MAJ Ellison has a keen grasp of the obvious. Marksmanship has been broken in the Army for some time, every unit seems to have a couple of active shooters who read 23-9 and know what the SAIB is and generally take charge of the marksmanship program in the unit. If you think it's hard to schedule range time in the states, it's very difficult here in Iraq, between missions, maintanace and occasional days off.

During our MOB site we recieved some decent small arms training, we fired the CQB and of course qaulified with all our weapons. However, there were glaring gaps in our training that became evidant during our first week in Iraq. My unit didn't zero or shoot with our M68's (Aimpoint) until we got to our FOB in Iraq. That should have happened at the Mob site. Only two NCO's in our company understood how to use the laser boresight, which saves you hours upon hours zeroing on the range.

My unit is equipped with every device known to the army, PAQ 4 lasers, MAR's sights, M 68's, ACOG's. The problem is no one knows how to use them.