PEEKSKILL, N.Y. - Army National Guard Soldiers from New York’s 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry Regiment, squared off against their Massachusetts sister unit, the 1st Battalion, 182nd Infantry Regiment, in the annual Logan-Duffy Marksmanship Competition March 13.
The 182nd came out on top, winning the match by a single point, 280 to 279.
“I’ve been with the 69th since 2016 and I have never seen the Logan-Duffy Competition this close,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Jason Zeller, the 69th’s senior enlisted leader.
This year’s match took six top shooters from each battalion and tested their rifle marksmanship in standing, prone and seated positions. Using only the iron sights of the U.S. Army’s M4 carbine to aim and fire at paper targets, the Soldiers tested their speed and accuracy.
Setting the teams apart was the 182nd’s top shooter, Sgt. Tristan Manchester, an infantryman and team leader from the battalion’s Alpha Company.
“The real victory here is the relationship between our two battalions,” said Lt. Col. Landon Mavrelis, 1st Battalion, 182nd Infantry Regiment commander. “The most important part of this is the camaraderie and esprit de corps that we’re building.”
The competition is named for Brig. Gen. Lawrence Logan of Massachusetts and Brig. Gen. Edward Duffy of New York, who commanded the regiments during the Spanish-American War. It began to encourage competitive marksmanship with the rifle, the infantry’s principal weapon, and enhance the friendship between two units with similar backgrounds and heritage.
The 69th and 182nd are two of the U.S. Army’s oldest units. The 69th traces its lineage to the Civil War when the unit mainly comprised Irish immigrants, and the 182nd traces its lineage back to the Massachusetts Colonial Militia.
Today, the units serve in different states but under the same brigade — New York’s 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the 42nd Infantry Division.
With a few exceptions, the Logan-Duffy match has been held annually since 1936. The 182nd won in the inaugural year, only for the 69th to win the next.
The units take turns hosting the competition, with the 69th hosting this year at Camp Smith in New York. The 182nd will host the 2025 competition at Camp Devens in Massachusetts.
The match’s trophy, a large, silver gilded cup, is jointly owned by the regiments, with the latest winner keeping it until the next competition.
The competition was put on hold when both units served overseas in World War II in 1940. In 1958, the match resumed and the battalions competed every year until 2023, when both were deployed overseas — the 69th to the Horn of Africa and the 182nd to the Middle East.
“It’s great to have this tradition that we carry on every year,” said Lt. Col. Adam Bojarski, commander of the 69th. “As we’ve moved into the digital age, we’ve lost some of our traditions. Keeping those traditions alive is important.”