To The Military Wannabe,
Yesterday
I had the distinct displeasure of sitting in front of you during the
CHL class we both attended. I found your comments to be asinine and
reminiscent of those an adolescent boy makes when trying to sound
“all grown up”. The difference is, an adolescent boy will grow
out of such things as he becomes a man. You are many things. A man is
not one of them. Allow me to touch on just a few of your comments to
illustrate my point.
- Your insistence that when forced to use deadly force, specifically a firearm, the goal should be to “shoot to kill” was, well, stupid. We live in a society that has laws and concepts designed to ensure relative peace and tranquility (that all of our laws don't successfully contribute to that is irrelevant). Among these is the idea that if a life is to be willfully and deliberately taken from a criminal, such a decision will be decided by courts and juries and carried out by an appointed agent of the state. Neither you nor I get to be vigilantes, regardless of the temptation to do so. If you do so, you will very likely go to prison for a long time...as well you should. Because, contrary to your assertion that you can “sway a jury” you are far more likely to be tried and convicted for the crime of which you'll stand accused when you do what you said and admit under oath “you bet I shot to kill cause he had it coming” (an admission you said you would make). We shoot to STOP. Whether the threat is to us or someone else, that is our goal. Once the threat has been stopped, we stop shooting.
- I feel compelled to point out two things regarding Tom Clancy novels. First, they are fiction. This means that while Mr. Clancy may have done extensive research for his novels, they are not true and the US military does not base it's SOP on his writings, your suggestions otherwise notwithstanding. Second, you are not “the closest thing there is to a real life John Clark”!
- Continuing with the Clancy comparison, your claim to have been part of the SOG is, shall we say, dubious, since it was disbanded in 1972, almost 20 years before you claim to have been born.
- Enlisted personnel in the United States Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps do not go to basic training. We go to boot camp.
The
reason the real military people in the room, whether active duty,
those who served a few tours or those who retired wouldn't talk with
you is not that they were “intimidated by a real warrior”. It's
because they recognized you for the fraud and liar you are. You, sir,
disgust those of us who have served.
Good
day.
Enlisted personnel in the USAF go through basic training, or that was what it was called when I went through the eight week course back in the summer of 1976. (Ah, summer in the middle of Texas...good times.)
ReplyDeleteIn our CWP class, we were taught to shoot at the Thoracic cavity or main body mass, two shots then pause to see effect. If the perpetrator is still moving, two more shots. (No one in their right mind wants to have to shoot anyone, but the goal if you have to, is to make sure that they no longer present a threat to you or your loved ones.)
You as a trauma specialist can probably attest to the fact that a person can take multiple gun shots and survive.
Yeah...Texas summers. And yes, I agree with the "double tap" method. Not only is the thoracic area a large target, it's also where most of our more delicate internal goodies reside. You're correct about the goal of shooting, too. While shooting someone center mass may kill them, that should never be our goal. The double tap is what I was first taught many years ago and in virtually every training ever since.
DeleteAs for the annoying guy in my class, he claimed to have completed Navy "basic training" at the start of his military career.
While I can't claim to be a trauma specialist I have dealt with a fair number of trauma patients. Trauma is an interesting thing. Some people will go down immediately and others seem to be able to absorb an unbelievable amount of damage. Not only do some not succumb to such wounds, some have been known to literally walk into the ER under their own power after receiving such wounds. A big part of that, of course, is based upon what happens internally after being shot.
There's one in just about every class--how well I know. Fortunately for me, I teach English, so I don't have to worry about the guy killing someone--just wrecking the language.
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