They are not really pups anymore at 23 years old but they still make me proud.

I took my nephew Austin to a 3-gun match yesterday where the first part of a stage was engaging 8, 6" steel plates at 100 yards with the rifle. Most of the shooters including myself were using a red dot or optical sights on AR's. Austin has a new Bushmaster with the flip up iron sights. A clean in this stage would be 16 shots fired and most of the shooters who went before us were shooting from 20-30 or more shots to get two hits on each steel. I heard a few snickers from the old pro as he went to the stage with the iron sighted carbine. They did not snicker long when he dropped into a prone position behind cover and absolutely blazed through the stage with a clean run. Big smile from Uncle Jeff on that! As I was preparing to make my run I heard some of the competitors ask him where he learned to shoot like that (thinking he may have military training) Austin just smiled and pointed at me and said that man right there! Austin is a Paramedic for an ambulance company, a volunteer firefighter and is testing and on the list for several fire departments .

So where was my son during this match? He is a little busy these days. He is finally in USMC OCS at Quantico Virginia. He is three weeks into a ten week course. I have seen the eyes in that second picture looking up out of a duck blind before...

A side note - they have a site for photos from the OCS training and it can be hard to pick out your Marine when they all are wearing helmets and B DU's but I can always find John becuase I trained him to carry the AR around the delta ring because that is where the balance point is.


www.trngcmd.usmc.mil/O...C-210.aspx

He got some liberty time yesterday and we got to talk to him for a while. He said that right after this picture was taken, the Navy corpsman told the team to freeze and one of the seargent instructors killed a snake in the grass right near Johns boot....or to use his words "smoked the snake with his rifle butt"

Aint it grand to see your kids growing up and doing something that makes YOU proud.
My elder is now doing Security work while he awaits the Police.
The younger he's doing primary school teacher training.

Both make me super proud.
Yours obviously do the same for you.

Life's Grand aint it!

You have obviously done a great job as a Dad.
good on you and it is ok to brag about your kids (it better be I do it all the time).

2nd Lt. John Porter



26 more weeks of training at Quantico..

Dawgdad...Something wrong with the security certiicates and only the last photo shows on my computer. Good lookin' Marine...

You DO need to explain to him that Marines are supposed to look mean and no cutsie smile...

I need to get to Quanitco ASAP...seems they got some cuties I need to see about....Hey DawgDad don't let it get out that a Navy guy saved a Marine from a snake, he'll never live through it...oh it was a sarg that killed the snake, thas' OK then, whew!

Suz
on a
dribble

is this more like it Bushy?

NOW we have a Marine in sight. Yup...

That's badass DD! Congrats! You gotta be proud.

Latest news from Quantico Camp Barrett TBS training...

John was doing M249 SAW live fire training yesterday. Each Lt. was issued a belt of ammo and they paired up with one man firing and one spotting the tracers with binoculars. John and his partner plopped down on the ground and put the ammo belts between them. John was spotting first and his partner was blazing away his 200 round belt. With his earplugs in and his eyes in the binoculars, John said he heard something different, felt something hit is left forearm and noticed more smoke than usual but he kept on directing the fire of his partner. When John was rolling out of position to take his turn on the gun he noticed the sleeve of his blouse was peppered with "stuff" and looked down to see this......




One of the rounds in his belt was struck just right or a hot brass cooked off the primer and detonated the round at his elbow. No purple hearts but a brown stripe in the shorts when he figured out what had happened..

I bet the Seargents moved the ammo off the line after that.

Major yikes.

Mate, I'll take brown stripes any day rather than the Purple Hearts...

Yikes alright!!!