Unit News
Sgt. Dan Malloy, personal security detail, 1st BCT, 1st Armored Div., properly demonstrates how to fire at multiple targets in an “X” pattern. Photo by Sgt. Steven Livingston / 1st BCT, 1st Armored Div.
Sgt. Steven Livingston
1st BCT, 1st Armored Div. Public Affairs
KIRKUK, Iraq – “Let me get some smoke on that hill!”
Those were the words of 1st Sgt. John Lucas of Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, as he and his Soldiers headed toward a newly designed firing range Feb. 17.
Lucas is famous for the line among his Soldiers, as it was the one and only line he said during his small role in Transformers 2. Lucas is also known to his troops, however, as the noncommissioned officer who designed the new range made for modern-combat style shooting at Forward Operating Base Warrior.
Lucas, a native of Londonderry N.H., served as a Ranger with the 1st Ranger Battalion and has competed in several shooting competitions.
“I designed the range because I wanted Soldiers to identify alternate means of shooting,” said Lucas. “Teaching Soldiers to think as well as to shoot.”
The course teaches Soldiers new reflexive firing techniques such as the “hammer fire,” “splash shots,” “cadence firing,” “eye-muzzle” drills, “X-drills” and “trigger-reset” drills. The course also offers night fires and firing under stress, said Sgt. Dan Malloy, personal security detail, 1st BCT.
First Sgt. John Lucas of Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade Combat Team, holds a target while leading training at a firing range at Forward Operating Base Warrior in Kirkuk, Iraq, Feb. 17. Photo by Sgt. Steven Livingston / 1st BCT, 1st Armored Div.
“He is teaching us skills that translate into combat survivability,” said Sgt. 1st Class Noel R. Harris of the brigade’s Special Troops Battalion.
“This is not a 25-meter-zero-and-go course,” said Harris. “My weapon is set up to hit the enemy at 25, 100 and 300 meters out.”
“This course is important because it allows the Soldier a more comprehensive understanding of combat firing,” Malloy said.
Lucas told the class, “You as an American Soldier can engage and kill four separate targets in less than two seconds. … I think that’s pretty awesome.”
According to Malloy, the course is a train-the-trainer course open to all NCOs. The range is five days long and focuses on various drills designed to get the shooter to think as well as creating muscle memory. The brigade tries to have a course once a month, said Lucas.