Shooting and Accidents

Contrary to what some people may be saying shooting accidents do happen and they have the potential to happen to anyone that handles a weapon if they do not train with that weapon on a daily basis. Both of the shooting incidents that I am familiar with happened while I was in the Army a long time ago, which goes to prove that if you don’t pay attention or use the knowledge you have been entrusted with you can get careless and make mistakes. Neither incident resulted in the injury of anyone but they both left a lasting impression on those that participated in them.

The first incident happened to me personally. I didn’t shoot anyone but was shot at by another unit while on a range at Fort Bliss. We were conducting Scout Platoon ops, maneuvering to contact, setting up over watch, and removing obstacles. My squad and another squad were emplacing charges to remove a simulated obstacle when the over watch units began to engage targets to our front. We knew it was going to happen but having .50 cal rounds fly over your head is an experience that will make you concentrate on the task at hand so you can get out of the AO. What we didn’t expect was to have those same rounds begin to walk down into our position. Seems that one of the Track Commanders couldn’t hold the Ma Deuce on target and he slowly began dropping rounds short of the target until they were only feet from our position. When those big rounds begin impacting your AO its enough to make you want to change your pants afterwards. Why no one noticed that he was so short of the target I never found out.

The second incident is a lot more humorous but it still could have had deadly consequences. A buddy of mine Mike was assigned to the Scout Platoon of an Infantry Company. Mike was a character and was always getting injured in some way when they went out to train; it was never serious and he never missed any duty time, but he just couldn’t go out in the field without cutting or breaking something. On one exercise the Scout Platoon received the much coveted task of being the aggressors, and as such they were issued AK47s. Yes real AK47s, gas operated, shoulder fired, magazine fed, selective fire assault weapons. Sitting in the barracks the squad was continuing to familiarize themselves with their new weapons which had been converted to fire blank ammo only, when Mike decided now was the time to practice inserting and removing the magazine so he could do it quickly while in a firefight. On his fourth or fifth attempt he somehow slipped the selector level from safe to full auto. You can see where this is going can’t you?

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!

Mike suddenly emptied the entire magazine. It was assholes and elbows as every member of the platoon dove or ran for cover. When the dust cleared, the LT looked up and in all seriousness shouted, “Jesus Christ at least you could have yelled ‘Test Fire!’” I think that line from the LT, calmed the room in an instant and instead of wanting to pummel Mike to death for his stupidity they all began laughing hysterically.

Now almost 20 years later both incidents can be looked back on and the seriousness of the incidents can be tempered by the humor of them, but mishandling weapons is not funny, it can be deadly.