Gannon Smith was born and raised in Altus. At the age of seventeen, he enlisted into the Marine Corps as a 2111, or a small arms repairman, to begin his lifelong dream of becoming a gunsmith. In his words, “firearms have always been of great interest to me since I was around nine years old.” Following his enlistment, Gannon shipped out of Oklahoma to San Diego to begin training on October 23rd, 2017.
Once his basic training was completed, he went on to learn the ins and outs of all of the firearms the Marine Corps had to offer, including the M9, M45, M16A4, M4, M249, M240B, M2, MK-19, M27, M110 SASS, Barrett M82, M40A6, M1014, M203, M32, and 60mm and 80mm mortars.
Upon graduation, he was stationed back in California at Camp Pendleton with 1st Marine Division, 3rd Assault Amphibious Battalion. During that time, he trained Marines in immediate and remedial actions with the weapon systems on their amphibious assault vehicles. He also kept their weapons up and running by fixing any problem that arose to keep the live range running smoothly.
As his first enlistment was coming to an end, Gannon went back and forth on whether he should listen to his Chief Warrant Officer and reenlist or separate and continue his education on firearms elsewhere. He chose the latter and stumbled upon SDI, the same gunsmithing school many of the staff at TFirearms attended. There he earned his certification in gunsmithing.
In his words, “Working at TFirearms has given me the opportunity to bring together what I was taught by the Marine Corps, what I learned on my own in the Marines, and what SDI taught me. I look forward to helping my hometown community with all of their firearms requirements.
