Reader David Danylyshyn writes:
Canada being, well, Canada, this is likely to get zero coverage up here, but each year, the best military shooters from the best shooting cultures in the world compete at Bisley, England…all the commonwealth countries, SAS, SBS, lots of American representation, the French Foreign Legion, etc. Usually about 1300 competitors in all. This is military-replicant shooting, with short range, long range, run-downs, quick-exposure, timed fire, etc. The top British shot is awarded the Queen’s Medal each year. These are not as hard to come by as the Victoria Cross, but still damned rare . . .
This year the top shot — that is to say, the best military rifleman in the world — was Afghanistan veteran and infantry Sergeant T. E. Danylyshyn, of the Canadian Scottish Regiment, of Victoria, British Columbia. That is to say, Tatyana Elizabeth Danylyshyn. Full disclosure: she’s my daughter.
I’m not a bad shot myself and I taught all my kids to shoot, read, and swim before they started kindergarten. In Canada, there is no “girls’ course” or altered/women’s standards for infantry NCO battle school.
In the competition she beat the a British fellow, the one who received the Queen’s Medal. She won’t get the medal herself, though, because…colonial.
She probably would have won last year, but came in second because she was recovering from a brain injury sustained in an assault last year in Washington state where, of course, drivers with Canadian licence plates are safe targets, having no right to armed self-protection.
In a few weeks, she leaves the infantry, and starts medical school at the University of British Columbia, transitioning from generating casualties to fixing them, as it were. Oh, and she recently learned to drive also.