Two Montana boys share time on the range

“Just two Montana boys catching up” was how one of Brian Sharp’s commanding officers in the U.S. Army described the Green Beret sniper’s time with Montana Senator Steve Daines in Colorado Springs.

The two Montana boys met by what could be described as a cruel twist of fate.

Sharp, a 33-year-old Libby native, was in Afghanistan serving his country when he and his fellow soldiers were ambushed by enemy forces March 22, 2019. Sharp and another member of his Special Forces unit were shot at close range, about 30 feet. He was struck in the back and suffered temporary paralysis in one of his legs.

“I can’t believe they didn’t kill us,” Sharp said.

The bullet that had cut through Sharp’s body shattered his right hip and damaged some of his intestines. The hip joint was repaired with titanium supports and screws, but the bullet still remains. But he was alive and after first being transported to Germany, Sharp made it back to the United States and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

During his first week at the Medical Center, both Montana senators, Daines and Jon Tester, visited Sharp.

Daines and Sharp made a special connection as they talked about elk hunting and long range shooting.

“Senator Daines and his wife visited me and my wife in the hospital,” Sharp said. “He talked about shooting long range with Donald Trump Jr. and then he challenged me to a shooting competition.

“I said ‘You do realize I’m a Special Forces sniper?’” Sharp recalled with a laugh.

In May, Daines invited Sharp and his team to an event in the Capitol Building. They first visited Colorado Senator Michael Bennet. During the tour, Daines showed the soldiers a statue of Ronald Reagan.

“He showed us something most people don’t know anything about. There is a thin layer of material at the base of the statue that is made of remnants from the Berlin Wall.

“That was pretty cool,” Sharp said.

Reagan, of course, made the famous declaration “Tear down this wall” during a speech June 12, 1987, in West Berlin as he called for Mikhail Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to open the wall which had separated Germans since 1961.

Sharp was able to leave Walter Reed May 20, a little less than two months after arriving. Doctors told him it would probably be at least three months before he could walk.

His remarkable recovery gave him the ability to return to Colorado Springs ahead of schedule.

Not long after Sharp returned to Colorado, Daines and his two sons, David and Michael, visited him.

“I was able to thank him for his support and show him the team that we have that works with wounded soldiers in our recovery,” Sharp said. “We have several personal trainers, therapists, mental health, a whole team.

“He was really happy to see me walking because the last time he had seen me, I was still in a wheelchair,” Sharp said.

They then traveled to the long distance shooting range.

“We got out there and there were about 50 or 60 elk on the range,” Sharp said. “What are the odds? And then a B-2 Stealth bomber flew a few circles over us, so it was quite a start to the day.”

Sharp, Daines and his sons did some shooting at targets at 1,000 metres.

“We got them to the point where they could hit the targets at that range, then the Senator and I got into our competition,” Sharp said.

They each fired 20 times. The distances ranged from 200, 500 and 1,000 metres.

“Steve scored 55 points, then I started and I made sure I got that many before I started really pulling away,” Sharp said.

Sharp said it was the first time he had shot a gun and wore his uniform since he had been shot.

“I can’t express how much that meant to me and how it felt to share that with my Montana senator,” Sharp said.

While Sharp remains in Colorado Springs, he knows he and his family’s future is in Montana.

“My boss, who was one of my close friends in the service, and I had planned to retire back here and open a business renting wild land firefighting equipment,” Sharp said.

But Sharp just helped bury his friend, who was recently killed in Afghanistan.

“It’s very painful,” Sharp said. “He just had two years to go before he could retire. I still have eight years, but it’s something I still want to do.”

Sharp said during the funeral reception, Daines texted him to see if he was interested in being on a Wounded Warriors elk hunt.

“It didn’t take me long to reply,” Sharp said. “I love to hunt, but with what happened to my hip, it’s not easy getting around, so to have a chance to go on a hunt like that is pretty special.”

Sharp said he is leaning toward leaving the military, but hasn’t made that decision. He and his wife, who have a 17-month-old daughter, recently bought 20 acres of land west of Kalispell.

He is very grateful he is still alive.

“I’m grateful I’m still here, to be with my wife and family and I’m looking forward to our future in Montana because that is where home is,” Sharp said.