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Did you know the Navy has an official shooting team?
It does, but the team that’s been around since 1907 is in danger of falling apart after deep budget cuts two years ago, team members say. The Navy’s best marksmen foot the bill — amounting to thousands of dollars a year — for the lodging, transportation, fees, guns and ammo needed to represent the service at top competitions. And the cuts are making it hard to keep going, let alone recruit the next generation’s sharpshooters.
“We need equipment for the young shooters, to inspire them to get in the game,” said Senior Chief Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician (EWS/SW/AW) David Walker. “Some of the old-timers are leaving, and who’s going to be next?”
Walker and some others can recall the time when their competitions and team expenses were wholly covered by the service, which stopped in 1977. But Naval Sea Systems Command still picked up some bills until two years ago, another team leader said.
“We have had some support, up until two years ago,” said Cmdr. Mick Glancey, the team’s officer-in-charge. “NAVSEA had been basically paying for weapons and maintenance, [but] they lost the funding to support the small-arms program, which paid for ammunition.”
The team is made up of a couple dozen shooters, from a variety of ranks and ratings, who represent the Navy several times a year at local and regional marksmanship competitions, in addition to the major East Coast, West Coast and national fleet championships.
All participation is voluntary and on the sailor’s dime, unless you get very lucky. Some commands will grant fully funded temporary additional duty, Glancey said, but his teammates mostly get no-cost TAD. Some must use their own leave days to travel for multi-day competitions.
Entry fees can reach $500 for fleet matches. When you factor in travel, lodging and food, it really adds up, Glancey said.
“Junior sailors can’t do it,” he said in a Sept. 29 phone interview.
Sometimes, to save money, they’ll bunk in open barracks for fleet matches at the Marine bases in Quantico, Virginia, or Camp Pendleton, California.
This is a world apart from other services’ prestigious marksmanship teams. Members of the Army Marksmanship Unit or Marine Corps Shooting Team get orders to join the team as their full-time job. Soldiers from AMU routinely sweep national competitions and have represented the U.S. at every Summer Olympics the U.S. has participated in since 1960, with two dozen of them winning Olympic medals.
By contrast, Glancey said, sailors are not looking to make shooting their occupation, but some help in off-setting the costs would be much appreciated.
“In a perfect world, I’d love to see the folks that make the team get fully funded orders to go shoot,” he said.
What it takes
The Navy Marksmanship Team competes in pistol and rifle events, and sailors have to buy their own equipment and ammunition. They use 1911 .45 caliber pistols and M16 or AR15 rifles. Glancey said it costs about $6,000 just to get started.
“It’s kind of like SCUBA diving — once you’ve got all of the equipment, all you’ve got to pay for is air,” he said.
But the “air” isn’t cheap either. Once upon a time, a NAVSEA truck would show up at fleet matches loaded with 80 pistols and rifles and all the ammo they needed, but no longer.
“A lot of our sailors have basically become brass rats,” Glancey said, collecting used shell casings to reuse.
Aside from bragging rights or individual match awards, there’s some other brass that sailors can take home from the competitions. NMT sailors can earn their Navy Excellence in Competition Badges, which they can wear on their uniforms.
Walker, the EOD senior chief, believes the funding cut is a symptom of the Navy’s waning focus on marksmanship.
“The Navy, in my opinion, is less focused on marksmanship because of our technology,” he said. “However, when it comes down to it, basic marksmanship not only goes with shooting, it’s a way of life.”
Glancey has similar feelings. He’s now surface combat systems branch head at Navy Personnel Command, but he said his weapons training came in handy on an Iraq deployment.
“A lot of our guys, myself included, find ourselves doing things we never thought we would be doing in the Navy, like walking the streets in Fallujah or going through a village in Afghanistan with an M16 or a 9mm,” he said.
Even in the fleet, weapons proficiency and aim is key, he said.
“We send sailors up the sides of ships on [visit, board, search and seizure] teams,” Glancey said. “That sailor better damn well know how to use that M16 or M4 or his M9 [service pistol] when he gets over the side, because not everybody’s your friend when you get up there.”
