AAR Manchester, TN June 26-27

[oldfudd]

Just to start this AAR I want to give a quick rundown of Saturday's activities with more to come later.  We had 23 very enthusiastic shooters despite the 92 degree, cloudless day.

On the first QDAQT of the day, two shooters earned their Rifleman's patch, one of whom was a first time Appleseeder who managed to earn a perfect 100 score on the 400 yard stage.  These Tennessee "Volunteers" seem very much to know their business.

I expect to see more Riflemen and Riflewomen earn their patches tomorrow based on the quality shooting going on today.  More to follow.

[Tennessee Jed]

OldFudd,

My son Matt and I had a GREAT time!  I'm afraid Matt came down with an illness Sat. night so we weren't able to make it back for Sunday.  He's already asking when we can come back, though; he REALLY wants his own Rifleman patch and his younger sister wants a piece of the action as well.  Thanks so much to you and everyone else who made this a great experience.  We learned quite a bit about shooting, as well as the birth of our country.


Joe

[Johnnyappleseed]

Hey O.F
Nice to see you working again 
Something you COMMISSSIONED OFFICERS mostly avoid 
Good job, Dick

[StoneDog]

OldFudd,

My son Matt and I had a GREAT time!  I'm afraid Matt came down with an illness Sat. night so we weren't able to make it back for Sunday.  He's already asking when we can come back, though; he REALLY wants his own Rifleman patch and his younger sister wants a piece of the action as well.  Thanks so much to you and everyone else who made this a great experience.  We learned quite a bit about shooting, as well as the birth of our country.


Joe

Joe,

That was some fine shooting you were doing.  Matt did a great job too and seemed to have a good handle on the steady hold factors.  Get him out to a few more and you'll have a second Rifleman in the family! 

Now, if we can get TNColonel and 4merUSMC1803 to post a few of the pics they took...   

Jon

[oldfudd]

Now to add a little more detail about the shoot, we had a total of 3 Riflemen earn the patch.  On Sunday, although attendance was down, we still had a bunch of dedicated shooters who showed a lot of improvement on their marksmanship skills.  Many are really pushing the edge of the magic 210.  Based on their comments at the end of the day, we'll see most of them back at the first Appleseed opportunity, where I have no doubt that they'll "hit the mark".

I do want to mention a couple of young shooters who really deserve the Youth Appleseed patches they earned at the end of Sunday.  Will and his sister, Eleonor Wright were positively amazing in their enthusiasm, zeal, cooperativeness, and wonderful demeanor throughout both Saturday and Sunday.     These little guys didn't even want to quit    when we closed the line on Sunday, although most of the rest of us were dragging from the heat and long day. 

All the shooters seemed to enjoy the "fun" shoots on both Saturday and Sunday.  Making "headshots" on the little action figure toys seemed to be a big hit.  What amazed me was that out of 23 shooters on the line, with 5 rounds, 8 shooters made successful hits on 1/2 inch google eyes glued to the toy figures.  We then had a shoot off using 2 rounds, and of the 8, we had 2 winners who successfully hit smaller 3/8 inch google eyes.  WOW !!!

On Sunday the fun shoot began from the lunch pavilion where shooters (who had previously been assigned to teams, and their respective targets) were surprised by the alarm of "The Regulars are Coming", and made a mad dash to their rifles and prepositioned magazines on the line (under a watchful eye of 4merUSMC1803) to fire 10 rounds in one minute at a Redcoat target.  The winning 2 teams had identical scores:  2 headshots, holes in every target and a total of 17 overall hits.  Again, WOW !!!

I want to thank all the Instructors for their enthusiasm and constant efforts to make this a safe and productive shoot.  My special thanks to both TnTimberWright (Bill) and TnColonel (Claude) for their excellent history presentations.

Oldfudd

[4merUSMC1803]

Additional Details

Shoot Boss-oldfudd

BOTG-TnColonel

Instructors-LILBIT:) (IIT), TNDryfire (IIT), StoneDog (IIT), TnTimberwright (IIT4), 4merUSMC1803

Riflemen-Miles, Joe, Alex  - - Way to go guys!  A big "Oorah" for the Marine Corps Jr ROTC shooters! 
Also, +1 on comments Re: Will and Eleanor.  Any parent would proud to claim these youngsters.

The Manchester venue which sits aboard Arnold AFB, is quite a gem with 1st class facilities (covered line, pavillions for instruction presentations, bath houses). GREAT PEOPLE!, both instructors and attendees.  

[TnTimberwright]

All I can say is "What a fantastic weekend," despite the 90+ temps and the horrible humidity.  Considering that this AS had some very major staffing issues and someone on another thread mentioned that word which absolutely is never acceptable "cancel," due to not having a SB and IIT's to staff it.

Well, thanks for getting OldFudd in there as SB. He did a fantastic job of developing a very excellent COF/POI for the weekend. He then led us through the very dogged fight of the typical Saturday "Time Monkey" which climbed on our back hard after lunch. Yes, he had us adding some additional sweat to the sweat from the heat.   But, we came through with the AQT's and the attendees came through super with all having fantastic improvements in their shooting skills, and we got us a couple Riflemen on Saturday.  

Then, to get himself some IIT's to staff this AS,  OldFudd came through by doing some arm twisting on a few IIT' with some phone calls. I just happened to see that we needed more IIT's here on the Forum and volunteered (yes, that's a Tennessee thing, historically speaking).  We ended up with a super good team and ALL of us got to really participate fully both days of this AS. I was most impressed at the entire group of instructors stepping up to staff this AS that someone actually said that "C" word on. NO WAY!!! We can never do that. We just need to SHOUT LOUDER FOR MORE HANDS ON DECK TO HELP BAIL.  

I have to give a real "Tip of the Hat" to TnColonel, our new TN State Coordinator, for the fantastic range we had at Arnold Air Force Base. Also, to him for all he did to work the event both days despite being on antibiotics and dealing with some pretty rough congestion issues. So, TnColonel, it was my pleasure to work with you and I'm sure we'll be crossing our AS Trail Paths again very soon.

Another man who won my deepest admiration was 4merUSMC1803. He came through to really help this team effort pay off with the improvements of many of our attendees. He was ever present on top of things, always keeping a keen eye on the current activity and looking ahead to where we needed to go next. He definitely helped us with the "Time Monkey" and to keep the AS ship moving steadily ahead into "safe" waters. He is a fantastic guy and, as an old Army "Grunt," I will say that he truly served us well with that old USMC "Bulldog Tenacity."  

To have a new group of IIT's (LILBIT, TnDryfire, StoneDog)who were just getting "under the hat," they all, TO THE PERSON, showed lots good developing instructor skills. They definitely got to take turns to do the things essentially needed to get their PC's done and to get upgraded. Again, even with a group of new IIT's, this AS really came through exceptionally as demonstrated by super POSITIVE ATTITUDES, AND as all stepped up to the plate do anything asked of them. Of course we must also remember that each one of them was a "volunteer" (there's that TN thing again) willing to do anything we needed help on to make this AS a total SAFE success that OldFudd (and Fred, Dond and others) can take pride in. So, my "Tip of the hat" also goes out very sincerely to each one of them for doing just that, making this a very successful AS that was shown by the demonstrable attitudes, improvements in shooting skills, and the many statements and handshakes given to us by our attendees.  


I personally want to again thank Appleseed for never disappointing me by bringing such fantastic people together, both the Staff and the Attendees. One thing for sure, the people who attend, all the volunteers who are instructing, and we cannot forget the additional "recruits" who help us administratively when recruited to help us.  ALL TOGETHER, and to the person, they typically tend to almost always exhibit the same attitude that we saw back in the days which gave us our Heritage that we teach at AS. Without people coming together around what I call "The Common Bonds of Appleseed" (includes the historical Heritage, the desire to learn to become Riflemen, and the "cause" which is AS) we would never have the success that we typically get to enjoy in AS. That attitude, the smiles, the congeniality of all around the concept of AS, the willingness to work hard for "The Cause" (AS), is what makes volunteering in this "Project" such a wonderful thing to me personally.  

Ditto's on the two kids, Will and Eleanor. They were fantastic and never missed a thing. They love shooting and kept improving. We all ended up praising them for being a couple of really exceptionally fantastic kids for their age. Their Dad has some kids there to be very proud of and he knows it. I told him to be sure and express our feelings to his wife for the fantastic job they've done with them. I have never seen such well behaved and "Safe" kids for their ages at an AS. We kept an Instructor's keen eye on them constantly and gave individual instructions as needed for a long time Saturday just to be on the Safe side. We verified that they "fell in" like regular shooters, after convincing all of us that they were definitely on top of safety and they knew how to handle their 10/22's. They took instructions from us, just like most AS attendees, and didn't hesitate to ask questions or to ask for help. So, again, we give them a special honorable mention because these two kids deserve it.  

Seeing the results of our attendees upon improvements over where they were when they came to the AS vs. where they are at the end of each day, says it all. Of course, shaking those hands of our New Riflemen is always most gratifying. As mentioned above, having one of our 3 New Riflemen on this AS get a perfect score on Stage 4, and by using a bolt action rifle to boot, was indeed something I have never seen until now.

Very excellent AS and I think the PTB may be able to get a very good regular SB with OldFudd. Just twist his arm like he does when he needs to get help.  I loved the "toy figures" he came up with that looked like tiny toy  "Redcoats." What was actually phenomenal was how we had so many shooters actually hit those little figures and even chew them up in a few cases when they were only about 2 MOA wide and about 5-6 MOA high. I understand this is one of those "Bama" ideas. The shooters got really excited and they actually shot these things taped onto a Drill Target better than they did the standard "squares." One of the girls actually made a head shot on hers and during the "run off" she made a double headshot. NOW, this really got my attention. She was shooting good anyway and still working to get her shot group tightened up better. This "toy" shooting sure did something to her shooting and to others as well when we saw they were likewise shooting much "tighter" to hit these little "Redcoats." Therefore, it has made me wonder if maybe we ought to try to make some 2 MOA Square Targets made as a "TEST" Target (also a "Fun" thing to throw in at some point) to see what happens. There may be something to this idea that when a smaller target is introduced to "Force Tighter" visual demands on the shooters, it may show similar results, especially for shooters who have some fairly good groups going but need tightening up. At any rate it might just be a good "fun thing" to let them try to just to see what happens. Maybe giving them 4 MOA Drills is too big, at least for some, so they don't aim as well. This experience sure makes one wonder. Maybe someone out there will give this a try (or possibly someone has already tried it). What we saw was definitely "unexpected" targeting results. Personally, I didn't figure we'd have that many hits. Same thing happened when we did the TEAM SHOOT on the Redcoat after lunch on Sunday. To have 2  five person teams make the exact number of hits on both targets was a surprise. I think both of these ideas worked to break monotony and was a good "fun thing" for the shooters. Both ideas it were clever and OldFudd gave full credit to Bama for coming up with ideas like this which got him to do these two "fun things."

Thanks again to all and chalk up another very good AS to the History books of AS.
It sure was a pleasure to participate in this one and it gets a full

[Johnnyappleseed]

OF -- I knew how good your shoot went  - Marine NCO's were somewhere in the background 
Semper Fidelis
Marine NCO
JA

[TnTimberwright]

OF -- I knew how good your shoot went  - Marine NCO's were somewhere in the background 
Semper Fidelis
Marine NCO
JA

Dittos on that comment JA. Never a bad AS if you have a good Marine in there pitching with ya!

[dart67eb]

Hey O.F
Nice to see you working again 
Something you COMMISSSIONED OFFICERS mostly avoid 
Good job, Dick

OLDFUDD was a RLO?  Well, I'll be!

[Johnnyappleseed]

^5
JA

[StoneDog]

You guys are confusing us non-military folks!       

I hope some of the other attendees find their way in here to post their experience, especially likes/dislikes and things we can work on in future shoots.

Jon

[dart67eb]

You guys are confusing us non-military folks!       

I hope some of the other attendees find their way in here to post their experience, especially likes/dislikes and things we can work on in future shoots.

Jon

RLO = Real Live Officer

[4merUSMC1803]

Here are some pictures.

[4merUSMC1803]

More Photos.

[4merUSMC1803]

Day 2 Photos.

[4merUSMC1803]

Last pics on Day 2.