[vintage_tube]

Sorry to TC -- but thought you'd be interested in this short story.

My Dad, retired 30 year USCG, started out early in his career as a small arms instructor for the USCG & one of his assignments was the 6 lane, 50 foot range in the basement of the US Treasury (next to the White House & yes, there is an underground walkway from the WH to the Treasury building---SS, WHP, etc used it all the time to get to the range).

There he taught, refined the shooting abilities of, recorded shooting scores of the Secret Service, FBI, WH Police, Treasury Police, Presidential Plane Crew, Army Signal Corps (who supported WH communications), and the CIA (as Langley was in the stages of being built at the tme).

Each entity had their own scoring books maintained by the USCG operators of the range. Monthly reports would be sent to each groups headquarters with name, date of qualifying, and score.

He reported that when he reported to the range on day 1 and was being orientated to the operation, he was told, now Carl we have some CIA folks that drop in for qualifying or just to shoot. We record their scores in the CCO book. As he was being told this, he responded and said, who the hell is the CIA. When informed he asked what was CCO and was informed they refer to them as Chief Coordinators Office personnel.

The SS had 2 civilians in the ammo room who made their (SS) own 38 ammo. These two also maintained their weapons for maintenance. The USCG ordered ammo for everyone else (22, 38 and 45).

When he was there, he was heavilly involved with being a member of the USCG Headquarters pistol team and I recall as a kid, every weekend he was gone to a match in the area. Either to somewhere in VA/MD. Pistol teams flourished in those days amoungst the groups & local/state police agencies.

He tells me he was an NRA Master Shooter and at that level, he said to win matches was extremely tough -- adding to say, some of those shooters in his class were very, very good. I asked him yesterday, did he save any of his trophies -- only one he tells me (which I haven't seen in 40 years) and all his patches -- only has a couple in a shoe box. He wishes he saved all that stuff -- but being in the military, you move so often, that eventually, stuff gets tossed).

One last thing -- I was 11 when he was assigned to the range and enjoyed going down there (walking by armed Treasury guards w/12 gauge shotguns, sitting in "cells" surrounded by stacks of paper money & coins). Of course, I did plenty of shooting when I was able to tag along for a day. It was alot of fun & got my first taste of making ammo -- from pouring the lead to encasement.

I still have his match 45 which he gave me years ago.

Bob