Despite the rain, snow, dampness, and fog, dedicated militiamen from
Wayne and Macomb Counties sludged and trudged through some training on
Saturday, Feb1st.

    Three persons re-qualified Level One (it's a new year, guys, time to
re-qualify!!!), we did a nice squad-sized assault, some rifle instruction, test fired a 37mm flare launcher, tried some more orange smoke and some new flares, and saw a couple of new nifty weapons at the range.

    Oh, yeah, we watched a dog eat a crunchy rabbit head, completely and totally. Crunch, munch, no more rabbit head. Yum!

    Almost everyone had winter camo, with one enterprising individual who used regular white fleece, upon which he added charcoal markings to break up the whiteness. A couple of other folks had home made snow camo as
well. this is not hard to do.

    The weather sucked, as it was wet and foggy, with intermittent snow, rain, and general suckiness. The road sucked, as the packed snow made for a gleeful exercise in ankle twistage. The range was snowy, but not cold enough to prevent general slushiness and wetness, which really soaked the clothing of the folks brave enough to use the bare ground to shoot. (I am not knocking the poncho platoon people here, just mentioning that the ground was, well, nasty.)

    We were all saddened by the news of the space shuttle disaster. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of these brave souls.

    After a thorough gear check, (break it out, let me see it, open it up, how many band-aids?, let's see 'em), and weapon break-downs, (now we have added a new rule, namely, that you have to re-assemble your rifle,too), we started the two mile slip and slide. It was hard, aggravating, and frustrating, and we had to run to finish on time, which was oh-so-fun, but the guys did it, with the last guy coming in at 39.50.

One problem that cropped up was that folks with eyeglasses kept having their lenses fog up. The weather was perfect for this. Some kind of "no-fog" or something is in order here. Something, anything. Blind militia people are not effective militia people.

(There was one latecomer, and an individual with a respiratory condition, who did not finish in time, but they did finish. The damp weather was hard on folks with asthma, or other breathing related conditions. The damp weather and slick road surface made it hard on everyone.)

     We then jumped into the shooting, while I noticed that nobody was wearing their poncho, despite the drizzle. I guess we had them rolled too
neatly on our web gear, and didn't want to mess that up.....ah, militia people. A couple of people used their ponchos to shoot from. One lunatic
did not. He got wet.

    Three folks qualified Level One, and this was the first time that I qualified with a scope. Probably need a few minor adjustments, still, but I am happy now. A happy militiaman is a ......(fill in the blank, here).

    A new guy was working on dialing in his 8mm Mauser. A little more work, and some more range time, and we are confident that he will develop the ability to hit with this, and hit well. We are always afraid that new people will become discouraged if they don't hit the bulls eye the first time out. I don't think that this is the case here, and am sure we will see more of this young gentleman.

    We also saw a nifty Romanian Dragonov sniper rifle. It just looks cool, makes a loud noise, and promises to be fairly accurate. Yeah, I want one, too. There was also a test firing of a 37mm flare-launcher with a "bird-buster" round (for agricultural purposes, only). This launcher was mounted under an AR-15, a la M203. Ah, that brought back some memories....and I want one of them, too. The rounds are very expensive, but if you REALLY  need to get rid of some birds or other pests, or for signaling purposes, or, or....well, this could be a useful item. There was also a neat .223 AK.

    After the qualifying, we broke into two fire teams and assaulted Lou. One team got on-line and suppressed Lou, whilst the other team bounded around to the right and flanked him. Then my team swept across as well. It was during this that we suffered our worst training accident ever. One dedicated, hard charging militia guy bounded into a tree and broke his nose. Don't ask me to tell you who it was, because I won't. The squad medic took a look at it and deemed him to be OK. He was well enough to go back and shoot some more, which he did.

   Reviewing the tape, I probably should have bounded my team up a little faster and a bit closer. But that's why we train, and that's why we video some of our training. We do it, we watch it, we learn, and then we do it better.

   It was getting late, and some of the folks had to jet out, so we went back and did some more shooting, including some pistol work and function testing of other rifles.

   As it got dark, we saw some flares being tested. A small, hand-held flare or two might be a good thing to carry with you. these can be used to signal "lift and shift fire" for example, or to frighten an enemy helicopter (and maybe temporarily blind his night vision), or to help spot an enemy who may be creeping up on you.

   We also got to briefly check out some really neat night vision goggles. Yeah, all you feds, terrorists, UN dogs, and other enemies of freedom out there, we have some good stuff, too. And we ain't doing this for a paycheck, either....

    Nobody stayed overnight, as it wasn't really cold enough to do a good   winter gear check. Some of the guys came to training right after work, and at least one had to leave training to go to his job. This is the type of dedication to training that the militia needs, and training is exactly what we all need to be doing. It is what is important, and it is what separates us from a debate club.

   We might be considering advancing the start time of training to 10 or even 8 in the morning, instead of noon. This will give us the morning for zero time, function checks, and Level One, and then we can do drills starting at noon. Just a thought. Nobody will hate you if you show up at noon, and nobody will kick you out of anything, either. Let us know.

   See you out there next time.

-Lee