Texas competed in the Chief National Guard Bureau (CNGB) match this year and did very well. The match is held in three stages.

Phase I is a competition held at each unit that wishes to participate. Members of the SARTS section competed in phase one representing HQ- STARC. The members competed in the Combat Rifle and Pistol competition. Both the pistol and rifle team placed high enough to be invited to the phase III competition. Since we had to choose one, we went with the Combat Rifle. In phase one, eight shooters competed for the state championship. The results were;

1st SSG Charlie Blackwell 319

2nd CW3 Richard Tanner 318

3rd SGT Thomas Campbell 300

4th SFC Pete Carpentier 295

5th SGT John Peebles 282

6th SGT Doug Isbel 279

7th CSM Bobby Adams 267

8th LTC Josef Smith 246

Phase II is were the Marksmanship Training unit at Camp Robinson tallies the scores from all 54 states and territories and they determine the top five teams in the country. They then notify the top five teams and invite them to Camp Robinson for phase III.

Phase III is a one on one competition between the shooters from the top five teams picked from phase II. This year, only four teams were able to make it to the phase III championships. Teams that were at the CNGB Championships were; Texas, Nebraska, Michigan and Alaska.

The Texas team won the championship with an impressive score of 1915-80V. Nebraska finished 2nd with a 1866-47V

The four individuals that represented Texas did real well. The competition was tough and relentless. The individual results were;

SSG Charlie Blackwell 2nd place with 298-10

CW3 Richard Tanner, 6th place with 287-5

SGT Doug Isbel, 7th place with 276-7

SGT John Peebles, 12th with 219-8

CW3 Richard Tanner earned 8 points in the Pistol EIC match, enough to be awarded his Distinguished Marksmanship Badge. He is also the 7th Texas Guardsman to achieve Double Distinguished in both rifle and pistol. Previous winners were: SSG Blackwell, SSG Qualls, LTC Tryce, CW3 Kinder, SRA Watters, and SMSG Taylor.

SSG Russell W. Stone came along as a coach and he earned 6 points rifle to go towards his distinguished badge.

All in all, it was an outstanding showing by Texas. All competitors shot good and represented Texas well.