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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. |
