And on the second day, we applied yesterday...

Did I mention, early rising, driving almost two hours in the night to dawn, and becoming the nice (? who me?) Revolutionary War Veteran Association Instructor yesterday, well rinse again and repeat. And I do mean rinse, I was caught by a pool of water on one of the covering tarps, that was lifted by a stiff breeze to dump all of its cold water on top of me and behind my bib over all, ahh... I have been places that would have been a refreshing shock, today it was just a shock.

We started with twenty shooters, and seven instructors, very good ratio, and our silver tongued Shoot Boss Wheeler44 convinced three more Riflemen (Nadia, Grant and Maury) to step up to become instructors in training. Another RWVA Instructor, Koolaid, showed up and added to the flavor and broadened the experience. Of the twenty shooters, four were women and six were youth. We fired Red Coat targets, sighting squares, ball and dummy drills, carded the sights to improve their concept and belief in Natural Point of Aim, and jumped into AQTs, seven for the day, a good 300+ round day. For the center fire shooters that is a lot on top of yesterday's 200+ rounds. Finished with another Red Coat target.

All that individual coaching by shooters and instructors paid off, three Riflemen made today Nic, Alex, and David all earned their patch. Now one of the stories is that a former paratrooper brought four youth yesterday to cheer him on, nah, he brought them to learn how to shoot better, and he was working on his skills with the M1 Garand, today three returned with him and two of them: Nic, and Alex earned their rifleman patch. That is cool, spreading the skills and all, but Alex had never fired a rifle before yesterday (and had no bad habits, I would guess, or was very willing to pay attention and learn) and he had more ammunition and mechanical problems with his rifles and gear, but he kept at it, and we kept giving him a different rifle and ammunition so he could. The lessons transferred to the new rifle, he sharpened up and finally broke through. A rifleman persists.

I have to confess to age and tired creeping upon me, I surrendered the Line Boss position, squared my accounts and paperwork with Wheeler44, and said good-bye about four-thirty, I am due to work another Appleseed in Idaho, don't I know how to have a roaring good time? Yeah, I do! See y'all at the range, the Spirit of America in action.