Two Camp Pendleton Marines beat all other service branches to earn first place overall during the 43rd Winston P. Wilson Sniper Championship hosted by the National Guard Marksmanship Training Center in Fort Chaffee, AR.
Sgt. Daniel Ramos and Sgt. Shaun Garvey, instructors with the Sniper Basic Course, Advanced Infantry Battalion, School of Infantry West, bested all other teams during the week-long shooting and tactics competition in April.
The competition tested the skills, techniques and procedures of 17, two-man sniper teams from the different branches of service.
“Consistency from day-to-day and event-to-event was the key element in winning the competition with an overall score of 1040, which was 30 points more than the second place team,” said Ramos, an Orange Park, FL, native.
The teams competed over five days in 16 different events using a variety of weapons. The Marines used the bolt-action M40, the semi-automatic M110 and the M9 Beretta, said Garvey, a Browsburg, IN, native and primary marksmanship instructor.
“Even as technology advances in warfighting, there is still that need for a man on the ground,” Garvey said. “This competition helps us evaluate what we are teaching to the students about what technological advances are currently out there and what other services are doing.
