Matt in TN

I am honored and humbled to report that Jay Roberts, Trevor Saunders, and I attended the 62nd Annual Reunion Dinner put on by SFA38 last Friday. We spoke for a few minutes about the match to a couple hundred active and retired Green Berets - spanning almost 7 decades of service. And then presented them a check in the amount of $38,232.18 for this year's net donation. This puts us at almost $120,000 in donations to SFA38 since we started this 7 years ago. What's crazy about this is that only about half of this year's donation came from match fees. The other half came purely from the generosity and hard work of sponsors and regular competitors who took it upon themselves to donate amazing prizes and organize raffles and auctions to help raise extra money. THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart, for helping to make this happen. I wish I could share all of the amazing comments and appreciation we received at this dinner - but hopefully you'll be able to do it in person next year when many of these same Green Berets will be attending the match in person! Pictures courtesy of Jayson Rivas of JHR Photography

Shared with permission from Trevor Saunders (co-founder of this match), because he says it better than I ever could: 2023 Legion Memorial Run N Gun is hard to sum up in a single post. I've tried sitting down and writing a post more than once, and stared at a blank screen. Matt Stennett and Jay Roberts did an amazing job this year honoring 5th Group's losses, taking care of our Gold Star Families, and running 4 matches over the course of 3 days. My biggest take away this year - witnessing the community that Trevor Graves started building around this match 7 years ago come together to grieve his loss, honor his memory, and care for each other. Our Legion family spent a lot of time processing lessons learned with Trevor's loss and discussing in-depth what we can do to stop the bleeding from unseen wounds in the warrior community. Jamie Korenoski said it best when he encouraged everyone to be invasive in their friendships. There is a lot of work to be done; but this match and the Legion family truly made last weekend a healing experience for me, and I don't think I'm the only one. Some of the most impactful moments of the match were listening to Pete Jones and Shane Kerwin share their experiences and why they support the match. It's not a business opportunity for them. They don't walk away with profit. They do it because they believe in the mission and it's an opportunity to tell the stories of their brothers. I made new friends, caught up with old friends, and lost a few pounds walking up the hill on Stage 1 about 80 times on Sunday. I can't thank the all-volunteer staff enough for coming back year after year to make this event happen. Cumulatively, we crossed the $100,000 mark in funds raised for Special Forces Association, Chapter 38 over the last 7 years. That's not from "mega donors"; that's from the community showing up, competing, and generously giving. That's from individuals leveraging their talents and resources to raffle off paintings, guns, handmade swords. It's humbling and inspiring at the same time. Thank you Dead Zero Shooting Park for hosting us. Even when M240b's show up unexpectedly, you've still been gracious and accommodating. Spike's Tactical - you've been with us since the beginning and your consistent generosity is a testament to the character of your company. Alan's Arsenal LLC - Thank you for your continued support! Your contributions to the prize table are unreal. And your shirts were outstanding this year! I got to sample product from The Star Spangled Brewing Co. Uptown, another Green Beret owned business, and I can't wait until they break into the Kentucky market! Personal Survival Solutions, Aero Precision, Tomahawk Strategic Solutions, VK Integrated Systems, @Nocturnality Night Vision, Innovative Targets, Samson Manufacturing, @Glock Store Nashville - Thank you all! Trevor Saunders carried Trevor Graves' plate carrier in his ruck this year as tribute. He says "The heaviest part of my ruck was Trevor's plate carrier. My small way of carrying him with me. Stay Classy. "

And surely everyone has found them by now, but just in case - scores can be found here: 5k: https://practiscore.com/results/html/0f2a478c-6b92-4527-a76a-161da1a6d444 10k: https://practiscore.com/results/html/92ee34f7-2c42-4dc0-a406-744791059bef Night Team Match: https://practiscore.com/results/html/8303f87a-4327-478c-a225-0e54184afb75

From Lisa (my dear wife, the photographer): 2023 Legion Memorial Run N Gun photos are up. This year, I was fortunate enough to have a helper on the course taking pictures with me. My daughter joined me for the weekend, so there are more photos than usual to browse through. If you find pictures of yourself, keep looking - there may be more in the album somewhere. (Edit to add: I, as well as my 'helper'/daughter, appreciate you all tolerating our presence on the course. Over the years, these matches have proven to be a great outlet for practicing and learning different photography skill sets. This year, my take-away lesson from shooting Legion would be to pay better attention to my shutter speed, which in turn drives my ISO setting, in different conditions. Here's to grainy photos and lessons learned.) I would recommend viewing and downloading from a laptop or desktop computer as using devices can be problematic. Share and enjoy your photos with family and friends. You must contact me and obtain permissions before any use of these photos for commercial or monetary purposes. Friday pictures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lstennett/albums/72177720311191526 Saturday pictures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lstennett/albums/72177720311230563 Sunday pictures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lstennett/albums/72177720311247340

This year's official match video is finally up! It's impossible to fit three days with this much intensity into a 5 minute promo video without it feeling rushed. But hopefully it gets across the almost frantic feeling of being there! Share it with your family and friends to give them just a taste of what you did last weekend. Share it to give the sponsors some additional love and attention. But most importantly, share it to help remember the eight men we honored this year. Continue to say their names out loud and speak their stories any chance you get. https://youtu.be/51hpvAA7Jp0?si=zlsFLIXBHCTS8-3G

I am happy to announce RnG Tactics has joined on as a sponsor, and will be providing almost $1,000 worth of product for the prize table! Check them out at https://rngtactics.com/

Stage 3 will honor MSG David Thuma, who after an amazing career full of accomplishments, died unexpectedly from a heart attack during morning PT in June of 1998. Some 5th Group Soldiers die in training - not just on the battlefield. Sometimes terrible things happen close to home too, and I think the surprise and shock of this almost makes it worse. Read more about MSG Thuma's impressive career and life here: https://army.togetherweserved.com/army/servlet/tws.webapp.WebApp?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=BattleMemoryExt&ID=115120 In this stage: resupply ammo to your teammates while knocking back enemy attack. (HQ1SG)

I am excited to announce that for the first time ever we will have a food truck onsite! Jeremy Swofford with Red's Dinner Bell will be there all day Saturday and Sunday selling from his menu (below), and will have a special fundraising dinner menu Saturday night - part of the proceeds from that dinner will go to SFA.

Samson Manufacturing has been a sponsor since the beginning, and Bryan Ray and Brian Vaught were instrumental in getting me "in" at Rockcastle to do this crazy thing we do the very first year. So it is fair to say that the Briyans and Samson made RNG east of the Mississippi possible! Not only that, but they are bringing $2,000 worth of product to the prize table this year! Samson does so much so support the shooting sports of ALL kinds - be sure to look to them first when you need great handguards or other gear! Check them out at: https://www.samson-mfg.com/

I am happy to report Glockstore Nashville has signed on as a Vendor Level Sponsor and is not only bringing $2,000 worth of product for the prize tables, but also one of their trainers to compete for them! If you have a Glock (or if you NEED a Glock!) and are anywhere near Nashville, you need to get to Glockstore! https://www.glockstore.com/gsntn.html

I don't normally like hidden target stages in a match, but this is such a real world skill Green Berets use we can't ignore it. The honoree for this stage is Billy Waugh, who spent most of his career finding and eliminating targets over a span of several decades - from Vietnam all the way to deploying to Afghanistan at the age of 71 (and further!). We lost Billy in April of this year at the age of 94. Read more about him here, or from MANY different books that tell about just parts of his amazing life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Waugh In this stage: Find and eliminate targets. As in the real world, some targets will be obvious and easy to see/hit. Some will be much more difficult. Use all your tools to figure it out.

Innovative Targets has helped us with this match since the beginning, and I'm excited to announce Jason Agee has increased his support this year to the biggest level yet - supplying $2,400 in targetry to help us make the match flow better and do everything we can to minimize wait times while still providing interesting and challenging target presentations. Definitely check out https://innovativetargets.net/ for any steel target needs you have!

I am excited to welcome Nocturnality Night Vision Devices to the fold as an Obstacle Sponsor. Nocturnality is donating a White Phosphor PVS14 ($3,699 retail value) for us to raffle off at the match! Must be present to win - and the raffle will be drawn at the awards ceremony for the Team Night Match. We still have a few slots left for the night match. Register here: https://practiscore.com/team-night-match-legion-memorial-run-n-gun-2023/register You don't have to be a night competitor to win, but you DO have to stay up all night and physically be at the night awards ceremony. Oh yeah - and have the winning ticket. How bad do you want it??? Check out Nocturnality for all your night vision and training needs at: https://www.nocturnalitygear.com/

I am pleased to share that Tomahawk Strategic Solutions is returning this year as a Stage Sponsor. Tomahawk creates programs to better prepare your organization for evolving threats and emergency situations. Tomahawk personnel include Special Operations Forces (SOF) operators, corporate security experts, SWAT/ESU/Patrol officers (retired and active) hand-selected for their specialized skills and experience, and medical professionals. Check them out at: https://tomahawkstrategicsolutions.com/

Everybody knows SF guys are badass. What most people DON'T realize is how intelligent they are, and how much time they spend working on ways to improve their brainpower and solve really complex problems under stress. Did you know every single one of them speaks at least one foreign language (many of them speak FIVE!)? How many languages do YOU speak? To help showcase this better, for the first time ever we're working with 5SFG(A)'s Cognitive Performance Specialist to help us give competitors just a TASTE of things like this 5th Group does. That means we are really stepping up the mind games this year with his help! In addition to working on your running and shooting, you just might want to pump up that 3lbs of jelly between your ears too. To put your mind at ease: we are not testing any esoteric technical and/or language knowledge. You don't have to KNOW anything - but you do have to be able to observe things and think well under pressure (and while you're exhausted).