Woman wins national rifle championship

Army News Service ^ | Aug 26, 2003 | Paula J. Randall

[Spruce]

Woman wins national rifle championship

By Paula J. Randall Pag·n
August 26, 2003

Shooting her M-16A2, Spc. Liana Bombardier, a U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit service rifle shooter, won the Service Rifle National Long Range Rifle Championship at Camp Perry, Ohio.

FORT BENNING, Ga. (Army News Service, 26 Aug., 2003) -- She says she's "just one of the guys." But when this female soldier triumphed over hundreds of the country's best rifle shooters, she became the first woman to win a particular national shooting title.

Shooting her M-16A2, Spc. Liana Bombardier, a U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit service rifle shooter, won the Service Rifle National Long Range Rifle Championship at Camp Perry, Ohio. Bombardier garnered the Billy C. Atkins Trophy as the highest scoring service rifle shooter in the National Highpower Rifle Long Range Championships Aug. 15 - 18.

The 21-year-old soldier is the first woman in the 100-year history of the matches to win the trophy awarded to the service rifle (now a M-1, M-14 or M-16) shooter with the highest aggregate score over the entire championships.

"The Atkins Trophy is a hard trophy to win and I was thrilled to find out I had won it," Bombardier said. "I was behind by 5 points going into the last day of competition. I shot well that last day and came up ahead. I never thought I was going to win it."

Bombardier also fired her M-16A2 in matches at 600, 800, 900 and 1,000 yards, and won the Service Rifle Category in the Palma Individual Trophy Match and the High Master Category in the Porter Trophy Match. She also won the Annie Oakley Trophy for being the best female shooter in this year's Interservice Championships at Quantico, Va.

"I attribute my success to the great equipment, the gunsmiths and the coaching staff behind the line giving shooters' advice and help," Bombardier explained.

And how does she feel about being the lone female training with more than a dozen of the Army's best male shooters on the USAMU Service Rifle Team?

"I get treated like everyone else, but I expect a lot of myself," she said. "I would like to tell other shooters, especially women, to get out there, practice and enjoy the competition."

Bombardier started shooting in 1995. She was the 2001 Junior Service Rifle National Champion, a member of the 2000 Trophy Cup Championship Team and won the Arizona State Junior Service Rifle Championship in 1996, 1999, 2000 and 2001.



For more information on the unit’s accomplishments visit www.usarec.army.mil/hq/amu/.

(Editor’s note: Paula J. Randall Pagán is a writer for the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit Public Affairs Office)

[facedown]

bump

[Reeses]

Service with a smile. Click pic for larger version.

[eyespysomething]

Spc. Liana Bombardier

With a name like Bombadier, what would one expect?

[bmwcyle]

oH NO, a woman and a deadly shot.

[Joe Brower]

Cool!

[Maigrey]

Damn, that is most impressive. I've been told the wind off the lake at Camp Perry is what makes the high power matches so much more difficult.

My rifle coach in college was a Presidential 100 in the 1987 US Nationals at Camp Perry (11th as a Civilan and 48th overall) and a (retired) member of USMC.

I'd love to see her shooting in college after she "retires" from the Service.

[pabianice]

But will NOW (the National Organization for Wookies) print it?

[Jonx6]

coolness ping

[CholeraJoe]

But...but...women aren't suited for combat. They're worthless and weak, right? They must have lowered the standards so she could win. /sarcasm

The best shot I ever saw in the military was a female dentist. She put 50 shots into an area the size of a quarter at 100 meters.

[BushCountry]

Put a hundred pound pack on her, then force march her 10 miles to the combat zone. If she made it, she would be useless, most likely the men would have to carry her weight. Women are worthless in combat, unless pampered.

[Travis McGee]

DANG!!!! JUST DANG!!!!

[Travis McGee]

In classic infantry roles, perhaps. But some of the most successful Soviet snipers of WW2 were women. Shooting from a lair at 1,000 yards ain't the same as humping a ruck through the boonies for 2 weeks. Think of the recent sniper wars in the Bosnian cities, do you think that Bombardier would have been ineffective?

The protagonist of my novel is a sniping female who uses a T/C scoped pistol in .223. While the police and feds are all looking for an "angry white male" with an AR-15 in a pickup truck, she is driving through roadblocks on a motorcycle with her sniping pistol in her daypack.

[CholeraJoe]

In Honduras my radio operator was a woman. Not big or burly but carried the radio like a champ. A rather petite Flight Surgeon carried me to a rescue chopper by herself, once. I couldn't have made it on my own.

[teeples]

Getting women involved in the shooting sports is one of the best ways to ensure our 2nd Ammendment rights are not weakened any further, nor removed all together. The anti-self defense fanatics are targeting women to join their cause. Liana, and other women in the shooting sports and groups like SAS, are helping to turn the tide.

[dansangel]

Put a hundred pound pack on her, then force march her 10 miles to the combat zone.

Most men I know would be useless after that. Gimme a break......

[Mr. Mojo]

Feminazis must have real mixed emotions about this story -- happy that a female beat all the men, but absolutely horrified at what she bested them at.

[Mr. Mojo]

march her 10 miles to the combat zone

In the morning I have trouble marching 10 feet to the shower.

[AngryJawa]

"Liana, and other women in the shooting sports and groups like SAS, are helping to turn the tide."

I'd love this to get some play on ESPN, Lifetime, We, etc.

[CholeraJoe]

Hey bud. I'm mailing you a check tomorrow.