OPERATION: RACCOON SLAYER JULY 2009

We had a really good turnout for this month's training.  Lenawee county showed up, I think every one of them.  We had a new guy from the WMVM, and one complete stranger named Ron, who had never made contact with us before.  "Mt. Dew" and Doug brought a few fine young men out, who are a bit young to be members but eagerly participated in the weekend's activities.




Between my mower and LFB's trimmer, we tamed the grass at the range.  It was not easy.





Ron, by the way, is an older gentleman who recently lost his wife.  I never really did get an answer out of him as to why he is interested in the militia, but he did seem to be seeking company and friendship.  Of course, he came to the right place, and I believe he will be back.  He did some shooting and participated in LFB / Bubba's land navigation exercise, which was superb.  I did not get any pictures of Ron, so here's Bubba with Ron's dog:



On Friday night, our food supplies were nearly ransacked by a squad of possibly rabid raccoons.  They had the balls to carry out their ambush a mere 20 feet from us as we sat by the campfire.  With our .22s and flashlights ready, we engaged the enemy.  I shot a big fat coon three times before he ran away (yes, he was still alive).  The others returned later, and suffered further casualties by my Savage .22:



Saturday afternoon, Weaver and I drove up to camp D-day, where mowing and trimming were also badly needed.

First things first, I reclaimed my shooting range from the ever-encroaching jungle:


Then I mowed the "back forty", which took three hours because the grass was waist high:




And of course we made time for some shooting:


Overall it was a fun and very productive weekend.

Bubba and LFB will have to fill us in on the rest of the weekend at Camp Stasa.

The rest of my pictures are viewable at the photobucket album:  http://s657.photobucket.com/albums/uu300/SMVM/July%202009/?start=20

-D Day

I have to concur on the Sat. portion of training. Mt. dew's kids and yound friends worked great as a team on the compass course, and even thought we started third as a team, we ended first because of their teamwork, and also they had a great grasp of their weapons during range time, some future SMVM members!

On Leadership:
LFB did great on tasks at hand and keeping things moving for our group and for the visiting group.
D-Day, in-spite of his foot, he was quite helpful on Sat.
Solo, made his position known.
Bubba, well I did fair and need work.

I believe that we did get 5 members (verify no's) to level-one with two needing just the physical portion to finish.
Leadership will need to meet before August 1, 09 training to plan exercises and hash-out some refinement for leadership issues I feel that need addressing.
 
To the leadership and members:
We can do and will perform to our best,
Thank guys!

-Bubba

Sunday;
      We had two members qualify weapons, congrats Mt Dew, and E.T.  Crazy Eyes finished his 2 mile qualification walk in 28 minutes exactly.  Good Job all!
     We broke camp after an open range and cleaned up all garbage.
Left for home around 1pm.

-LFB