AAR: 8th Annual Marty Brown Memorial Invitational
The Marty Brown Memorial™ series of events honors one of our rifle instructors, Marty Brown, who passed away from ovarian cancer in 2017. In her memory, the events are fundraisers for Ovar’coming Together, in central Indiana, and Ovarian Cancer Connection, in north-eastern Ohio. Both organizations provide support services for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
The 8th Annual Marty Brown Memorial™ Invitational was one for the record books. A record turnout of 26 competitors (including four women) took to the long-distance ranges of Camp Atterbury to compete for the High-Score Trophy. Among those 26 competitors, there were 4 of the 5 previous High-Score Trophy winners in attendance. Competition looked to be spicy indeed…
As in previous years, the course of fire for the match is the Revere’s Riders Rifle Qualification Test (aka, “R3QT”) shot at “actual distance”. This qualification is an integral part of our Basic Rifle marksmanship course, but typically only shot from 25 yards with scaled targets. Moving out to “actual distance” of 100 to 400 yards adds the complexity of changing target distance thereby forcing the marksman to either adjust his/her sights or “hold over/under” while keeping their sights fixed.
Whatever method the marksman chooses, shooting the R3QT at actual distance reinforces that the techniques we teach in Basic Rifle work at 400 yards as well as they do at 25 yards. If one can shoot a 4 MOA group at 25 yards, the same technique at 400 yards will produce an approximately 4 MOA group as well (that would be a group with maximum spread of approximately 16 inches).
Participants were squadded into two equal groups; one manned the target pits while the other shot two R3QTs (one “going out” from 100 to 400 yards and one “coming in” from 400 to 100 yards). Going out, for a $20 donation one could participate in “skills contests” as follows:
- 100 yards — 30 seconds of calisthenics followed by 3 shots from standing in 30 seconds; closest to the target bullseye wins.
- 200 yards — transition to seated with 3 shots in 20 seconds; again, closest to the target bullseye wins.
- 300 yards — begin at the 400 yard berm, proceed to the 300 yard berm, and fire 3 shots from the prone position in 60 seconds; yet again, closest to the target bullseye wins.
- 400 yards — 3 shots from prone in 120 seconds; for this contest, smallest group wins.
If there are more than two skills contest winners, a “shoot-off” is run to determine the top two. The shoot-off consists of five balloons (1 white and 4 teal) stapled to target backers; competitors are given 7 rounds and 30 seconds to burst as many balloons as possible from 400 yards. The white balloons are slightly smaller and worth 3 points while the larger teal balloons are worth 1 point each.
The two top skills contest winners from the morning relay and the two top skills contest winners from the afternoon relay then have a final shoot-off at 500 yards to determine placings and choice of prizes. The skills contest final for each day consists of a single shot from 500 yards within a time limit of 120 seconds; closest to the center wins. Competitors are allowed 3 sighters to confirm their sight adjustments.
The Saturday skills contest finalists were:
- 1st — Bruce Tuller (Palmetto State Armory Freedom AR-15 Rifle)
- 2nd — Eric Sommer ($215 XS Sights gift card)
- 3rd — Matt Hill (Samson Manufacturing SXT Series AR-15 Handguard)
- 4th — Ben Magenheimer ($200 HIVIZ Sights gift card)
and the Sunday skills contest finalist were:
- 1st — Eric Sommer (Daniel Defense DDM4v7 rifle)
- 2nd — Jeannie Redicker (Meprolight M22 Reflex Sight)
- 3rd — Matt Anderson (Crossbreed Holsters gift certificate for a custom shop holster)
- 4th — Bruce Tuller ($250 Criterion Barrels gift card)
Bruce Tuller, Eric Sommer, and Ben Magenheimer are all first-time attendees at the Marty Brown Memorial™ Invitational.
During Saturday’s lunch, Revere’s Riders Past President Bruce Williams recounted the story of Medal of Honor recipient Samuel Woodfill. First Lt. Woodfill was honored for his action during the Meuse-Argonne offensive of WWI when he single-handedly took out three machine-gun implacements. Woodfill was later chosen as one of three Medal of Honor recipients to participate in the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 1921 (Charles Whittlesey and Alvin York being the other two, both also Medal of Honor recipients). Woodfill died in 1951 and was initially buried in Indiana; his remains were later exhumed and reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery not far from where General John J. Pershing was buried. General Pershing had described Woodfill as the “most outstanding soldier of WWI”. A small memorial with a plaque inscribed with First Lt. Woodfill’s Medal of Honor citation can be found on Range 5 at Camp Atterbury, the range where this year’s Marty Brown Memorial™ Invitational was held.
On Sunday, Bruce recounted the adventures of the 106th Infantry Division (the “Golden Lions”) who trained at Camp Atterbury during WWII and then deployed to the European Theatre. Only days after deploying and taking up their positions on 26 miles of front line in the Ardennes region of France. Typically, a division would only defend around 5 miles of front line; however, this area was considered an unlikely one for any serious German incursions. It was considered a “cushy” deployment.
Four days after taking up their positions, the 106th found themselves on the front lines of what would later be known as the “Battle of the Bulge“. Although the 106th was green and had no combat experience, they fought as valiantly as they could to defend the area around St. Vith. Nearly 7,000 of the 106th were taken prisoner during the ensuing battles to push back the Germans. St. Vith, along with the village of Bastogne just to the south, were considered critical objectives for the Germans.
The Allies would eventually succeed in pushing the German offensive back; the “Battle of the Bulge” would become the bloodiest battle of WWII. Another member of the 106th, Kurt Vonnegut, would go on to write a novel based on his experiences during WWII. That novel was Slaughterhouse-Five.
Returning to the competition, Darrell Hammer had shot a 40-14V Saturday and was considered the likely winner of the High-Score trophy as that was the best score ever shot at the Marty Brown Memorial™ Invitational (the prior best score was 40-11V shot by Jim Rose in 2020). Sunday morning, news was relayed from the target pits to the firing line that Jeannie Redicker had also shot a 40-14V in her first qualifier of the morning. We had a tie!
Would Jeannie or Darrell be able to put a better score than 40-14V to break the tie?
A higher score wasn’t within the grasp of either competitor. The winner was decided by aggregate score of all four qualifiers. Jeannie had shot perfect a 40 for each qualifier and beat out Darrell by an aggregate 7 shots. This was the closest and most competitive Marty Brown Memorial™ Invitational ever held.
| Jeannie Redicker | Darrell Hammer | |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday—Qualifier #1 | 40-10V | 39-16V |
| Saturday—Qualifier #2 | 40-10V | 40-14V |
| Sunday—Qualifier #1 | 40-14V | 37-8V |
| Sunday—Qualifier #2 | 40-11V | 37-8V |
| AGGREGATE SCORE | 160-45V | 153-46V |
Frank Melloni was awarded the “Tactifail” trophy given to the competitor with the most useless piece of equipment on their rifle. Frank went above and beyond that to create an entire “Limited Edition” rifle consisting of parts that most competent marksmen would consider “crap”. Frank’s rifle included a New York legal “featureless” hand grip, a vertical grip mounted horizontally on the handguard, and a skeletonized lower receiver. As ridiculous as that rifle seemed at first glance, it never failed to run over the weekend and with it Frank shot a score of 39-14V. Perhaps it is the next revolution in rifle ergonomics? Or maybe not…
The “Tactifail” trophy was purposefully instituted to encourage everyone to enjoy camaraderie with their fellow competitors, have a good laugh, and not to take the competition aspect of the event too seriously. The primary goal of the Marty Brown Memorial™ Invitational is to fundraise for ovarian cancer in Marty’s memory while enjoying a weekend on the range at Camp Atterbury. Frank certainly provided the most smiles, grins, and laughs yet of all our “Tactifail” trophy winners. Well done, sir!
Thank you to all the 2024 Marty Brown Memorial™ Invitational attendees for giving us a weekend of your time to enjoy marksmanship on the beautiful ranges of Camp Atterbury and fundraise for ovarian cancer in honor of Marty. We are working on several ways to make the event even better for 2025 and will announce these at some point next year. Make sure to sign up for the Revere’s Riders email newsletter to get notifications in your inbox about upcoming events and other news.
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