i was told it was that retard Clinton who took away our right to bear arms on post.
I was gonna keep my big fat mouth out of this, but thanks to Leadbug and Whatsinname181, I'm gonna chime in: I agree with 'em.
I was in during the mid 80's thru the early 90's.
I remember standing gate check w/ no round chambered. I recall patrols with no magazine inserted.
For the most part, weapons training was a joke. Blanks & Miles gear with very minimal rounds training (mostly for annual quals): "budget" was an oft cited reason.
It seems we were playing to be warriors, but never got the training.
It seems like the officers and brass were embarrassed about the fighting/hands-on aspect of military training. We couldn't get hurt or see blood or be stressed.
It wasn't until I passed recon selection that a whole new world of the military opened up.
I think much of the morale problem of the enlisted is that they get disappointed.
I saw officers and NCO's trying to be politicians rather than leaders.
I'll stop my rant afore I get carried away.
cool any good places to shoot down that way? Im from Pearl, Ms by the way....I'm glad I work in an armory.
About three years before I came to Edson Range as the NCOIC of the Armory, there was an incident where a recruit decided to take hostages from the rifle range. A Range Officer I knew talked the guy into taking him as one of the hostages. When it looked like the Recruit started to figure out he was not going to make it and might start shooting hostages, the Range Officer pulled out his pistol from his carry posistion under his utility jacket and behind his back. Two rounds in the recruit's chest and a third round into head and the recruit did not have a chance to shoot anyone before he died.
Under the investigation, everything was going good for the Range Officer until they asked him where he had gotten the pistol. They did not mind he was carrying it concealed, but that wasn't the problem. The problem turned out it was a .357 Smith and Wesson he personally owned. They had to give him an official reprimand, but it was the kind that was taken out of his OQR one year later and nothing permanent. The good news is that it did not hurt and probably helped him get promoted.
What I most strongly objected to, especially in the 1980's, was how we kept hammering the use of Deadly Force into the troops. The PROBLEM was our message came across as "DON'T SHOOT" most often, even when a situation arrived they not only were justified in shooting, but would have to do so to protect someone. So when I was the OD and at the daily Guard Mounts, I would quickly go over the use of Deadly Force as ordered for just a couple of minutes and THEN I went into about 15 minutes of when they should or were required to shoot. Then I told them that if they did shoot, there would be an Article 32 investigation as soon as possible. That always scared them, but I told them it was a GOOD thing as that way, one would be cleared of any fault and it would have been almost impossible for anyone to sue them in civiliain court.
Well, one of the end results of hammering "Deadly Force" into our Marines happened shortly after we arrived in Somalia. In one of our unit's perimeter fighting holes, a young Marine fell asleep. A Somali spotted that from a three story building nearby and came down and ran to that fighting hole and jumped in. Marines on both sides of him watched and did nothing. It was DARN fortunate for that sleeping Marine that he didn't get his throat slit. The Somali jumped out of the hole with the Marine's M249 SAW and ran off. Now NEITHER of the Marines on either side opened up and laid that Somali out. Since we operated under the ROE that even if someone just pointed a weapon at you, you could blow them away, the Marines' answers were sort of surprising. As they understood the use of Deadly Force, they were not allowed to open fire on the Somali even after he ran off with the M249 SAW.
I heard about this from some SNCO"s who were talking about it at HQ MARFOR up on the roof when we "dined' at night after the sun went down. I told them, "WTF did we expect after hammering "don't shoot" into our Marine's heads so much?!!" I told them we needed to make an example of this to inform our Marines of an example of WHEN to blow someone away.