After long last Sgt. Butler is back home in Montana.

We celebrated, how else!, by heading up to Rimini for a little militia training. He taught Teal and I sling transfers, the proper Special Forces shooting stance, and how to rescue a hostage in a vehicle take down. The SF shooting stance is pretty ridiculous looking and feels awkward as hell. “Try it in the heat with body armor,” Kenny says. Apparently that’s worse.

Here’s the stance:
With your feet shoulder length apart and facing forward, bend deep at knees, and stick your butt out—way out—lean forward and hold your gun with your elbows up by your shoulders. You should look something like like the Mouse Trap Game diving man with a gun in his hands. It’s ridiculous looking, but surprisingly stable and it immediately improved my aim.

Teal (who keeps a delicious blog) has the Hipstamatic app on her phone and took these rad vintage looking photos. She also got to try out her brand new cap and ball revolver. (You can see it in the upper left photos.) It took forever to load and regularly misfired, but when it would shoot it made a terrifically satisfying cracking POP! and threw out a cloud of white smoke.

A NOTE TO THE WORRIED

Don’t worry. We’re not really a militia, but I was curious about what Ken learned during some Special Forces training he received in Afghanistan. Ken and I have been shooting together forever, and despite of what it looks like in these photos, we’re very careful to be as safe as we know how to be. We’ve handled guns for many years and we only shot at the snow.