Army shooters set sights on Olympic gold

FORT BENNING, Ga. (AP) -- Dale Parker won't need to waste much time bonding with some of the other shooters on the U.S. Olympic rifle team.

That's because Sgt. 1st Class Parker and a number of his fellow Olympians already know each other as members of the Army's elite Marksmanship Unit. Seven of the Olympic shooting team's 28 members are full-time marksmen with the Army unit based at Fort Benning.

"Some of the best shooters America has ever produced have come through the Marksmanship Unit," said John Robbins, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, which sponsors shooting competitions across the country.

Shooters from the Marksmanship Unit -- founded by President Eisenhower in 1956 to improve Army shooting skills -- have won 20 Olympic medals and more than 40 world championships. Shooting methods and skills developed in the unit are passed on to soldiers in the field.

The unit's experts teach shooting techniques to drill sergeants, special operations troops, police departments and even civilians at the annual National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio, which are going on now with about 4,500 shooters.

Some of the Army marksmen recently traveled to Iraq to teach soldiers how to shoot from moving tanks and trucks.

The U.S. Olympic team's Army shooters and gunsmith, Sgt. 1st Class Chuck Gartland, also from the Marksmanship Unit, will depart for Athens on Saturday. They'll join the team's 21 civilian shooters who have been training at the U.S. Olympic Training Camp at Colorado Springs, Colo.

"We'll just focus on what we're sent over there to do. If we can do half as good as the guys deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq, then hopefully we'll be bringing some shiny things back," said Sgt. 1st Class Shawn C. Dulohery, winner of the Skeet World Championship in Egypt in 2001, who is making his first trip to the Olympics.

Sara Greenlee, spokeswoman for USA Shooting, which selects and trains the U.S. Olympic shooters, said the civilian and military shooters are close and it makes no difference who makes the team as long as the United States has high-quality competitors.

"It's one team representing the U.S. That's the one thing that unifies them," she said.

Members of the military often compete in international sporting events, said Michael Behnke, a civilian at the Marksmanship Unit.

"There are some countries where the Olympic shooting program is all military," he said. "China is that way."

Parker, who set a world record and won a gold-medal in air-rifle competition at the World Cup matches last year, and a teammate are practicing five hours a day in heavy canvas trousers and a coat meant to minimize movement. For additional stability, they wear a sweater under the jacket to even reduce any movement caused by heart beats.

The team's trap and skeet shooters are more sensibly dressed for South Georgia's hot summers: shorts, T-shirts and sneakers.

"Our training is geared toward the Olympics," said Parker, 30. "Our main job is to shoot, compete and win."

Through it's World-Class Athlete Program, the Army also trains competitors for the biathlon and bobsledding during the Winter Olympics.

During a recent practice at Fort Benning, Parker and fellow air-rifle Olympian, Spc. Hattie Johnson, 22, of Athol, Idaho, fired from adjoining bays in a warm, humid indoor range. Their scores flashed on an electronic overhead display and they could view a close-up of their targets on a monitor.

"It's my first Olympics and I'm a little anxious, but I'm learning from everyone else's experiences in past Olympics," said Johnson, a six-time Idaho and Washington State sport rifle and air rifle champion, who joined the Army in 2002 after graduating from high school.

"The big challenge is getting mentally prepared for this match," she said. "I know how to shoot, but sometimes I'm my biggest enemy. You put more pressure on yourself than anyone else would."

In practice, Parker wears glasses with blinders, lifting his Anschutz rifle to his shoulder in a fluid movement, takes a breath and peers through a peephole sight at a paper target 10 meters away. His goal is to hit a dot the size of a period in the center of a one-and three-sixteenths inch bulls eye.

"I can't really worry about other shooters. I've got enough with myself," said Parker, an Omaha, Neb., native who got his first BB gun at age 3 and began competing with air rifles at 13. "On any given day there are probably 10 to 15 shooters who could win. The one who does is the one who wanted it most."

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On the Net:

U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit: http://www.usarec.army.mil/hq/amu/

USA Shooting: http://www.usashooting.com/usashooting.cfm

National Rifle Association: http://www.nra.org/