Great weekend of heritage, marksmanship and perseverance!
17 students stared down an intimidating forecast and turned their back on a comfortable couch in a warm house to lay in the mud and test themselves. Ages ranged from 9 to over 75 with at least two old(er) Marines and a Soldier on the line, 5 under 15 and a wide mix of ages in between those. Families, friends and strangers (no more) came together to learn the true history of sacrifice and hardship made on April 19th to gain the freedoms we cherish!
Saturday's forecast said cold rain until noon or later with winds up to 25 miles per hour and it was right! We managed to sneak in our first Redcoat target as the sky began to open up then spent some time under a leaky roof to learn some history and marksmanship techniques.
True to the forecast it kept raining so we moved forward to a wet firing line and began our journey down Riflery Road.
Dangerous Oldman (Jerry) did the First Strike for his first time and did great! We learned of Redcoat Regulars who spent the early morning hours standing in a marsh trying to reorganize while Revere and company made a much drier and faster path toward Lexington sounding the alarm.
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After Jerry's First Strike we headed out into a cool rain to see how we fared.
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DUSM (Rick) nailed the Second and Third Strikes during lunch and later.
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We issued two Riflemen badges Saturday. Kevin R. and Karl Q. both shot Rifleman on just about every AQT they fired. Kevin was a brand new Rifleman at his first shoot while Karl was a re-qualifying Rifleman proving he remembered the lessons of previous 'seeds.
DUSM should be posting up some photos of our top scorers soon.
Sunday dawned dry but conflicting forecasts meant we got more liquid sunshine on and off for the first few hours.
All of our instructors worked the line hard over the weekend helping anywhere we could see room for improvement.
Here's KSFlatlander (Kevin) observing Aiden for some advice.
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Midway through Sunday fatigue was wearing us down so we shifted gears, split into three teams and tried to obliterate the star target after charging to the line.
The charge to the line was initiated by ksdiver (Randy) who yelled that the regulars were using ball and that we needed to "Fire! For God's sake fire!"
The troops took that to heart and charged to the line in double time!
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I had offered Twizzlers to the winning team but we ran into a scoring issue. One team drilled the middle out of the star but left the legs more or less intact. Another team exhibited slightly less precision but most rounds landed on the star obliterating slightly more square footage of the star than the more precise team.
The more spread out team ended up with the Twizzlers but accuracy should be recognized so the more precise team was awarded Beef Jerky sticks for their efforts.
Randy also covered the Dangerous Old Men Sunday at lunch. Here he's giving a sling demo.
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Here's a group photo we got of everyone Saturday evening! Quite the crowd of determined shooters.
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More photos will be following from the other instructors.
In summary the weekend was hard but well worth it. Sunday afternoon the sun finally broke out and warmed us up enough to start pulling the sweatshirts off.
I'm incredibly proud of the willingness to gut through the weather and muck and persevere regardless. Perseverance is the first thing we learn as Riflemen.
Nothing worthy of pride is easily attained. Keep striving and it will come!
Looks like Kansas has a great collection of patriots! I love the "charge" to get those redcoats, sounds like the story of the minutemen charging down the road in Concord to meet the regulars. Luckily the Kansas patriots were able to get their volleys off before heading back to town. Nice pictures!
Quote from: Captain on October 07, 2019, 02:58:51 PM
Looks like Kansas has a great collection of patriots! I love the "charge" to get those redcoats, sounds like the story of the minutemen charging down the road in Concord to meet the regulars. Luckily the Kansas patriots were able to get their volleys off before heading back to town. Nice pictures!
We missed you! Hope to work with you in the future.
The riflemen
The young minutemen
The ground got a little mushy in places
Saturday morning redcoats
ksdiver (Randy) teaching some history
Thanks DUSM! Your photographer is top notch.
For those who don't know Rick earned his red hat at this event and was promoted to full instructor.