by Hap Rocketto
The young lieutenant was at his first posting. Fresh from West Point he firmly believed that troop training ranked as his priority. Being well trained and spruce was the hallmark of a professional soldier and professionalism mattered. He rapidly won the respect of his subordinates and superiors for his successful pursuit of unit and individual excellence.
While it was an article of faith that all American boys were dead shots the reality was often quite the opposite. As a boy in North Central Missouri he had come to love guns and held in high regard skilled marksman and was a competent rifleman during his cadet days on the Hudson. His earliest experiences in combat convinced him that marksmanship was first among the soldierly virtues.
While at West Point the young officer did well in most subjects but struggled in the mandatory foreign languages-French and Spanish. Therefore, he may not have been able to translate Voltaire with ease but he certainly agreed with him when he wrote, “Dieu ne pas pour le gros battalions, mais pour sequi teront le meilleur.. –“God is not on the side of the big battalions, but of the best shots.” Whether he could translate it or not was moot because he certainly agreed with the eminent philosopher.
Never asking any of his soldiers to do what he would not do, he practiced hard to encourage his men and to lead by example. His hard work paid off as his men quickly became proficient. All the hard work had an unintended consequence. He was selected to represent his regiment in Departmental competition and won a medal for his efforts. He had done well and developed a taste for competition at the highest levels.
Transferred, as is the lot of a junior officer, he found himself in command of a unit whose only proficiency was ineptitude in all military virtues. He quickly ordered daily rifle practice. Leading by example he was there each day to demonstrate, chivvy, encourage, and reward his charges. Nothing less might be expected of a good officer and his effort were rewarded when, a few months after his arrival his unit won the regimental rifle tournament.
His personal prowess with rifle and pistol were nearly at a peak when he was ordered away for field duty. It would be two years before he was able to again spend some time on the range and by then his skills had seriously eroded. He had keen searching gray eyes and he set those eyes on competing in the upcoming departmental matches he cajoled a range assignment. For three weeks he worked on eye and arm exercises and scraping away the rust that had gathered on his shooting skills with practical range work. His hard work was rewarded and he won two medals to add to the one he had picked up two years earlier.
In those days three medals won in Departmental competition translated into a fourth gold medal because War Department General Orders Number 12, promulgated on February 20, 1884, directed that “…whenever any marksman has been three times a member of a department team or has won any of the three authorized prize medals, he will be announced in general orders from these headquarters as belonging to a distinguished class….” The fourth medal was a gold acorn shaped device hanging from a suspension bar. Attached to the pendent was an enameled target and it was surrounded by embossed lettering which spelled out “Distinguished Marksman.”
The young second lieutenant had joined the relatively small number of men, 211 at the time, who had earned the special designation since its inception just ten years earlier. The Sixth Cavalry junior officer was not known widely outside of the cloistered environs of the US Army when he went Distinguished. That would change.
The first day of July 1898, saw him as a first lieutenant as he led his troops of the Tenth Cavalry in support of then Colonel Teddy Roosevelt’s assault on San Juan and Kettle Hills. The association may have paid off. Eight years later, now President Teddy Roosevelt promoted him from captain to brigadier general over the heads of 835 officers senior to him. While controversial, but not unprecedented, many officers were in agreement as he had demonstrated ability to command troops in combat. With that promotion John Joseph Pershing became the first Distinguished Marksman to become a general officer.
The next years would see him chase Pancho Villa through northern Mexico in the uncharacteristically unsuccessful 1916-17 Punitive Expedition. Upon the 1917 death of American Expeditionary Force Commander designate Major General Frederick Funston Pershing was named his replacement and promoted to general, the first person to hold that rank since Philip Sheridan in 1888.
Pershing successfully prosecuted the United States’ military participation in World War I. In recognition of his World War service Congress authorized his promotion to General of the Armies of the United States, a rank created especially for him through Public Law 66-45. President Woodrow Wilson approved the promotion on September 3, 1919.
There are only five generals who hold Distinguished status, General Courtney Hicks Hodges, USA, Distinguished Marksman; General Thomas Holcomb, Junior, USMC, Distinguished Marksman, General Lyman Louis Lemnitzer, USA, Distinguished Marksman; General David Monroe Shoup, USMC, Distinguished Pistol Shot, and General Merrill B. Twining, USMC, Distinguished Pistol Shot.
With a few strokes of his pen President Wilson made Pershing both the highest ranking military man in United States history as well as the highest ranking holder of the Distinguished Badge.
