Beau Mattioda took shrapnel in Fallujah in 2004 and has the Purple Heart to show for it. Thirteen years in the Marine Corps, eight sea-service deployments, three Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals (one with a Combat "V"), and a Navy Commendation Medal. He'll give you the record if you ask, but it isn't what he leads with. What's run through his whole career, in uniform and out, is plainer than any of it: he makes the shooter next to him better.
In Iraq he ran a Personal Security Detachment for I MEF Forward, responsible for moving the deputy commanding general — Major General Martin Post — and his delegation safely in and around Fallujah. That meant advance work, rehearsals, and the training and accountability of 24 Marines in a place where a small mistake got people killed. Back stateside he was Weapons Platoon Sergeant with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, leading 42 Marines through ship-to-shore operations on the 24th MEU and stepping up as platoon commander and company gunny whenever the billet needed filling.
Somewhere in there, teaching became the job. As the Weapons and Anti-Terrorism Force Protection lead instructor at the Marine Corps Security Cooperation Group, Beau ran tactical shooting and surveillance-detection training for missions around the world and helped write the readiness manual the Corps uses for security-cooperation work. After he retired in 2013, he kept at it as an instructor at the Academi Training Center in Moyock, putting more than 200 students through high-risk driving, firearms, and protective work: vehicle mobility, CQB, concealed carry, land navigation, straight from what he'd done downrange.
He later took over the Marine Corps' autonomous target systems out at Twentynine Palms, then pushed that technology across the wider Department of Defense. The goal was simple: make live-fire training move and react like the real thing, so close-combat units stop training against paper that doesn't shoot back. That work, closing the gap between the range and the fight, is the same problem he chases now as The Cadre's Director of Special Projects.
Behind the Gun
Beau's competition roots run deep, and they didn't start with a bolt gun. He came up on clays — trap and skeet — well enough to earn a Pan American Games team-selection berth in Colorado Springs and two trips to the Grand American World Trapshooting Championships in Sparta, Illinois, backed by Turner's Outdoorsman and Safari Club International. He was named CGSTA Rookie of the Year and selected to the USMC Combat Shooting Team in 2010, though he turned the team down to stay with his deploying unit. That same eye is behind a precision rifle now, and he still shoots — most recently The Invite out in Utah.
The Schoolhouse
Beau came up through the instructor pipeline the long way, with the schools to back it up. A short list of what's behind him:
- Combat Marksmanship Trainer School
- Foreign Weapons Instructor School
- Senior Instructors Course
- High-Risk Driving Instructor School
- Personal Security Detachment School (1st MARDIV)
- SOTG Raid Package — 24th MEU (SOC)
- Marine Combat Instructor of Water Survival
- Staff NCO & Leadership Course
How He Teaches
Beau has taught about every kind of student there is — Marines headed to combat, federal protective details, cops, and brand-new civilian shooters. The job doesn't change. Build the fundamentals, make them hold up on a clock and from positions that aren't a clean bench, and tell you straight when a shot was bad.
Two decades in, that hasn't changed. Whoever the student is, the measure is the same: they leave shooting better than they showed up. It's the only scoreboard he's ever cared about.
Train with Beau
Beau has spent two decades teaching shooters at every level, and he still runs a line the same way he always has: straight talk, real fundamentals, no wasted reps. Check the schedule to see when he's on deck.