On a cold, rainy Friday night in Norristown, Pennsylvania I wandered into my first formation at HHC 1/111th Infantry (Associators).  The week prior had seen me and my buddy re-enlist in the Pennsylvania National Guard, and swear in with a Captain who called us his new "bookends".  Rusty and I had played rugby together, bounced at bars together, and flunked out of school together at a regional state university in the middle of the state.  We had originally signed up in an aviation maintenance unit, and did some time in ROTC.  Little did we know that we would come to LOVE the heavy mortar section at the 1/111th!  This is where I met, who is to this day, one of my oldest and dearest friends, Patrick Suter!

We would have hundreds of drill weekends together, be led by some of the finest NCO's ever to wear a uniform, and spend our summers fighting the bugs, the racoons, and the hot humid weather of many of our country's finest military impact areas while training ourselves and our buddies in the fine art of indirect-fire!  We would eventually leave the Associators (founded originally by Ben Franklin) and transfer to Troop A 1/104th Cavalry (FTPCC) in Philadelphia.  While there, we would endure the horrors of 9/11 that would make our jobs get far more serious.  We would deploy together to overseas assignments.  We would eventually lose our big buddy Rusty in an untimely manner, and we would learn to pull together when we missed family or were far from home.  Through it all, we could count on our buddies!

As we retired from the service, and tried to return to rebuild our civilian lives, we found that shooting and teaching others to shoot was a fantastic use of the skills that had been ingrained in us for so long.  We started to shoot trap, then rifles and pistols.  Sporting clays or targets, it did not matter.  It was a sport that allowed us to reach out to other veterans and friends, and provided a sense of the camaraderie that we had found in service to our country.  

We also are able to impart wisdom and training to the scouting programs we work with.  It is selfless-service that drives us to now create a company that provides security training, firearms training, equipment and accessories to others.  Our paramount task is to help our customers find the same great brands and items that we use, at a fair price.  We also support the missions of veterans organizations in our area, and look forward to welcoming you as a customer.