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Samuel
W. "Sam" Hunter was introduced to competitive pistol
shooting in April 1957 when his first sergeant called him to the
orderly room, presented him with a list of soldiers in the company
who had qualified as Expert with the pistol, told him he was the
ranking man, ordered him to "take those soldiers to the arms
room, draw pistols, and make a pistol team to win the group
matches." SFC Hunter's Choppin' Charlie
company team won the 502nd Airborne Infantry Combat Group Pistol Team
Match. Sam was selected for the 502nd Group team and they went on to
win the 101st Airborne Division Pistol Team Match. Sam was picked up
at the next higher level by the Fort Campbell, KY, Post Team and he
went on to compete at Camp Perry. In his first year of shooting, Sam
went from from a company team to the National Matches.
In
1958, Sam was selected by the Third Army Team to compete at the
National Mid-Winter Pistol Championships and at the All-Army Matches.
Following the All-Army Match, he was picked up by USAMU as promising
new shooter and he fulfilled those expectations by collecting three
EIC "legs" to earn the U.S.
Army Distinguished Pistol Shot Badge in a single year. Sam was
assigned to USAMU in October 1958 for the first of three tours that
added up to more than 17 years of service as a Shooter, Instructor,
and Operations Sergeant.
In
his early years at USAMU, Sam Hunter won the 1960 National .22
caliber Pistol Championship at Camp Perry. In 1961 he set the
three-day aggregate record while winning the U.S. International Free
Pistol Championship and was second in the U.S. International Center
Fire Championship. Sam was also a member of the 1961 Army team that
won the Gold Cup Trophy by winning the National Trophy
"Hard-ball" Team Match at the National Matches. During his
assignments with USAMU, Sam was a firing member of teams that
established eight new national records and attained an individual three-gun
high of 2648 (Too late to call for a plug now Sam).
From
1965 to 1969, Sam was assigned to the 3rd Battalion (Airborne),
508th Infantry, in Panama, where he was promoted to Platoon Sergeant,
then to a Signal Basic Training Unit at Fort Gordon, GA, followed by
a tour in Vietnam, back to the Third US Army MTU at Fort Benning, and
finally his second assignment to USAMU where he was promoted to
Master Sergeant.
Sam
was transferred overseas in 1973 and assigned as the first sergeant
of HQ Co, 509th Airborne Battalion Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy. He
was pulled up to Heidelberg, Germany, in 1974, to serve as the first
sergeant of HHC, USAREUR and 7th Army. Returning to USAMU in 1976 for
his third tour, Sam was assigned as the Chief Instructor of the S3
Training Section and then as the USAMU Operations Sergeant. During
those seven-plus years of staff duty, he kept his hand in shooting by
practicing mostly during his lunch hour. In 1979, he earned a slot on
the U.S. Shooting Team and competed in the 10-meter air pistol event
at the World Air Gun Championships held in Seoul, Korea, and
qualified for the United
States Distinguished International Shooter Badge.
1SG
Hunter retired from the US Army in 1983 with over thirty years of
active service. Sam returned to school and graduated Cum
Laude from Columbus College in 1987 with a
Bachelor's Degree in Business and a major in Accounting. He was
employed by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia as a Medicare
Provider Auditor and retired from there in 1997. Sam and his wife
Clara live in Columbus, Georgia. Sam Hunter was elected as the
association's Treasurer at the January 2000 annual meeting. |
