Mr. DELGADO. Minimum.
Mr. LIEBELER. Rank?
Mr. DELGADO. It's broken down into three categories: sharpshooters--no;
pardon me, take that back; it's marksman is the lowest, sharpshooters,
and experts. And then Oswald had a marksman's badge, which was just a
plain, little thing here which stated "Marksman" on it.
Mr. LIEBELER. And that was the lowest one?
Mr. DELGADO. That was the lowest. Well, that was qualifying; then there
was nothing, which meant you didn't qualify.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you fire with Oswald?
Mr. DELGADO. Right; I was in the same line. By that I mean we were on
line together, the same time, but not firing at the same position, but
at the same time, and I remember seeing his. It was a pretty big joke,
because he got a lot of "Maggie's drawers," you know, a lot of misses,
but he didn't give a darn.
Mr. LIEBELER. Missed the target completely?
Mr. DELGADO. He just qualified, that's it. He wasn't as enthusiastic as
the rest of us. We all loved--liked, you know, going to the range.
Mr. LIEBELER. My recollection of how the rifle ranges worked is that
the troops divided up into two different groups, one of which operates
the targets.
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. And the other one fires?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. When you said before that you were in the same line as
Oswald, you meant that you fired at the same time that he did?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. And then all of us went to the pits, our particular
lines; then we went to the pits, you know.
Mr. LIEBELER. Oswald worked the pits with you, the same time you did?
Mr. DELGADO. Right. And he was a couple of targets down. It was very
comical to see, because he had the other guy pulling the target down,
you know, and he will take and maybe gum it once in a while or run the
disk up; but he had the other guy pulling it up and bringing it down,
you know. He wasn't hardly going to exert himself.
Mr. LIEBELER. Do you remember approximately how far away Oswald was in
the line from you when you fired?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes; he was just one over from me.
Mr. LIEBELER. The next one, the very next one?
Mr. DELGADO. Not the next one, but the one over from that.
Mr. LIEBELER. There was one man between you and Oswald?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you talk to him about his performance with the rifle
at that time?
Mr. DELGADO. Not during that day, because I was mostly interested in my
picking up the money, you know, and I wasn't worrying about what he was
doing; in fact if he wasn't bringing it in, I didn't care, you know. I
didn't want no competition.
Mr. LIEBELER. Did you win any of the money?
Mr. DELGADO. Oh, yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. How many of the Marines won?
Mr. DELGADO. Just five of us.
Mr. LIEBELER. Just five?
Mr. DELGADO. Right.
Mr. LIEBELER. And which one were you?
Mr. DELGADO. I was--I shot about 192. I came in about third.
Mr. LIEBELER. My recollection of the rifle range from the time I was in
the Army is that sometimes the scores that were reported----
Mr. DELGADO. Were erroneous.
Mr. LIEBELER. Were erroneous. Has that been your experience also?
Mr. DELGADO. Oh, yes; if there is not close supervision. By this, that
you have your buddy in back of you, he could be penciling in your
score; if you get a 4, he will put a 5 in there. It doesn't work that
way if you go to fire for record, like we did, because they have an NCO
line and they got a pit NCO. Now they have a man at that target down
there keeping score, and they also have a man back here keeping score,
and when both those score cards are turned into the line officer, they
both better correspond, and you have no way of communicating with the
man down the pit.
Mr. LIEBELER. Was that the way it was handled when you fired this time?
Mr. DELGADO. Yes.
Mr. LIEBELER. So there was very little, if any, chance that Oswald's
score could have been fixed up; is that correct?
Mr. DELGADO. The only time you could fix up the score, when you go
down for just straight firing, what they call battery column firing,
and there is nobody to supervise, you pencil yourself. The Marines is
pretty strict about that when you go for line firing. They want both
scorecards to correspond with each other.