The first person I knew in Group was Capt Lawrence W. Dring Jr formerly 77th. 1st, 5th, 7th, and 46th Co. We met in an airport in Spartanburg, SC We struck up a conversation and he came over to the skydiver hut which was next to main terminal. I gave him a ride home and we hit it off big.
He had been discharged from Walter Reed after he got shot up after being fragged in TET 68 (he was II Corps Mike Force and worked for Col Bob Brown) and since he did not have a degree and needed extensive rehab the Army sent him to Wofford College to get a degree.
He convinced me I should go to college so at 22 I started. He got his degree in 2 1/2 yrs and he tried to extend for another 1 1/2 years and was denied and he got sent to 46th Co.
When he left for 46th he had five Purples and when he got back he had more scars than when he left. One of which he got 3 clicks from Chinese Border.
I had been declared 4F when I turned 18 when signed up for the draft. I tried to get into a MP Co with SC Guard and made a 98 on the ASVAB so I was sent to Ft. Jackson for physical. Some low life retd NG HQ type badmouthed my enlistment.
I had already been competing in the National Smallbore Prone Championships for years and held a Master Rating and in 1973 I started high power competition with my first HP match at Camp Perry with Sgt Earl Waterman who was ARMY MTU and a sniper in Nam. In 1975 I made the 1976 US Palma Team and we won the Palma Trophy Team Match at Camp Perry competing against, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and others from West Indies.
I shot competition until 2013 when I got rear ended and had my neck fused which ended my competition. Guess I was fairly good, as when I quit I also held High Master NRA HP, won US Palma Trophy twice, Centenary Trophy once, Distinguished HP rifle #519 and made President's Hundred twice placing 12th and 99th. Also won three NRA National Police Championships and made the US Dewar Team twice and several regional HP rifle championships. In 82 I was on US Dewar and US Palma Team at the same time. To my knowledge no one else has done so.
Larry Dring got transferred to Bragg after he got back from 46th and I would drive up to see him. His son and me keep in touch. He is now a retired 05.
I graduated USC in 75 and the educational funding I was on required me to stay with my agency for two years after last course completed. In 1977 I started looking at federal positions and decided to try for a federal investigator position and a 05 I was shooting with one weekend gave me advice on how to fill out SF 171 form which was to list as references the three highest ranking people I knew in the government. I knew a weapons engineer for the Army since I was 11 as he and my Dad shot together since the 40s so I tracked him down and called him and asked him if I could list him as a reference.
He told me I could and asked what I was applying for and he stated my skills/knowledge would help the Army far better than I could as a federal investigator and long story short he called the Army Small Cal Weapons Lab at Picatinny Arsenal and recommended me and I got the job. Only then did I find out my friend at Rock Island was not only a wheel but was a Ferris wheel in the Army small arms community.
First off I was assigned to Product Engineering. Once a weapon system is tested and fielded the designers of it are no longer involved in case changes are needed and those changes are brought about by Engineering Change Proposals (ECPs) and or Product Improvement (PIP) and the change is added in the Tech Data Package which consists of all the drawings required to manufacture that weapon along with all the fixtures utilized in their production. Very few weapon systems are "sanitary" which means they are continually changed and each change is listed as a revision on the drawing and issued a letter to designate such thus a changed drawing will have Revision A, B, C. I have seen drawings that revisions were in the AA range.
After my initial training by a guy that was phenomenal and I shall never forget what he told me the first day which was:
1. The latrine is at the end of the hall.
2. The Coffee pot is in bosses office.
3. We don't sign off on anything to make a vendor happy, we are here to get the absolute best we can for the troops and nothing less--IS THAT CLEAR??
Thus that is how i was trained. He was a old bachelor and I was not married so we rented the third floor of a large house in Milford, Pa for three years.
Within about five months I was assigned Product Engineering Responsibility for all rifles, shotguns, sub-machineguns in the Army with the exception of the M16. Subsequently I was assigned catastrophic failure investigation for M16 rifles. We had a blown up M16 come in about every five months.
A presentation was put together for the House Armed Services Committee in order to ask for 1.8 million to build four prototypes for demonstrations to our armed forces and I was one of the ones to help with the effort.
We got the funding which initiated the Dover Devil Special Projects Group and the Chief of the Small Cal Lab asked me to come to the group and I was tasked with making sure we had everything we needed before we needed it thus I was on the road or in the air transporting the materials back to Picatinny Arsenal as needed.
Once the four prototypes were finished a series of presentations to the Army and USMC were conducted. I was re- tasked to presentations at Fort Knox, Ft. Benning , Quantico and the Naval Academy where presentations were made by the two chief designers to General Officers for the first three. I made the presentation at the Naval Academy.
The first presentation was made at Ft Benning as pictured below.
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/thr...project.19011/
That is me firing it in the first thread when site is opened and pictures I added below of the system disassembled.
Then the Chief of the Small Cal Lab got a referral from congress from a mother whose son told her his M16A1 wasn't working in middle eastern dust. The Chief called Aberdeen Proving Ground to run a dust test to ascertain if design revisions had affected the operational characteristics. He was advised that they could get to it in two years. He asked me to drive my 3/4 ton truck down to Aberdeen and pick up 200 lbs of official test dust and I did so.
While at Aberdeen I was introduced to the Branch Chief of the Small Arms and Ammo Test Branch and he offered me a job as Small Arms Test Director and I took it for three reasons. First the Dover Devil program was winding down and our team would be going back to previous duties and the fun would have been over, two the chance of becoming a Certified Small Arms and Ammo Test Director was a once in a lifetime chance and three I would only be 500 miles from home instead of 715 miles so I could take off in the afternoon, drive half way home and sleep in the back of my truck, get up and be home by noon the following day. Last I heard there have only been about 75 people with a small arms and ammo certification bestowed on them since WW2. I accepted the position.
I was certified in about eight months and my first full test was to conduct the technical feasibility testing for the M16A1E1 (adopted as M16A2) in 1983 by USMC and Army. The USMC Project Manager wanted to interview the named test director as he wanted him to possess specific skills and I was directed to go to TECOM HQ for a meeting and went. I walked in and Maj Bruce Wincentsen USMC was the only one there and when we saw each other we both started grinning as we knew each other and had shot together for years. The interview lasted about 30 seconds after he found out I was going to be his test director and he asked me one question: "What's your home phone number?" "Here's mine."
That test consumed 244,000+ rounds and lasted about a year. As that test wound down I got a call from the Army Materials Systems Analysis Agency (AMSAA) from Lt. Col Buck Weaver (retd) who wanted me to conduct testing on the first AK-74 to come into the US possession. It was a close hold operation and they wanted it tested on the weekends when very few people were around and it was done down range where no one would see what we were doing. Buck took the targets with him every day and placed in their secure area. I did not get released to talk about it until 2016 as the first two reports are still classified and a third one has been released. See below.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=16L...nhtFG8hLfGoDFg
Following that the AMSAA Analyst Weaver called me again and I was asked to lay out what the requirements should be to develop a 50 cal sniper rifle capable of MOA at 1500 yards. I told him immediately there was no Cal 50 ammo capable of such a small dispersion in our inventory and laid out other problems he was going to run into. Ultimately this led to the development of the 338 Lapua Magnum.
About that same time frame I was called by a contact I had in US Secret Service who told me he and another recommended me for a position with another agency who wanted a ordnance type which would only be 300 miles from home and I accepted. I now wish I had never accepted it but I had come to realize certain management at the Proving Ground did not possess what had been instilled in me which is reflected in item No 3 above.
Other friends that were in group are SGM Kaiser Thomas 10th(deceased), SGM William Atkinson 10th who I keep in touch with, SGM Brion Remington 10th who I keep in touch with and M/ Sgt Joe Owens Medic in Group who called me a few days ago.
Finally Lt Col Brown, SOF Magazine recommended me for NRA Board of Directors
https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/...f-355cf36fd43f page 6 Command Guidance