{"id":11802,"date":"2021-02-05T07:46:34","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T15:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=11802"},"modified":"2021-02-05T07:46:34","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T15:46:34","slug":"the-2021-macmanus-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/02\/05\/the-2021-macmanus-award\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2021 MacManus Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year I wrote about the MacManus Award, a program I helped revive with the Rutgers University Reserve Officer Training Corps.\u00a0 Captain Colin D. MacManus was a US Army Infantry officer and an Airborne Ranger who graduated from Rutgers in 1963.\u00a0 Captain MacManus was killed in action in Vietnam in February 1967 and posthumously awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action.<\/p>\n

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US Army Captain Colin D. MacManus, Rutgers University ’63.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To commemorate Captain MacManus’ life, each year the MacManus family awarded a .45 Auto to the graduating senior who held his Rutgers Corps of Cadets assignment, and in 1973, that was me.\u00a0 The award was a very big deal to me in 1973, and it’s still a big deal to me today.\u00a0 I still shoot my MacManus .45 regularly.<\/p>\n

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My first handgun: The Colin D. MacManus 1911 and a couple of 5-shot, 25-yard hand held groups I fired with it. I had it accurized in the 1970s, and it is still a tack driver.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The MacManus award fell away a few years after I graduated, but we were successful in restarting it in 2020.\u00a0 The young man who won the MacManus award last year communicates with me regularly.\u00a0 He’s now a US Army Infantry lieutenant going through the Ranger School at Fort Benning Georgia.\u00a0 Good people, these are.<\/p>\n

My good buddy at Rutgers, Colonel Javier Cortez, selected the top cadet at Rutgers for the 2021 graduating class, and I’m happy to report that this year’s honoree will receive his 1911 from the\u00a0 Colt<\/a> company (last year’s award was a Springfield Armory 1911, another fine handgun).\u00a0 This year’s Colt is the Classic Government Model just like you see in the photo at the top of this blog, and Colt is putting some special touches on it through their Custom Shop.\u00a0 That’s the same Colt model I was awarded in 1973, I’ve put a few tons of lead through it since then (230 grains at a time), and my Colt is still going strong.<\/p>\n

Because of the pandemic, there was no award ceremony last year.\u00a0 We’re doing the award ceremony via Zoom this year, and I’m looking forward to it. If you would like to read more about MacManus award and its revival last year, you can get to it via this link:<\/p>\n

The Colin D. MacManus Award<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n