A group of middle-age civilians, academics and future soldiers were given the chance earlier this month to fire shotguns and combat pistols, jump out of airplanes and scarf down platefuls of Army chow.

It had the potential to be an awesome experience or a very, very bad day.

But since there have been no stories about food poisoning, flattened skydivers or serious wounds from small arms fire at Fort George G. Meade in the newspaper recently, it's pretty clear how it all worked out.

In the end, a 23-year-old from Severn who's about to go to Army boot camp proved the best at shooting clay pigeons, and the chief...