Small Arms Training

All this smacks of an ensign inferiority complex. If the Navy ever needs you to carry a rifle, they'll get you the range time. If you make it through flight school you'll get to go qualify with one of the awful M9's. There's no sense in chasing medals. You'll come out of your first sea tour with a handful of them to feel good about yourself. At which point you're going to feel a little dumb for having paid for a pair of them.

If you're only doing it for the medals, then I would have to agree. However, for people who have never had any formal firearms education, it's not a terrible deal. You also get a few medals out of the deal.

If you really want to talk about feeling dumb. . .what about those guys who paid $50,000+ to get their certificate BEFORE they joined the Navy. Now that's a lot of money to have spent for something the Navy can get you. That being said. . .I am one of those schmucks.

Pretty much how I feel about it. I've never had any 'formal' firearms training but have shot guns my whole life. I think it'd probably be beneficial for me to do the course. Medals or no medals.

You can take a much better course for $170.

A few of my friends did it because they were frustrated they got no formal firearms training from the Navy. I'm in a god damn armed service, but the Navy has never let me touch a weapon. The Marines get this part of the equation right in OCS/TBS.

That's gay. I mean it's their money, they can spend it as they see fit, but seriously that's super-gay.

Marines also get bad haircuts, digging and sleeping in fighting holes, and plenty of other suck to go with it.

Just saying that I'd probably get something out of doing the course other than a couple of medals. Not that the medals really matter to me.

I'm one of the cool guys with 3 medals. It's an ensign superiority complex for me.

This. I finally got a chance to do a pistol qual a couple months ago. Even then, the training we got beforehand was just to make sure we could operate the pistol safely and without shooting ourselves or our buddies, not to shoot well. As someone who has never handled firearms beforehand, I would love to be trained to be a good shot.

Yeah, I found it kind of odd how that works too. I also found it odd that 'Big Navy' would pay for us to shoot 20-30 rounds at OCS instead of just giving us the 50 to get the qual done.

The numbers are still being crunched, but there is evidence to support a trend of those Navy SNAs with shooting medals/qualifications finishing with higher NSSs than those without. They think it has something to do with the attention to detail required in shooting having a correlation with the attention to detail required in flying.

First gun I ever shot in an official capacity in the Navy was the M61A1. No medals to be had on that one, just some sweet 20mm casings that I got to take home after giving the guys in ordnance a case of chucks.

You can get an award for firing the gun. It's called a SOD and you get it when you accidentally strafe a spotting tower.

You can, as long as someone has an RSO qual from the military.

Yeah, heard about that one. Didn't like that whole class attrite for one reason or another or something crazy like that?

I don't think so. Word on the street is that he got sent home from det, then pressed.

I did the shooting with Captain Ron and got both my Es. It is a little expensive but we shot for probably 6 hours which was a blast. We counted and he had 20+ different guns that he let us shoot. You also get the necessary training to get your Concealed Carry Permit here in Florida.

You mean, your military ID card or DD-214?

OK...that makes it a lot less gay. Although ribbon hunters are still tools.

I think what allows guys like this to give/proctor the quals is the fact that it's a qual ala PQS vice some other type of award. I've never heard of the Navy ammo requirement although I'm several years removed from the Navy shooting teams so it may have changed since then.