On 17 March 2004, while deployed to Kosovo, the Special Forces team came and gave a foreign weapons class with items they had found in local caches. Moments after this photo was taken, the country errupted into violence, and I did not see many of these men for months. But, this left an impression, that they would teach aviators, just in the off chance they came across these items.

In 2005, I was deployed to Haiti. While we were there to build 3 schools and 3 wells. The UN had a peace keeping mission. We became reliant on these partner forces for our safety, not only on our camp, but while traveling in Port Au Prince. Pictured are Argentinians, but multiple countries and weapons systems were seen in the area.

My state was tasked to provide Infantry quick reaction force in northern Kuwait and Southern Iraq. This was very interesting due to the Coalition Forces, Contract Forces, Local Military and Police. Many weapons platforms were abundant.

With the situation still requiring stability forces in Kosovo in 2008-2009, my unit deployed and supported many NATO countries in QRF movement and training. Again a theme of diverse weapon systems in the area of operations.

Although OIF was "complete" we were sent to Kuwait. While there, we did recieve 24 hour notice to deploy to IRAQ for non combatant evacuation operations. Just prior to that was a tasking to move to Jordan and insert Special Force into Syria. So we were potentially going to very different areas, with little external support once forward deployed.

Through out my career, I had attended training here. Steve McDaniel and I discussed how to train the Soldiers better than what I had been prior to mobilizing, and I was able to gain some very valuable assistance from him.

I had completed the training multiple times, and became proficient. Later I was used by the unit to assist heavily in developing new Aircrew members on the M240 and its employment from the helicopter and ground. This was dynamic and lots of fun.

During my career I became a unit, battalion, and then state level marksmanship trainer and leader. This photo was in Wyoming and the scores attained from the team took us to National level. These Service members then took the cirriculum to thier units and developed them.

After 18 years on the Blackhawk, restructure required me to go become Chinook qualified. This was standing up and developing a way forward to get the unit ready to deploy when called on for its federal mission.

So to expand the foundation of instruction, we transitioned from combat to more traditional marksmanship. Pictured here, is a 600 yard competition, limited to four power optics.

Recognizing all of the ways we had been pushing Soldiers to develop, I still knew that over my career, the military had discussed weapons on the battle field, clearing them, and making them safe, but I had never put my hands on them and been able to get quality training on these platforms.

So with a military career ending, I decided to push forward with the passion of Soldier care and firearms competency. I want all of our Military, Police, and Citizens to have access to quality training to mitigate professional and personal risk as much as possible. We will strive forward to always be open, honest, and loyal with our customers.