. In fact, I’ll probably never be the best shot in the given group of people. But my pride so desperately wants to be, that I’ll sometimes avoid shooting.
I’m realizing I wanted to focus on how I went from mild-mannered boy to expert Marine rifleman, and I suppose I did that, so I’m done. Thanks, woodchuck, for flipping a switch in me.
