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James Henderson National Championship Silver Medalist, Quota Winner at World Cup USA


Sitting in the corner of James Henderson’s Mid- land, Georgia home is a ODUJH SODVWLF ELQ À OOHG ZLWK shooting trophies.


“These are the ones that


made the cut,” he says, non- chalantly, noting he had to “trim the herd” from a room full to a box full from previ- ous moves - top honors from interservice and NRA com- petitions stacked haphaz- ardly and collecting dust. +H VKRZV RII WKH À UHDUPV and knives given to him from family and friends he’s met- along his shooting journey with the most pride. “I’ve never felt like I re-


ally do anything special,” he says. “I do what I’m told: Align sights, squeeze the trigger without disturbing the alignment of the sights and that’s what I did. Worked more often than not.” Throughout his more


than 20 years in shooting competitions, Henderson, a member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit and USA Shooting’s National Team, has won the interservice title eight times, President’s 100 seven times, National Trophy four times—just to name a few. “I got into the internation- al thing because I had done everything I could


pretty


much do in service pistol,” he said. “I wanted to see if I could step up my game to the international level. So far it’s doing okay. I’d like to


win something. I’m not doing too badly, but I always think I can be doing better.” Hendo – as his friends


and teammates call him – never grew up shooting. While he was serving in the army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, soldiers were rounded up to compete in a post champi- onship. “They just came through the barracks and said ‘Ev- erybody get on the bus!’ I went out, shot fairly well, and one of the AMU guys asked if I wanted to shoot NRA Bull’s-eye stuff for the summer and I said ‘Sure, sounds fun,’ and got as- signed there the next year. It was totally by accident! I had no idea there was a competi- tive Army team or anything like that.” Henderson, 48, would


then go on to shoot service pistol for 24 years. Eventual- ly he went on to compete the CISM Military World Games in 2006 and occasionally at the USA Shooting National Championships where he would discover internation- al-style shooting.


In 2009,


he came in second to Daryl Szarenski at Nationals. “I was like ‘Oh, that was


kind of fun,’ but never took it too


seriously though.


Then in 2012, I shot Olym- pic Trials and that was it!” he said. Leading up to the Olympic Games, Henderson no longer shoots the bull’s- eye events, but rather has


38 USA Shooting News | Year in Review 2015


turned his sole focus to Air and Free Pistol. +LV EHVW LQWHUQDWLRQDO À Q


ish to date came when he À QLVKHG MXVW RXWVLGH RI WKH medals in fourth place in Men’s Free Pistol at World Cup USA in May. His fourth- SODFH À QLVK DOVR JDUQHUHG the U.S. its lone Olympic quota in the event. But even with more than 20 years of experience in competitive shooting, Henderson is still learning to deal with the competitive pressure. “I didn’t


even know I


earned a quota until I sat down [when I was eliminated in fourth place]” he said. “I wasn’t even thinking about LW , ZHQW LQ WR WKH )LQDO À IWK and had one of my higher match scores that I’ve had, DQG GXULQJ WKH À QDO , ZDV OLNH ‘I’m not even supposed to be here. Anywhere I go from here is gold.’ No nerves or anything like that until we’re in between shots for fourth place and the announcer says ‘Now we’re shooting for fourth place’ and it was like it hit me! I was like ‘Holy


crap! I’m gonna…I’m gonna win a medal!’ and I lost my ever-loving mind! When they said load, I was cool – no is- sues – he said ‘start’ and I went to lift the gun up and I VZHDU WR \RX P\ À QJHU ZDV vibrating. It was like brrrrrrrr, oh my God, what am I going to do?! Just try and shoot the best you can, you’re used to shooting with move- ment, it’s no big deal, and it just wouldn’t go off.’ The announcer then said ‘10’ for the time limit and I was like you just ‘gotta make it go off and you can’t do that in Free Pistol - and I shot a 6.4. Having relieved all the stress and anxiety of continuing onto third place, my last shot was a solid 10. O just wished , KDG GRQH WKDW RQH WKH À UVW shot!” Read the rest of this story


on the USA Shooting website at http://bit.ly/hendostory.


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