An Alabama National Guard team and a soldier from the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence earned champion titles at the 2025 U.S. Army Small Arms Championships.

Alabama Alpha, the team from the Alabama National Guard, won the rifle team champion title and beat 45 other teams to win the All Army Team Champion title, according to an Army news release. The team consisted of Sgt. Maj. Stephen Murchison (coach), Master Sgt. Joseph Spradlin, Sgt. Gavin Blackwood and Spc. Cameron Drake.

First Sgt. Andrew McCallister, from the Army’s Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Novosel, Alabama, beat 224 other competitors to earn the individual all-Army title.

“It was a good way to cap off a career. I had a lot of fun,” said McCallister, who is retiring in four months. “I’ve always wanted to compete in All Army, but last year was my first year to finally make it out.

During the competition, affectionately known as “All Army,” over 200 shooters from all three components of the Army and some ROTC cadets competed in rifle, pistol and multigun matches from March 9–15 at Fort Benning, Georgia.

“The more I can learn here from interacting with shooters from all across … all components of the United States Army,” the more “I can spread to my soldiers and to my home unit, and across my entire state,” Staff Sgt. Hunter McDowell, a Michigan National Guard soldier, said, according to the news release.

In addition to shooting experience, competitors also developed valuable connections, said Capt. ReLeaña Griffith, a Norwich University ROTC leader. “We have NCOs and officers from all walks of life—active duty, Guard and Reserve—as future lieutenants in either one of those components, they are now meeting people who they will soon network [with] as the Army is a big, small family,” she said.

The Army Small Arms Championships underscore the importance of marksmanship fundamentals, said 1st Lt. Beau Kewley, of the 227th Infantry Battalion out of Hawaii. “It’s 100% worth it, as an infantry battalion coming here,” Kewley said. “A lot of the guys here shooting are on competition teams and whatnot. And even though that is not necessarily what we do, we are still able to translate all the marksmanship into what we do on the line and being able to bring back the marksmanship fundamentals to make a more lethal infantry battalion.”