Philip Neil:  

Life has been rather busy since South High. Thirty days after graduation, I entered West Point. I suppose the most notable event there was that I was ordered by an upperclassman to go out for the Pistol Team. One of the benefits about sports at West Point is that the plebes on teams got to eat normal meals, so I literally shot to eat. At the time, I didn't know that shooting would be a major event in my career. By sophomore year, I'd made First Team All American and lettered, and the shooting went uphill from there. After graduating, I did the Airborne Ranger stuff, and was commissioned in the Field Artillery. My first assignment was Ft. Knox, and one day I wandered over to the pistol range to shoot a few rounds. That practiced progressed into the Ft. Knox team, then the Fifth Army team, and then the All Army Shooting Team. All of the time away from the Field Artillery didn't do my Army career much good, but living in Holiday Inns and traveling to matches was a vast improvement over carrying a ruck sack and an M-16 and living in tents in the field. The Army dropped by the wayside, and I took a job in Dallas at Texas Instruments. Competing with new colledge grads was hard, so I decided to go to law school in San Antonio. Law school seemed to be the "college life" that I'd missed. The Army Reserve paychecks came in handy, and the duty was, you guessed it, shooting on the All USAR Pistol Team as well ...Expand for more