by Hap Rocketto
In a article I wrote about National Records and mentioned how some were “good” and other were not. As you might imagine I have heard from a few folks who thought that I was playing a little fast and loose with the record program. That certainly was not my intent. Anyone who can shoot a score that is recognized at the national level has my greatest admiration.
The point I was trying to make is best illustrated by this incident, which sparked the article, in July of 1991. My National Guard Unit, The Connecticut Aviation Classification Activity Repair Depot, had just been released from Federal Service at the end of The Persian Gulf War. I was on terminal leave and entered the Metric Prone Regional. Circumstances were such that my last day of active duty with the US Army was the first day of the regional. NRA rules require that one shoot any multiple day matches in the status that existed on the first day of the tournament. Even though I was a Guardsman on the second day I was required to shoot the whole match in the Service Category.
As luck would have it there were several vacant records for the Service Category in the various metric courses of fire. I had not had a chance to train much since returning from Saudi Arabia, in fact I was just hoping I remembered to bring all of my gear to the range, and did not do as well as I would have wished. Neither did the youngster who was sharing my point. Towards the end of the second day we were sitting on the tailgate of my van commiserating with each other when a fellow All Guardsman ambled on up and proceeded to begin to gently needle me about my new National Records. I had no idea what he was talking about as the posted scores next to my name were certainly nowhere near National Record quality. He then explained my situation. At that moment my young shooting partner lost all sympathy for my plight. It took a few minutes for me to explain to him that the only reason I was being issued, note that I say issued rather than awarded or earned, a record certificate was because I happened to be in the right place at the right time. It was not being recognized for my shooting skill, or in this case lack of it, but rather being awarded a sort of grandiose certificate of attendance.
He was still a little skeptical. I then asked him what he planned to do with the match bulletin when it arrived. He said he would check it out and then probably toss it away. I suggested to him that I would like to do the same thing. It would, however, do me little good because the results would soon be published in the list of National Records and everyone I knew, once the poor scores were posted, would genially hector me. I was suffering from an embarrassment of riches. I’d be a fool not to take any National Record that strayed my way. But, there are no free lunches in this world and I knew that I would have to pay the price for backing into the four records that I established that weekend. My young friend seemed to understand and we were soon back on the tailgate talking about shooting.
