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Old June 6, 2014, 07:43 PM   #65
Slamfire
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Join Date: May 27, 2007
Posts: 5,261
Quote:
I can't remember the total number, but I THINK NRA instructors helped train something like 5 to 7 million new soldiers, and gave them a much better grounding for marksmanship proficiency.

The oldest member of our Gun Club, perhaps, Sammy remembered being taught in basic by a NRA instructor. He said they all sat around this instructor as he explained aiming, etc. However, the recruits did not get a lot of trigger time: he had a total of two 10 shot periods of familiarization before being shipped out to a combat zone. This was typical for that time of the war, Sammy called himself and his comrades "cannon fodder". This gentlemen was issued a carbine, either on the ship, or just prior, he never had a chance to zero the weapon, until he sighted it in on the beaches of Iwo Jima. His communications unit was wiped out by a Banzai charge, out of 25 men, including a Navaho Code talker, only two came out alive: one of whom was Sammy. Sammy showed me a bayonet wound in his arm from this experience, and a lump on his head from the butt of a Japanese rifle. He still has nightmares which keep him up late at night.

My Uncle, a 101 Airborne Paratrooper, he had eight rounds of familiarization with his M1919 before being dropped over Normandy.

Marksmanship is a skill, and these guys did not get enough shooting to acquire any before going into combat. Sammy, our Iwo veteran, earnestly believes that if his Dad had not taught him to shoot before the war, he would have died on Iwo Jima, or Okinawa.
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