So I went to a Thanksgiving party yesterday and I was welcomed in by my almost-the-same-age-as-me cousin, who was wearing a blond wig and a pair of sunglasses inside the house. It seems that the few lights that were there were absolutely blinding him to death. I could see the smoke coming out from behind the lenses. Of course, I just sarcastically smiled and passed through, because the whole sight was completely hilarious or something.

No, he looked nothing like this. Hellsing is to cool for him (no offense, cousin). This is more like the cartoon version of Ozzy Osbourne without the speech impediment.

After that, I just sat down and talked with my family as I normally would if I were not in a party. Don’t you find that extremely exciting? I mean, I’m not sure. It seems pretty routine, to me, you know. Holy shit I’m going crazy with the italicizing. But, anyhow, so I went with my cousin (lets call him Ed) to one of the rooms and played some form of unfair 1-to-2 dodgeball with this kid (who also happens to be a relative, apparently), and you could see the fear in his eyes when Ed had the ball. Yet he wanted to continue playing?

Apparently he didn't know the reason.

So what did I do? Knowing I was most likely wack (Whack? I don’t know. Damn these slang terms!) at making a throw that would tear his eyes or die some skin cells, I occasionally passed it to Ed. And the ball was like an angry girlfriend, because you could hear it smack him from miles away.

I accidentally hit him in the balls and he didn’t even whimper – it rebounded. My cousin hit him at his ear, and apparently it imploded and it hurt more than him getting hit in the balls (or maybe his balls are part of his eardrums?), since he started crying.

The funny – well, really, the disturbing – thing is that Ed started filming the whole thing mocking him, and then he even said he’s going to post it on Myspace. What the hell kind of shit is that? That is sick. For real. I just stood there in inner shock giving him [Ed] the face.

The Popeye Face.

Sometimes I think he jokes too much, which creeps me out. I found that sort of insensitive and crap. But I didn’t have the guts to do anything. Wish I would’ve said something. I just left the room, and when I came back Ed was giving him some talk about not crying over stupid stuff like that, to suck it up – which I found even more preposterous. I just carried along with a petrified feeling in mi corazon.

It all seemed familiar though..and that’s when I remembered: he was acting just like CJ, that asshole back in them old camp days. Pfft. What a damn role model. I also realized, that at any minute, he could do the same to me if I get out of my gender box and stuff, you know?

But, anyhow, the kid started feeling better, and there was no more dodgeball after that.

Then, thinking I’m probably going to be going to Xavier, out of all the schools I put down, I asked him how it is there, since he just entered as a sophomore. Apparently, you have to pay for food, and they do teach you how to play instruments, if you join for the class of course, and the homework is fine. Looks pretty good to me.

The he told me I’m going to Harvard, which is cool, though Harvard is just a bit overrated.

He also told me he’s planning on going to West Point. I told him there’s no way in pornographic hell I’d go there. But what I really meant was:

1) What the hell are you thinking?!

2) HA! Good luck wit’ that!

I'm sure it will be fun.

Then after that, we listened to some music – Ed dancing around humorously as I laughed at him, and me interrupting the music on his Blackberry with my radio station. He was trying to do air guitar. Didn’t do very good. I think leg guitar would’ve been better for him – that is, if he’s into contortionist stunts.

The food didn’t taste very good, and I had a lot of it left on my plate. I went and inconspicuously threw it out, because I didn’t want to insult whoever cooked that day. Surprisingly, there was no Turkey.

California was refreshing. This year’s chorale may drive me into absolute insanity at times…but the freshmen are energizing and original. The ladies abandon the cultural pretense and the guys aren’t obsessed with who can flirt with the latest beauty. From this perspective, it is unfortunate that I will be departing the chorale next spring.

The holidays are here. Yes, my lights were up in my room weeks ago (and have since malfunctioned). Black Friday begins in less than 8 hours. Best of luck to the midnight shoppers…I will be sleeping. This year, the university has 2 weeks of classes after Thanksgiving (as opposed to 1 week). I am still counting the advantages of this change and simultaneously baffled as to why this has not been done in previous years.

I am looking forward to the film Invictus. View the trailer here Morgan Freeman stars as Nelson Mandela.

Oprah says goodbye in 2011

Obama will be at West Point next Tuesday to announce his decision for Afghanistan

Harry Reid will be hard-pressed to pass the 2,000 page healthcare plan

Google Chrome OS needs some serious work before it’s release

call me a communication’s addict, but it drives me nuts when people think that saying nothing will communicate a (negative) message clearly.   if there’s no trust, there will be no clarity.  what happened to trust?

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

~Tulkas

     Word is that Obama has reached a decision on Afghanistan, after a deliberative approach over 87 days. Word also is that decision will send more than 30,000 troops, over the nex two years, despite Gen. McChrystal wanting there by midsummer. And there is even an exit strategy– home in a decade!

     Never one to miss a photo op, Obama will not address the Nation with this decision from the Oval Office. No, he will fuel up Air Force One and Marine One, and speak from the halls of the United States Military Academy. After all, the cadets at West Point, our future military leaders, are the the heroes.

President Obama will travel to West Point, The U.S. Army’s Military Academy to announce that he will deploying up to 35,000 more U.S. and NATO troops (he’s asking NATO for 10,000) principally to deploy to the southern region of Afghanistan over the next 9 months….This move will be the president’s biggest decision since tackling the economy when he walked in the door of the presidency….

He has also put himself out by declaring to the media during a presser with the Indian Prime Minister ……”I’ve also indicated that after eight years — some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done — it is my intention to finish the job,”

The president had to take more time in his decision to give the military time to put in an exit option, which U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Eikenberry ( a retired Lt. General, who serverd in-country) lobbied for….

Finally, Obama is keenly aware that a major criticism has been the corruption, functionality and unsuitableness of Harmid Karzai’s government…..this a problem that

Will be watched by the State department under Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Eikenberry closely….But will be the basis for any progress….

Because in the end the object will be to have the Afghan’s take over…..Which a lot of us doubt will ever happen….

Wonder what you would find if you frisked President Obama’s speech he is scheduled to give at West Point to announce his new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Answer: Is this another photo op?

I am not saying that it is, but it really makes you wonder…

This President is a complete joke right now. Not only was his Asia trip a complete bust, but now he FINALLY decided on a strategy plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan! General McChrystal gave his recommendations back in August and in the meantime President Obama has been dithering around playing golf and hosting parties while it takes him a semester’s time to make a decision. Oh, not to mention our troops are over there without the resources they need to win.

CBS reports:

President Obama will announce his new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as any troop increase in the region, in a speech next Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time at the United States Military Academy at West Point, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters this morning.

In the speech at West Point, which is located 50 miles north of New York City, the president is expected to announce he is deploying between 32,000 and 35,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Gibbs said today that the president has not yet informed him of a final decision.

This is just completely absurd. President Obama already has the decision, but what does he need to do? He needs to notify the Secret Service to get their gear together, Air Force One to get the plane gassed up, and the press to inform them that he has made a decision and bring the cameras!

Unbelievable… He really can’t just inform the people needed to get this plan underway? After all, he has already wasted three months of the year deadline proposed by General McChystral. It’s obvious that Obama feels the need to waste another week to setup an epic speech at West Point, but don’t worry… His beloved teleprompter will surely be there.

*UPDATE 1*

Oh look! I’m not the only one upset about this issue:

Mr. Ainsworth took the unprecedented step of publicly criticising the US President and his delays in sending more troops to bolster the mission against the Taliban.

A “period of hiatus” in Washington – and a lack of clear direction – had made it harder for ministers to persuade the British public to go on backing the Afghan mission in the face of a rising death toll, he said.

Senior British Government sources have become increasingly frustrated with Mr Obama’s “dithering” on Afghanistan, the Daily Telegraph disclosed earlier this month, with several former British defence chiefs echoing the concerns.

But Mr. Ainsworth is the first Government minister to express in public what amounts to personal criticism of the US president’s leadership over the conflict which has so far cost 235 British lives.

Even America’s socialist friend (Britain) is giving President Obama a big slap in the face over his war delay.

Props to Mr. Ainsworth.

*UPDATE 2*

Do I need to say more?:

General Douglas MacArthur and his mother, Pinky

“Overparenting had been around long before Douglas MacArthur’s mom Pinky moved with him to West Point in 1899 and took an apartment near the campus, supposedly so she could watch him with a telescope to be sure he was studying.” (1)

Prior to his acceptance at West Point in 1898, Douglas MacArthur had been rejected twice due to curvature of the spine. Once he was finally accepted, his mom Pinky was not about to let him flunk out. She packed her bags, left her family in San Antonio, Texas (where her husband, also a military man, was stationed), moved across the country, and checked into a hotel suite overlooking the West Point Academy grounds forty miles north of distant New York City. Pinky MacArthur was determined that her son would be a success. (Her middle son had died six years earlier.)

MacArthur did not disappoint his mother. In 1903, he graduated first in his class of 93. Brig. General Douglas MacArthur then went on to become superintendent of West Point in 1922.

U.S. General Douglas MacArthur smoking his corncob pipe

Douglas MacArthur (1980-1964) continued his meteoric rise in service to his country. He fought in three major wars – World War I, World War II, Korean War – and was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army. For his leadership in the defense of the Philippines in World War II, he  was awarded the Medal of Honor -  a decoration for which he had twice previously been nominated. Allied forces under General MacArthur’s strategic command brought about the surrender of Japan. (3)

To see the full list of MacArthur’s decorations, click here.

Good job, Pinky!

(1) “The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting,” Time, November 20, 2009.

(2) “Memorial Day Memory: General Douglas MacArthur

(3) “Douglas MacArthur,” wikipedia

Hello, friends and others-

I apologize for the lack of updates; the past several weeks have been extremely busy.  Academics have been piling up before Thanksgiving leave, and I’m just now starting to get to a point where I can begin relaxing in time for the break up ahead.

So  I guess there have been a lot of things going on during my absence, like… Oprah announcing an official date to the end of her talk show.  And… President Barack Obama bowed to Japanese Emperor Akihito.  In the sports world, LeBron said that Michael Jordan’s jersey number should be retired and unintentionally disses all the other basketball legends like Magic and Bill Russell, while AI continues to be a one-man drama show.

Anyways, I’ve been thinking really hard about tattoos- I’ve wanted one for quite some time now, but I haven’t gotten a tat yet for a number of reasons.  One of those reasons is the fact that I’m not 100% sure  what I want to permanently put on my body.  I know that it’s going to go on my left back / shoulder blade area, and that it’s not going to be tiny.  At first, I was going to get something similar to the black panther my friend has, but with a tiger instead:

but I don’t want colored ink and it’s hard to make a tiger without some orange ink.  Sooo I’ve hit a roadblock in my tattoo-getting quest.  I want something that really represents who I am.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be an animal, just any symbol that represents “Jay.”  Anyone have suggestions?

On a different note, I found out three days ago that I will be coming home for Thanksgiving leave.  It’s been over four months since I’ve been out of New York, so I’m pretty excited to fly back to the west coast for a few days.  The break isn’t very long, but I’m going to appreciate being away from West Point for awhile.  I just need a break from all the stress and work I get here (according to some of my friends here, I have a ton of gray hairs that make me look like an old man).

“Superman” by Eminem is a good song, replaying in my head over and over and over and over and over- it has bad words, little kids.  Don’t tell your mommies

I’ll try to do a better job of regularly posting on this blog.  I know you guys constantly check in here for no reason, so I’ll try not to disappoint you.

King Louis XIV is not my friend.

I don’t think I’ll ever watch Iris.

Did you know that diarrhea and pneumonia kill more children around the world under the age of five than AIDS and malaria?

My Information Technologies teacher, Major Babbitt, repeatedly told me to “get some.”  He even named the program we were working on “GetSum” but changed it to “GetTheSum” since the course director walked in.  Get some, baby, get some-

Ooh yeah girl run that game

I don’t have diarrhea.  Peace

- Jay

“Why do they have to keep their eyes facing forward Mom?” my sons ask. We’re watching the film, Annapolis, about the Naval Academy.

“They have to keep their focus,” I answer my boys, though what do I know of soldiers. My best guess is that the “Mid-shipman” is trying to see if he can provoke the plebes to react, testing their strength in the face of anger or fear.

As a “liberal” family, we don’t typically watch movies about soldiers, but we are heading to my father’s new home in Annapolis for Thanksgiving so I thought this dvd would lend a nice sense of place.

As a young teen, I lived on the army base at West Point where my physician father was stationed. I watched soldiers run in the woods behind my house in the heat of July in full fatigues with heavy backpacks and boots.

I saw their heads shaved in the courtyard outside the barracks, and I was there when the first women were admitted to the Academy. I watched soldiers march on winter weekends in the cold snow, paying off demerits. I saw them faint in summer pageantry. I knew that plebes couldn’t date. I’d eaten in their mess hall and saw that there were hoops to jump through even before you got your food.

Despite my Army upbringing, I don’t get war. I’d like to see the military do something else with their talents and resources.

I know the whole question of war and peace is not perceived to be that simple, but I did stumble upon something that shed some light inside of my own troubled heart.  It came from the question my boys had asked:

Why do they have to keep their eyes facing forward?

That question stayed with me all evening, and was there again waiting for me in the morning when I woke.   Within it, I began to understand something more about military training.

The idea of “facing forward” teaches presence to what is right in front of you–without letting yourself be distracted by whatever else is going on inside of you–fear, anger, exhaustion and no doubt, self-doubt.

In this way, I realized that military training was very Zen, although I’m not an expert there either.

Despite spewing insults, assaulting weather and pain, great fatigue, and whatever else the human mind can conjure up in the form of suffering, soldiers are required to remain present to the task at hand.

How they carry this type of presence into the battlefield, I don’t know, but I’m sure it serves all who do. With deep presence, there can be no resistance, no fear, no need for escape.

But I wonder, what of that quality of presence can they salvage from their experience? What, if anything, are they able to bring back home?

From what we know of veterans, they simply can’t remain present to all they saw or did or endured. They turn away. And in that action they reap heaps of punishment on themselves, as their own drill sergeant. Or they become their own enemy, and take their own life–or the lives of fellow soldiers.

But what if they were able to keep looking forward? What if their training included such presence after the task at hand? What would come of that?

Great healing I suspect. IN being present, even to that which horrifies us, we release and soften and accept, and then all there is… is love. This truth is echoed in the lives of soldiers who “live” to share their story and fight their way toward peace. And in that discovery, each offers his voice to those who proclaim the futility of war.

With this clear vision, the soldier’s amazing ability to focus could be taken into the world in service–in the kind of service, that she doesn’t have to turn away from when she comes home–in the kind of service that he can look in the eye without shame or hatred–in the kind of service that can change the world, one heart at a time. One soldier at a time. One pair of eyes looking straight forward at a time.

I recently viewed the premier of the film, Taking Root, a documentary about Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan activist, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental action in her country.

In the great breadth of her life’s work on behalf of the land and the people, Wangarii convinces the military that their job as protectors includes the land–and so they too join her campaign planting trees.

This opening of thought and service is just a drop in the empty bucket of terror, but this is how change is watered.

As I revisit this piece of writing following the rise in military suicides, a child of our own arrives in Iraq. He’s not a biological son, but a son of my community, a young man I watched grow up.

Joseph was brought to this country from Africa as a young boy and has now been sent across another sea as an American soldier. I know his beautiful spirit. I know “some” of his pain. He lost most of his family in Ethiopia to AIDs. As a child, he watched both parents and his grandmother die.

Though Joseph was welcomed with open arms into our tiny rural community, he faced racial hatred when he went to highschool in the neighboring town.

Perhaps becoming a Marine after graduation was his way of finding place. I know that his childhood dream was to return to his native country and help the children there. He wanted to buy a farm and raise cows, like those he tended in his family farm in the mountains of Ethiopia.

But America doesn’t fund those kind of dreams–not for teenage boys.

Instead we train them to kill others in far away places and then expect them to return “home” and live as if it never happened.

The same crimes perpetrated abroad would land Joseph in jail in the states, and it is he who will have to come to peace with that discordance.  And it is WE, who hold the responsibility of sending our children to such places of anguish outside–and inside– of themselves.

And so the military will hire more therapists and increase spending to support soldiers with their mental health or their missing limbs or lost comrades or visions of death and suffering while the rest of the country will worry about our incomes and the economy which relies so heavily on perpetuating this machine of hopelessness and cruelty.

My invitation then is for each of us to find a soldier’s strength–to face forward in our lives and do the work that needs doing. And to let that work be of service to others–the kind of service that lends itself to other “drops” of change… until the bucket is tipped over, and we have watered a lush new world.

Kelly Salasin, November 2007 & 2008 & 2009

Paris, November 3, 2009 – It is possible that the creation of an all-professional American army was the most dangerous decision ever taken by Congress. The nation now confronts a political crisis in which the issue has become an undeclared contest between Pentagon power and that of a newly elected president.

Barack Obama has yet to declare his decision on the war in Afghanistan, and there is every reason to think that he will follow military opinion. Yet he is under immense pressure from his Republican opponents to, in effect, renounce his presidential power, and step aside from the fundamental strategic decisions of the nation.

The officer he named to command the war in Afghanistan, Stanley A. McChrystal, demands a reinforcement of 40 thousand soldiers, raising the total U.S. commitment to over 100 thousand troops (or more, in the future). He says that he cannot succeed without them, and even then may be unable to win the war within a decade. Yet the American public is generally in doubt about this war, most of all the president’s own liberal electorate.

President Obama almost certainly will do as the the general requests, or something very close to it. He can read the wartime politics in this situation.

The Vietnam War was opposed by the public by the 1970s, when according to the Pentagon Papers, the government itself knew that victory was unlikely. Today the public doubts victory in the war in Afghanistan. However the version of Vietnam history most Americans (who were not there!) read today says there really was no defeat at all.

It is argued that there was only a collapse of civilian support for the war, caused by the liberal press, producing popular disaffection both at home and inside the conscript army, with a breakdown of military discipline, “fraggings” (murders) of aggressive combat leaders, and demoralization in the ranks. This is the version most military officers believe today.

It is an American version of the “stab in the back” myth believed in German military and right-wing political circles after the first world war.

In the U.S. case, the Vietnam defeat was painfully clear at the time, and few believed that either the U.S. Congress or the Nixon Administration (which signed the peace agreement with North Vietnam) were parties to any betrayal of the United States.

Today the revised interpretation of the Vietnam war, claiming that it actually was a lost victory, has become an important issue because most Pentagon leaders are committed to the “Long War” against “Muslim terrorism.” An Obama administration order to withdraw from Afghanistan, Iraq (or Pakistan) would be attacked by many in Congress and the media, and by implicitly insubordinate elements in the military community, as “surrender” by an Obama government lacking patriotism and unfit to govern.

Conservative politicians are convinced that any policy not set on total victory for the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan — and in coming months, perhaps in Somalia, Yemen, or possibly in Palestine, or sub-Saharan Africa, (or even in an Iran determined to pursue its nuclear ambitions) — would mean American humiliation and defeat.

After Vietnam, Congress ended conscription (which in that war had become heavily corrupt: the poor and working classes were drafted, while many of the privileged had influential families and found complacent doctors or college deans willing to hand over unjustified draft exemptions to those — like the future Vice President Richard Cheney — who had “other priorities” than patriotism and national service.

Congress created a new all-volunteer army. The sociology of the new army was very different from the old citizens’ army. The new one was also composed of people who wanted to be soldiers, or wanted the college education that an enlistment could earn you, or often were high-school graduates who didn’t have much in the way of other career choices, but since 9/11, and the Iraq invasion, the new army has increasingly relied on immigrants or other young foreigners who can earn permanent U.S. residence by way of a U.S. Army enlistment. The U.S. also increasingly has relied on foreign mercenaries hired by private companies..

Its professional character is fundamentally different from the old army. In the old army, career West Point officers were during wartime largely outnumbered by war-service-only officers, the graduates of Officer Candidate schools or Reserve Officers trained in universities (where much of the cost of higher education could be earned in exchange for a fixed term of duty afterwards as a junior commissioned officer).

Thus the U.S. army from the start of the Second World War to the end of Vietnam was effectively a democratic army, with civilian conscripts, and the majority of its non-commissioned and commissioned officers peacetime civilians, with solid commitments to civilian society, often with families at home –- doing their temporary (or “for the war’s duration”) patriotic duty.

Professional armies have often been considered a threat to their own societies. It was one of Frederick the Great’s own officers who described Prussia “as an army with a state, in which it was temporarily quartered, so to speak.” The French revolutionary statesman Mirabeau said that “war is Prussia’s national industry.” Considering the portion of the U.S. national budget that is now consumed by the Pentagon, much the same could be said of the United States.

The new army also has political ambitions. It now dominates U.S. foreign relations with a thousand bases worldwide and regional commanders like imperial proconsuls. Both General McChrystal and his superior, General David H. Petraeus, have been mentioned as future presidential candidates. The last general who became American president was Dwight D. Eisenhower. He is the one who warned Americans against “the military-industrial complex.”

I’m sitting in Thayer Hall room 326 right now; I’ve been here since 0720 this Saturday morning, after going to mandatory breakfast.  I’m here because I’m enrolled in something called SSP – Saturday Study Period.  SSP is supposed to be for cadets who are academically deficient, i.e. they either have an F or two D’s in their classes.  So I’m a little bit confused to why I’m exactly here-

About a month ago, I was sick again and couldn’t go to class.  This time, though, I really didn’t want to go to sick call after being quarantined the second week of school so I decided that I would just rest up and go back to class when I was better again.  I guess this is really bad doodoo here at the academy – you either have to be in class or at sick call.  If you aren’t at either one of those two places, then you’re technically unaccounted for and in case of an emergency they wouldn’t know where I was.  Technically.

My little act of taking care of myself ended up being a huge ordeal.  I guess I missed the number of classes that usually requires the academy to ask the cadet to leave for a semester or year and come back because he or she is probably too far behind in his classes to catchup.  Fortunately, I’ve been able to maintain stellar grades and so this wasn’t necessary at all.  But my chain of command thought that it would look really bad if they didn’t punish me for missing class, even though I was legitimately sick.  So for the longest time, my PL was constantly telling me that I should expect a battalion board soon (kind of like a trial) and I was ridiculously stressed out.  But then I met with my TAC and she told me not to worry and everyone finally said the whole thing was dropped.

And then I find out a week ago that I have a company board (not as serious as battalion) and that I should expect to receive some hours and be required to go to SSP, and that’s exactly what happened.  Now let’s break this down: 1) I’m getting punished for missing class because I was sick; 2) receiving hours (when you get hours, you literally walk back and forth in this little area for however many hours you get. Alcohol incidents get you like 100-some hours, and you have to walk them on weekends on your free time. If you don’t finish your hours you can’t graduate) is fair, and I was really lucky with that because I kid who was late to two classes got five hours, the same amount as me but I missed.. a ton of classes. So I’m not complaining about my hours; 3) I’m going to mandatory SSP because I’m not failing..?  I really don’t understand that.  If I missed those classes and my grades suffered, then I could understand why I would have to go to mandatory study hall.  But I’m going because I’m doing well in class.  Go figure-

I apologize for this unnecessary post – it was pretty much just a rant.  The next post won’t be nearly as much of a waste of time as this one+

I don’t eat babies

- Jay

The Fort Benning Junior Rifle Club, started in the 1970s, was formed to help junior shooters raise their level in competitive shooting and assist them in getting recognized by college coaches. It is organized and run by members of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s International Rifle team, whose roster includes Olympians and national champions.

CLICK HERE for U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit Website (Check out the video!)

“The kids are extremely motivated,” said Staff Sgt. Armando Ayala, the club’s head coach. “These shooters are exposed to the USAMU work ethic and our accomplishments, and it really motivates them.” Fourteen-year-old MacKenzy Crawford explains: “This is a ton of fun…. I started shooting when I was six and wanted to join the school’s rifle team, so I needed to get practice and coaching here.”

There are 52 kids in the Club this year, Ayala said, almost double the number of shooters from last year. There are two training sessions a week during the school year with a break during the winter holidays. Besides Ayala, who attends every training session, two of his teammates rotate from week-to-week, allowing the students a chance to work with the entire IR team. “We teach shooters from beginners all the way to advance levels,” he remarked. “We essentially take them from never shooting to the U.S. National junior team-level.”

Club members compete in a number of matches year-round. The biggest matches are sanctioned by USA Shooting, including the national championships and spring and fall selection matches for juniors. They also travel to Camp Perry, Ohio each summer to compete in the Smallbore National Championships and compete in regional postal and invitational matches.

Training Program Leads to Future Success
Many junior club members have achieved success at college and beyond. West Point has tapped into the program and recruited future officers through the academy’s shooting team, and many former and future members made the military their career choice after being tutored within the military environment. Coaches from Columbus State, University of Kentucky, Memphis University, Texas Christian University, Nebraska and others have scouted the club’s members and brought scholarship offers with them.

“To see our juniors develop into motivated young citizens and accomplish great things is very rewarding,” Ayala said. “I know what they learn here they carry into all aspects of their lives because the examples set for them affect their lives. What we do here really inspires and motivates young people.”

Report by By Michael Molinaro, USAMU PAO