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From time to time I am asked about the sources and, in particular, the veracity of the many anecdotes, incidents, and occurrences that form the basis for Hap’s Corners.

In my half century of competitive shooting I have met a good deal of people, done a good deal of things, seen a good deal of events, heard a good deal going on about me, and have been told a good deal history. It is fitting as shooting has been a very good deal for me. Being blessed with a good ear for a story, a mind that is a sink hole for trivia, and the gift of gab I am able to embroider some nice filigree onto whole cloth.

As a kid The Old Man was a source of great wisdom which I did not truly appreciate at the time. It was a case of the Mark Twain quotation concerning his father, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

The Old Man did his best to keep me on the straight and narrow with his insight. Recognizing my limited potential he insisted on two things: being on time and the truth. He preached that, “If you are ten minutes early you are on time, if you are on time you are late, and if you are late you are forgotten. Being on time,“ he told me,” lets people know that you care about them while being late was rude as it said you were more important than them.”

Truth was simple, “Honesty is not the best policy, it is the only policy, especially if you have a poor memory.” Being truthful meant only having one thing to remember an advantage to his scatterbrained son. This brings us to the subject at hand; the veracity of Hap’s Corners.

One of my favorite western films is The Cowboys. It is a coming of age movie that is one of John Wayne’s better performances, right up there with The Quiet Man’s Shawn Thornton, Ethan Edwards in The Searchers; She Wore a Yellow Ribbon’s Nathan Brittles, and Kirby York from Fort Apache.

It is also one of the eight movies in which Wayne’s character is killed, shot by a gunman in this one and The Shootist, killed by a sniper in both The Fighting Seabees, and Sands of Iwo Jima, speared by a Mexican lancer in The Alamo, drowned in The Wake of the Red Witch, killed in the aftermath of an attack by a giant squid in Reap The Wild Wind, and died in a plane crash at sea in Central Airport. Wayne toyed with death in three other films, he was already dead at the start of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, he played a corpse in The Deceivers, and may have died in the ambiguous ending of The Sea Chase.

The Cowboys tells the story of rancher Wil Anderson’s efforts to get his herd to market with the help of a black cook, Jebediah Nightlinger, and a bunch of young boys after his regular crew abandons him to set off for a nearby gold strike. During the cattle drive the boys grow into manhood learning from a strong willed, righteous, and tolerant Anderson that the world is a hard, cruel, and random place where nothing comes easy.

Anderson hires Nightlinger to cook for the drive in a delightful scene where he is asked to give the recipe for apple pie. Nightlinger replies, “Green apples sliced thin, lard, flour salt, water to bind, sugar, cinnamon, a dab of butter. Three slashes in the crust, one for steam and two because your momma did it that way.”

Nightlinger’s character was created by Emmy and Obie award winner Roscoe Lee Browne, an actor with a deep mellifluous baritone voice and patrician air reminiscent of Paul Robeson or James Earl Jones.

After he is hired he shows up in the bunkhouse the night before the drive begins where he menacingly says “It smells of boy in here” as he prepares for bed. The boys are taken aback, and a bit frightened, as they have never before seen a black man. With some trepidation they tentatively ask him a few naive and childlike questions, about his color, to which he answers in a straight forward manner.

After the questions taper off he launches into a poetic monologue about his heritage.

“Ohhh, children… My father was a brawny Moor, six feet six inches tall. He bound his head in a red velvet cloth. He wore a curved sword, forged from the finest Toledo steel. He captured a lady, bright and dark. He took her in his arms and wrapped her in a warm quilt and carried her off. They came to a castle and he battered down the doors with the trunk of an oak tree and KILLED EVERYBODY IN IT, just so they could rest the night. Later, while she slept, he walked the parapets…………. and became a king.”

An awestruck youngster stutters, “Is that true?”

Nightlinger replies, “If it isn’t, it oughta be.”

And that also pretty much sums up the veracity of Hap’s Corners.

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.

by Hap Rocketto

“There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark…” wrote Dante, of Hell in The Divine Comedy,

The same might be said about the outcry from certain quarters about the National Rifle Association, the governing body for most high power shooting, making the decision to remove “From Standing to …” from the execution of 200 and 300 yard rapid fire shooting.

The NRA’s position was/is that because of the aging of the high power community, and its attendant lack of flexibility and athletic ability, there is the real possibility of a shooter, particularly in the 200 yard stage, tumbling over with a loaded rifle. Furthermore, the short barreled AR platform is more prone to “sweeping the line” than the longer barreled wooden service and match rifles. This particular phenomenon has seen more than one rifleman, crouched to drop into position, cast a sideways look only to find himself looking down the muzzle of his neighbor’s loaded rifle.

A certain eleven time National High Power Champion, who will go unnamed here, had, at about the same time, been troubled by a medical condition that precluded his ability to obey the command, “Firers rise!” This man’s problem’s conjunction with the rule change quickly caught the attention of the Internet experts, which may have been their high power classifications for all I know. It was trumpeted about that the rule change was really an accommodation made to the famed rifleman by the “Old Boy” contingent of the NRA High Power Committee so the unnamed champion might still continue to win matches. Safety had nothing to do with it claimed the conspiracy theorists. This Dog in the Manger argument quickly picked up momentum and the high power forums were quickly all afire calling the rule changes, among other things, the death knell of high power shooting as we know it.

The Civilian Marksmanship Program, the governing body for National Trophy competition, saw the same safety issue but took a different tack than the NRA. The CMP simply declared that competitors were no longer allowed to load the rifle until in position. This ruling was another lightning rod for the conspiracy theorists that imagined the “integrity” of the sport being jeopardized.

This crowing came from a small crowd far too young to remember a time when service rifle shooter shot rapids in 50 and 60 seconds, had to load from the body, were not permitted shooting pants or mats, and a mention of a range cart referred to the one that the match director used to get about from place to place. The flock bleated such silly Non sequiturs as, “When I get so old that I can’t get up and down I’ll quite shooting” or, “Just how many guys have actually fallen and discharged their rifles?”

After reading a fair amount of this back and forth self righteousness, from a bunch of guys who primarily shoot a centerfire 22 caliber rifle and call it high power, I was reminded of an incident I heard in my younger days when I first started on my way to Distinguished with a wooden rifle.

When I started shooting service rifle I listened carefully to my elders hoping to learn from their collective wisdom. I needed to learn from others’ mistakes because I knew I could not possibly live long enough to make them all myself. I am sure that all of those tales of the great riflemen of the past which I heard were absolutely true. Why would the old gray beards of the sport tell me falsehoods and exaggerations? Witness this story.

A high power shooter was troubled by an unusual gastric problem and went to his doctor, a team mate by chance, to seek relief.

The doctor asked him to describe the malady and how it presented itself.

“Doc, this is sort of embarrassing. Every time I drop down into rapid sitting I am overcome with flatulence.”

The doctor asked him to demonstrate so he slithered into sitting and a burst of sound like ripping canvas broke the quiet of the examining room as he hit the floor.

The doctor asks him to rise and assume the prone position from standing. All was quiet but his belt buckle hitting the linoleum as he flopped down on his belly.

“Stand up and try off hand” the doctor ordered. Again, not a sound was heard.

The doctor then told him to assume sitting once again. He crossed his legs and dropped down. The ripping sound, this time accompanied by a noisome odor, repeated itself.

Pursing his lips and rubbing his chin the doctor mumbled, “Hmm, interesting case.” At this he walked over to the window and picked up a long pole which was lying against the wall.

“What are you going to do with that?” the shooter nervously asked, fearing the worst.

“This is a transom pole you fool. I’m going to open the window and let some fresh air into this room,” the doctor replied.

Now, after three years of living with the new rule the discussion occasionally surfaces. With no diminution of the great traditions of high power shooting in the intervening years isn’t it about time we, like the doctor, open the window and let in some fresh air, and rid ourselves of this flatulent discussion on the standing to position rule change?