by Heather Hauswirth

Guam - "If you get down into a firing position and a center masse on the target, what you should do is close your eyes. Close your eyes for three seconds. Open up your eyes again. You should have that same sight picture," said Sgt. Dennis Eber. Weapons qualification typically takes place once a year for each soldier in the Army Guard.

Eber, a Purple Heart recipient, was the primary weapons instructor for the 105th Troop Command's Foxtrot Company overseeing intense two-day training on the M-16 and the M-249 rifles. "Your breathing, trigger squeeze, sight picture, those are the fundamentals that are going to get you through this," he said.

Although I had never even fired a weapon before "qual training" with the Guard, based on Specialist Flores' instructions I figured hitting center masse couldn't be all that hard.

Sgt. First Class Brandon Cruz of the 196th Infantry offered some pointers. He aid to be a good shooter you need, "The four basics: steady position, breathing, trigger, squeeze and side picture so a lot of the PMI they were instructed on will focus on those four basics."

Cruz said the Department of the Army determines what constitutes readiness through twelve collective tasks and 32 individual tasks, which provides a baseline for training standards across the board.

Reciting the SPORTS acronym in my head, which stands for Slap Pull Observe Release Tap and Squeeze, I concentrated on executing proper technique. While tactics techniques and procedures evolve, the fundamentals are the same. "You can't always go into the fight knowing everything you have to go into the fight being a master of the basics and evolve to what is in theater in your specific area," he said.

Steadiness, sight, picture, breath control and trigger are the four fundamentals of marksmanship. The men and women in the Guam Army Guard go through these exercises at training and it may not be for me, but I'm glad I did it.