SABRE Training at the Badlands

Over the weekend of September 8-10, several members of The Wayne County Michigan Militia deployed to The Badlands Training Facility for regular monthly training.

Several members had deployed early on Friday night, to enjoy the outdoor atmosphere and set up camp. This happens at almost every training session, so if you are up to it, head on out early on Friday night.

The weather was hot and humid Saturday, with rain threatening throughout most of the day, but failing to actually materialize while I was there. The humidity was actually brutal.

After checking out Denis's new helmet radio set up, we started on our required two mile walk. Bug repellant was mandatory here. It was hot, sticky, chock full of bugs, and naturally, my gear was heavy. Nobody needed to walk for time, to qualify, so we did not time the march. However, at some point along the way we were encouraged to run a bit. This was delightful.

The helmet radio was a nifty rig, with a radio and headset affixed to his helmet. The entire set is available at Radio Shack for around $40. The radio was a regular 14-channel FRS radio. It seems as if more and more militia people now carry these. If you want to add an after market headset to your FRS radio, go for it. Some of us are concerned that the earphone may tactically impede our hearing. Denis managed to keep his earphone slightly away from his ear, you will have to see the rig to get a clear picture. Some of us, myself included, simply attach the radio to our non-firing shoulder.At least in Wayne County, it seems as if FRS is now the way to go. Don't let this discourage you from trying to get your HAM license at all.

Following the march, at least a couple of us actually applied the full face-paint camouflage. The intent here was to lead by example. I guess I will have to be a bit more direct next time. I still have the mesh veil, but I kinda wanted the really cool camo face effect. We are in the process of acquiring a quantity of camo sticks to keep on hand, so that next time we can all enjoy this experience. (If you know where we can get bulk quantities of these camo sticks, in Light Green and Loam color only, let us know. We want all of them.)

A slightly later arrival sent some of us off on another march, with one militia man accompanying him on the first half, and yours truly going along for the second. To my surprise, it was STILL hot and sticky....even the second time.

So then it was off to the range to get an individual qualified, do some weak-handed shooting, and get the youngsters some time behind a weapon or two (one for the first time, which is always a really cool event to be see).

Couple of comments about the range: Samantha handled a rifle well for her first time, and Alex knocked down bowling pins at 100 yards on a regular basis. He just turned 8. I think we need to make sure that promising young shooters like Alex and Samantha always have the opportunity to sharpen their skills.

Additionally, Mr Johnson shot a couple of left-handed strings at 100 yards. He hit ten out of ten on a paper plate. Mr Johnson is NOT left-handed. Here is one of those things that make me happy...seeing somebody improve their marksmanship from "marginal" at best, to "yeah, I can hit that...want me to do it left-handed, too?" And, in true militia fashion, he griped about his left-handed shot group, and asked how to make it tighter. One way, Mike, shoot and shoot some more...I challenge any of you to shoot left-handed at 100 yards, prone, and see what you get....

Anyway, we had another crew arrive, and Viola! we had to do another two mile walk. A couple of us, the ones that did the extra walking earlier, took a break after one mile, while some of the rest followed this late group for the whole stretch (to make sure they did the whole miserable, sweaty distance).

Then, and this is the "Olive Tide" part of the story here, we qualified three out of four people for Level One. Frank L, and Walter and Sherry S all completed their Level One, including the shooting part. Just like that, new members. Charlie did everything but the shooting part, but he was using an SKS. We understand that he will carry another, more accurate rifle to qualify next time out.

Now that we have a slew of Level One people, we can jump training up a bit. Some of the more motivated militia people are now working on qualifying other folks as Level One on non-training weekends. This shows some damn good initiative. Remember, you need two previously qualified level one people to witness any new qualifications...

And lastly, from our freaky radio incident department: We had been on a certain channel with the FRS radios all day with no problems. Around 7PM Saturday evening, as some of us were getting ready to leave, the channel was being stepped on. This stopped, and started up again whenever we tried to talk on that particular channel. We simply switched to our alternate frequency and drove on, but this event was aggravating and slightly disturbing. Remember to always have an alternate frequency to fall back on, AUTOMATICALLY, when this happens. Anyway, it was a damn fine productive weekend. Hope to see you out there soon...

-Lee

"Riding the Olive Tide"

By: Mike Johnson

Friday night I arrived at the Badlands for "Operation Olive Tide". The Stoner family was already there. Denis Curran made it out a few minutes after I got there. Mosquitoes began a "bloodlust induced assault" as soon as I got out of my car. That continued throughout the weekend. We train regardless of mosquito infestation in the summer months, or sub-zero temps in the winter. (I was awakened Sunday morning by the sensation of a downpour coming through the mesh roof of my tent).

Saturday morning we did the usual level one 2 miler. After that several people did their level one qualification. Frank LoPiccolo completed his level one qualification, that Enfield of his has a nice kick to it. I did some weak-handed shooting Saturday while everyone was qualifying.

Figured I would see if I could qualify left-handed. I have not had much practice with weak-hand shooting, so I've been making it a point to do some whenever I am out practicing. The last time before this was during "Lucerne Hammer" at Stasa's. The first round I had seven out of ten shots on the pie plate. The second round I had ten out of ten shots on the pie plate. However, the pattern was stretched across the middle of the plate both times, (one wild shot hit the top of the plate) indicating that I had been twisting my left wrist slightly when I pulled the trigger.

Lee got me started on this "left-hand" shooting stuff, I'm glad he did now. We then did a SECOND two-mile march (with brief run). It was getting late by this time and around eight o'clock a few people left. The nights out at the badlands are very peaceful. No car stereos outside that shake your house. Just clean air, animals, and friends.

On Friday, September 9th our crew arrived in our militia personnel transport vehicle, a.k.a. Suburban. We usually try to arrive on Friday evenings so we have time to unload, set up camp, and do any gear checks needed. With five of us, three being little people, this can take some time. We've gotten it down to an art at this point.

As has been pointed out, the mosquitos were out in full force. We ended up using 4 cans of bug spray just this weekend. That could get quite costly, so we went to the gun and knife show after training on Sunday and picked up several bottles of military bug juice with 70% DEET.

As soon as the sun went down, the skeeter population went down as well as the humidity dropping to a more tolerable level. Sleeping was peaceful and uneventful.

Saturday morning came with more humidity and bugs, so we kept a smouldering fire going to keep them down in the base camp area. Breakfast consisted of a new experiment that actually went pretty well. We had pre-prepared some sausage, egg and cheese "McMuffin" style sandwiches. Some of them got wet in the cooler, so we set them in the hot coals for a while, which evaporated the excess water as well as warming them up slowly. They were a little crunchy (burnt) on the edges, but the rest of it was good. Next time, we'll know to put them in zip-lock baggies for transport.

Several members showed up as we were eating, so they all joined in. Afterwards, we all geared-up for the 2-mile walk. I brought my wagon again to see how it would work on the different terrain, being more sandy at the Badlands than Camp Stasa where I first experimented with it. All went well again, although I have decided to affix a bug net of sorts for the passenger so she is more comfortable in the dense bug areas. I've also decided I need larger tires for the wagon. I try these new things for transporting my kids, materials, or whatever so I will know what works and what doesn't. Better to learn these things here and now rather than at some point where you don't have the option...

As Lee was getting his camo paint on, another member had donated a couple of extra camo compacts that didn't have loam color to the kids. They had a good time getting their paint on, too. I showed them how to blend the colors and how to cover different areas of their face, ears, and neck.

At this time also, Nick was showing Alex how to put on his new youth-sized gas mask. Alex practiced throughout the afternoon putting it on and taking it off, and now has the hang of it. Alex thought it was cool to stand in the smoke from the fire to "test" the filter (an extra one just for this purpose) to see if it REALLY worked. He was satisfied by the end of the weekend that it worked rather well.

It was still pretty early in the afternoon, so Alex and Samantha went to the range to get in some target practice. Alex has been shooting rifles and pistols for about a year now, and has become impressively efficient. Samantha decided that this was the weekend she was going to shoot for the first time, so Denis volunteered to help her. He got his .22 bolt action rifle ready for her, and showed her how to load, aim, and work the bolt. She had a good time, which is so important for that first time shooting, and she did a darned good job, too. The biggest problem both my kids had was getting the ear plugs in, so I've decided to purchase junior-sized ear protection.

Another round of militia folk arrived, so we went for another 2 mile walk. I was a camera person this time, so it was my evil idea to have them all run half a mile because it would look cool on film. Needless to say, I got a few choice words and some of "those" looks, but they all lived...

It was a good day, 3 more people qualified for Level 1, including another female, which is great (come on, girls...). If you are a wife, girlfriend, sister, aunt, grandma, mom or any other category of the female gender, come out and shoot, camp, have a good time. Trust me, you won't be the only girl out there, and this is not "just a guy thing". I always have a great time and learn alot.

Throughout the weekend, Nick proclaimed that it should rain. My cynical husband decided that the cure for this was to perform a rain dance. Okay, not the first thing everyone thinks of, but hey - it worked!!! Sunday morning arrived with rain. We stayed into the afternoon enjoying the rain and did some more shooting. Afterwhich, we packed up and headed out tired and satisfied with yet another good weekend.

See you there next time! - Kristin

Interesting side note - on the way home, as we were getting on to I-94 east, there was a convoy of military trucks that we ended up in the middle of. Mind you, our truck is painted OD green, and we still had all our camouflage on from training and there are militia stickers on the back of our truck. A couple of them noticed us, and took a hard look. Their trucks were not marked with who they were, but they appeared to be National Guard. I really wished I had more film for the camera, because that would have been fun...