Page 363 - NIXBOOK

FIREARMS TRAINING

And we practiced shooting at a firearms range several times a year. Unfortunately our range looked nothing like the nice, well
lit, climate-controlled and dry shooting galleries you see on TV or in the movies. Ours was outdoors, deep in the woods way out
past Bremerton about a half hour away from Poulsbo. It was at the end of a long winding dirt road secured with a big metal
locking gate. The drive along the dirt road included some large metal signs on the trees, reminding us in big bold red lettering
of the basic rules of firearms: “Always keep your firearm pointed in a safe direction!” and “Treat all firearms as if they were
loaded!” and “Keep your trigger finger outside the trigger guard and off of the trigger until you are ready to fire!” and “Be certain
of your target, your line of fire, and what lies beyond your target!”
We practiced shooting three or four times a year. There was a pistol range and a rifle range with spray painted lines on the gravel
to mark off standard shooting distances like 10 yards, 15 yards, 25, etc. We had some old mats to put on the dirt when we
practiced shooting while prone with our rifles or kneeling with our handguns but most of the time we practiced standing up,
sometimes out in the open and other times using moveable plywood barricade stands to simulate walls we could use as cover
and concealment.

We never cancelled range dates due to inclement weather, and there was a lot of inclement weather in the Pacific Northwest.
We shot a lot in cold drenching rain and freezing drizzly wet snow. Once a year we had a “night shoot” when we practiced
shooting in the dark, using our flashlights. The easiest way to schedule everybody to shoot in shifts in the dark was to pick one
of the shortest daylight days of the year, which meant we always shot in the dark in…December, when it was of course miserably
cold and usually wet with rain or snow. On the rare shooting days when it was not actually cold, or wet, or drizzling raining in
the fog, or even snowing but was instead actually warm and sunny we’d joke about not being used to shooting in “unusual
weather conditions.”

One time when I went to the gun range there were about 100 US Marines from the submarine base security detachment finishing
up there; I guess their own range was out of service that day. They had their semi-auto rifles and woodland green camouflage
BDU’s and face paint and it looked like quite an imposing scene, until I got closer and noticed that the average age of them all
was only about 19 at which point I felt much, much less intimidated by all of them.