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The marksmanship program at Virginia Military Institute recently received a donation of new firearms and equipment recently from Sig Sauer, a firearms manufacturer in Newington, New Hampshire.
Included in the gift were a dozen .22 pistols, a dozen 9 mm pistols and 20 red dot reflex sights for the pistols, for a total value of over $23,000.
According to Lt. Col. William “Bill” Bither, director of corps marksmanship and NCAA rifle coach, the gift was overseen by Samantha Piatt, director of communications and media relations for Sig Sauer, and Steve Rose, executive vice president defense strategies group for Sig Sauer. Rose has two sons who currently attend VMI.
“This has been an incredible opportunity and resource for our marksmanship program and will allow our cadets to train with U.S. military service pistols. We plan to start training with the pistols during our basic pistol class and shooting club practices,” said Bither.
“It’s our honor to be able to support the cadets as we recognize that they are our future leaders; we sincerely appreciate having this opportunity,” said Platt. “Currently, we are working with the programs at U.S. Military Academy at West Point, U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, VMI and Norwich University through product support. We are working diligently to expand each year to support the firearms training programs at the academies and will hopefully be able to add to the list each year.”
