How 'Bout Them Apples?

A product of Uncle Sugar's Airplane Patch Defense Force myself, I was a tad dismayed that Breda's experience with the Appleseed Project was less than positive. Heat issues aside, I wondered "What's the big deal about the sling?" I never shot with a sling in my entire USAF career! Sure, Zoomie marksmen aren't the first thing you think of when military marksmanship is mentioned, but the combat arms folks can teach a total newbie to score Expert in a day.

PDB is a bit critical. I've never been to an Appleseed event, but I know a few things about technical training and I don't think PDB is off base here. I think some of the problem might lay in Appleseed's squeezing everything into a single day, though I feel it ought to be possible. USAF Basic had a dry-fire day and a wet-fire day, but follow-on training retaught the whole syllabus in a single day. Since a lot of Basic time involved marching out to the range and back, there's no reason you can't make some decent riflemen in a single day. Maybe if they left out the slings and shooting mats and concentrated on the sight picture....