I spent 9 years in the army. I always fired expert. In fact in Basic Training I fired a perfect 40. And I'm mighty proud of it, too. In order to do that I had to hit about 4 (if I remember right) targets that were 300 meters distant.
The part that is true about the article is that the expert badge is meaningless. I know for a fact that there was quite a bit of cheating at the range. Since range scores translate directly to promotion points, a good score is important. And since scoring is done by your buddy, a good score is easily achievable.
But to make a blanket statement that the expert badge is meaningless, bothers me to a certain extent. Many of the expert badges out there are meaningless because they're not genuine. My badge is genuine and therefor I take exception to the comment.
How many are phony? I don't know, but I bet it's a high percentage.
I have a nephew in the army now, he says that some of the ranges have electronic scoring.
I was wondering what you mean by your buddy scores for you. The only time I saw manual scoring was when zeroing ranges were used to qualify.
Active installation qualification ranges should all be automated ERETS (Enhanced Remote Electronic Target System) ranges that count hits/misses automatically, via computerized sensors.
Your score cannot be "doctored" without WILDLY obvious tampering.
While, I'll agree that shooting expert (which I've not done all that often) is, by no means, "Not a big deal", it does not indicate mastery of the weapon, techniques, concealment, and mindset to the degree that would equate an "Expert" shooter to a sniper.
When did the 40 come along? In 1971 we had to shoot at a hundred and I hit 99.