Combat veterans share their best shots for charity

At a gun range, combat veterans share their best shots for charity
Charity donors get to try heavy firepower and hear tales from elite combat veterans at Shooters World in Tampa, Fla.
By Ken Dilanian
December 28, 2013

Scott Neil, left, and Tyler Garner, both special forces combat veterans, share their knowledge with donors at Shooters World in Tampa, Fla. Participants also get to fire powerful weapons. Proceeds go to organizations that help veterans.
(Ken Dilanian / Los Angeles Times / November 17, 2013)

Haley Koko shouldered an AK-47 and aimed uncertainly at the human silhouette on a paper target 25 yards away.

Standing next to her, Lt. Col. Chris Robishaw, an active-duty Green Beret, leaned in to offer a word of advice about handling the Russian-designed assault rifle, raising his voice to be heard over the rapid explosions of heavy weaponry in the shooting gallery. Brass shell casings littered the floor, and an acrid whiff of gun smoke sneaked past the air filtration system.

Koko, a 21-year-old bartender, fired off a few rounds — blam! blam! — and then swung around to look at her group with a broad smile.

"That big gun was absolutely insane," she said later.

Here at Shooters World, a Tampa-based temple of American gun culture, Koko and about 50 people took turns on a recent Saturday firing pistols, military assault weapons, an Uzi machine gun and a .50-caliber sniper rifle.

It was a charity event called Shooting With SOF, which stands for special operations forces. Organizers say they have raised $75,000 for military and veterans causes by allowing car dealers, insurance brokers, makeup artists and other ordinary folks to live out fantasies firing some of the world's deadliest guns while being tutored by 20 current and former commandos — seasoned, seen-it-all veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and places they can't talk about.
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