The Appleseed Project: teaching marksmanship, history

“It would really make us proud if you would get involved”

“Shooters, your preparation period has ended… Load… Fire!” The order, muffled by earplugs, went out to a dozen people lying prone on the ground in the hills north of Gunnison, with rifles at the ready. A volley of fire ensued and paper targets bearing the silhouettes of “Redcoats” 25 meters away took the brunt of the barrage.
Every time the exercise was repeated over the course of the weekend, more rounds were put in the Redcoats and, eventually, no target escaped unscathed.
I’d been invited to participate in the Revolutionary War Veteran’s Association (RWVA) Appleseed Shoot by “shoot boss” Al Smith, who has taken up the cause of patriotism by taking action in two simple, if deliberate, ways: teaching marksmanship and remembrance.
And the order to fire on a chilly November morning was a culmination of both.
“We used to be known as a nation of riflemen,” Smith told the group during a break between rounds of shooting. He relayed stories about how men with rudimentary rifles, at times reluctantly, took up arms in order to keep aggressors at bay and forced others to respect the young nation’s boundaries and its citizens and to preserve an American way of life.
Eventually, in World War I and World War II, American soldiers became known as capable marksmen.
Smith doesn’t want people to forget those patriots, or the skills of their successors. Neither do the purveyors of the Appleseed Project.
The story the Appleseed Project hopes to tell starts on April 19, 1775 when John Parker stood on Lexington Green (near Boston) and reportedly told his men, “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.” His men were dispersed and a massacre ensued. Later that day, Parker and his men took revenge on the British regulars in skirmishes and the revolutionary spirit really began to spread.
But we weren’t shooting pumpkins off of fence posts as they were said to back then. This was 21st century safety-centric marksmanship calling on 250 years of knowledge and technique. Firing line procedures were taught and strictly enforced. “We want to send you home with the same number of holes that you came with,” Smith said.
Smith hasn’t always seen himself as an Appleseed shoot boss. He only started taking an interest in shooting a few years ago when he inherited his grandmother’s rifle. She had grown up in Louisiana and learned to shoot at a young age, and went on to become a five-time California state shooting champion. And Smith learned that shooting was part of his heritage.
When he attended his first Appleseed shoot to learn more about rifle handling and safety, Smith wondered what he had gotten himself into. “I realized I had this rifle and I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “What I didn’t expect to learn was that there are a bunch of people out there who think they can save the country by teaching other people about the ethics and sacrifices of people who made choices for their children and grandchildren.
“I thought, ‘Oh my, these guys are a bunch of nuts. But eventually I thought, ‘I like these people,’” Smith said, adding to the list of Appleseed shoots he had participated in since then.
At Gunnison’s sixth Appleseed shoot, there were people to the right and the left of me on the firing line who I knew to have strong concerns about the current direction of the country. But in spite of the seemingly political undertone to the event, Smith kept the focus on the past. In fact, Appleseed instructors have been relieved of their duties for failing to keep the conversations apolitical.
Others in the group were families, fathers and sons or spouses hoping to hone their skills as marksmen, for one reason or another.  
“There’s something about being at an Appleseed that puts the pressure on,” Smith said.
It was a long way from the days of going shooting with my buddies as a kid. These were drills for skills perfected through repetition. Again and again the pose was taken, whether prone, seated, kneeling or standing, and the shots fired. Often there were serious time constraints to get the shots off. Then we would do the “rifleman’s dance” with trips from firing line to target line and back again.
The volunteer instructors would correct mistakes in form or make suggestions on how to improve a shot. They broke the rifle shot down, like a foul shot or a golf swing, into its most basic parts.
By the end of the two-day course, half of the Appleseed shooters had scored high enough to be considered “rifleman” on the U.S. Army’s Qualification Test (AQT) with skills the Army used to teach all of its soldiers.
The skills are important to Smith, and to the Appleseed mission, because they were fundamental to winning the American Revolution and giving citizens the right to vote. Through those skills, Appleseed’s founders hope people learn about the values and sacrifices of early Americans and become involved in the civic process.
“When I first saw the Appleseed I thought there has to be something else behind it,” Smith remembers, “but based on their actions to prune the ranks of those who would take Appleseed to the dark side, I know there isn’t. Their take is that they would love for you to learn marksmanship and history. But it would really make us proud if you would get involved.”
The next Appleseed event in Gunnison will be held as a Winterseed event on January 22 and 23.
For more information, visit appleseedinfo.org.