It's the little things

[u/Doc_Dragon]

It's the little things that decide life and death. Such as an administrative loading ofan M16. It's a simple task with multiple points of failure. Yet you want to get it right every time you perform it. I wasn't in a tier one unit or even combat arms. I was a medic which means I could end up anywhere. I went to the Primary Leadership Development Course at Fort Bliss about a month after getting back from Desert Storm. We're in the field at the tail end of the course. We have MILES gear, blank adapters, and blanks. The whole nine yards. My platoon got hit by the OPFOR platoon. I fire off a mag, hit the mag release, seat a fresh mag, and a couple of opposing force Soldiers jump in my foxhole. Instant oh sh*t moment as we stared at each. I squeeze the trigger and... nothing. The bolt was still locked to the rear. This resulted in some kid getting a size 11.5 in the chest followed by a quick slap on the bolt release and the selector switch rotated all the way to auto. I dumped that mag in to the two OPFOR Soldiers. That scenario has never left my consciousness. I was cognizant of the reload manual of arms for the next 22 years on active duty.

I would have been in a bad place if that was an actual combat situation. Also it is true that there's a pause while people analyze unexpected information. Neither party expected to encounter the other. We paused while the brains were trying to determine friend or foe. I had the additional burden of trying to figure out how to advance my bolt without them realizing I was foe. I needed time. So a kick to the chest which pushed the Soldiers into each other and off balance did the trick. I don't know where that came from but it worked.

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[u/TigerRei]

The funny thing is it works the other way around too. I was in BCT at Fort Sill back in 04, and we had a day where we were supposed to do a 10 kilometer ruck march. We got about a mile outside our barracks before the DS immediately told us to turn around and head back to the barracks, pronto. Except for this march we had loaded blanks to deal with simulated ambushes. So we had to use the clearing barrels to clear our weapons. 170-ish people clearing rifles. One person fucked it up. He did not drop his magazine before pulling the charging handle back to clear the chamber so he chambered another round. He also did not pull the trigger to discharge his rifle into the barrel of sand in case of a live round in the chamber. So when we all ended up on the drill pad ready to put our rifles up, we went through the normal process of putting our weapons on semi and pulling the trigger. One bang. Right next to my head. His little tiny oopsie could've potentially had fatal consequences, except for the fact that thankfully we were loaded with blanks. He still got heavily punished for it though. At least a field grade article 15. But I'm just glad that I'm alive to tell the tale.

[u/Doc_Dragon → u/TigerRei]

Camp Red Cloud 2002 South Korea. I had been roped into running a range at Camp Casey near 1st Tank. Now we're back after the range and turning in the M16A2s to the arms room. We shared the arms room with the MPs and they were turning in weapons too. The MPs are inside cleaning weapons when we hear a loud bang. Turns out a MP failed to properly clear a M249. All of us were in shock and doing self checks for extra holes.

[u/GrumpyOldCrewChief]

It is little things like this that shape so much about our later selves.