It was an honor to serve this fine group of young men from Boy Scout Troop 15 at the Shelby County Sheriff's Department Training Center this past weekend. A little nervous with the long line of youth shooters, I was immediately relieved when Landon, the Senior Patrol Leader of the troop, took some leadership and helped facilitate the registration process. Joining the scouts on the line was our civilian shooter, Michael who had actually been to the CMP marksmanship park and decided to attend an Appleseed clinic that he had heard so much about. We started off the weekend with the welcome speech, first strike, and safety rules as the shooters listened intently.
Tom started off our morning as line boss, and what an excellent job he did. With our first redcoat of the day, the shooters quickly realized how much they had to learn and learn they did. After only our first square of the day, we noticed a significant improvement in groups. By the end of day one, the shooters were hot and tired, but still engaged with the final strike and closing benediction where they were encouraged to reach out to their local, state, and federal leaders and get familiar with issues they will soon be old enough to vote on.
After a night of camping on the range, the boy scouts were up Sunday morning ready to work, and Micheal was looking forward to learning more as well. After our review, we moved on to learn the standing position. Because of the hot day, we decided to morph our dangerous old men segment into several toasts for liberty where we passed out official Appleseed playing cards and had the scouts read the names and accounts of several patriots, after which we would give a hearty "HUZZAH!" and take a sip from our canteens. We were able to get to one AQT before noon, and we had several shooters in the range of marksman and knocking on the door, but it was time for lunch and KD. We had some great questions from Walt during the KD presentation and hopefully hooked a few potential shooters for one of the Known Distance shoots coming up at the end of October or December 3rd at the CMP park.
Even the post-lunch food coma couldn't keep these shooters down when the idea of shooting Oreos was brought up. So to put their marksmanship skills to the test, we posted up oreo cookies to the backers and enjoyed the immediate feedback from the crumbly targets.
While we didn't have any riflemen at the end of the weekend, we had incredible improvement in the red coat target numbers (from 1 shingle shot to 4!) and one score of a 205 from Owen.
All in all, it was a great weekend for liberty.
It was a great weekend with Troop 15! It was a joy to have all of you on the line! ^:)^
I snapped a few pictures this weekend. Sadly, not as many as I would have liked.
An orderly check-in!
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160924_081107_zpsacwdn8dg.jpg)
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160924_081753_zpswksxity4.jpg)
Getting to the line...
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160924_082847_zpsimrvsklk.jpg)
A sea of red!!
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160924_084803_zps35euu2vx.jpg)
The redcoat target
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160924_100207_zps96usiuhw.jpg)
Thanks to Shelby County Sherriff's Office for hosting us on their beautiful range!
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160924_102938_zpsiuvh9ilu.jpg)
Trigger exercise!
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160924_102938_zpsiuvh9ilu.jpg)
Line bossing is EXHAUSTING!
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160924_175114_zpsaie5okcx.jpg)
Sunday morning! :)
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160925_092349_zpsbqcuyrmb.jpg)
The crew!
(http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c25/rusty-appleseed/2016-09_ColumbianaAL/20160924_171854_zpsbj4a9d3b.jpg)
My thanks to everyone who came out. Troop 15 was a pleasure to work with. Y'all are awesome!
-Rusty