Genghis77
09-25-2007, 05:54 PM
In the real world forget all those war movies you have seen. Such things rarely happened and true events are so glamourized to be irreconizable.
In the real world and among soldiers I knew, they were rarely afraid of dying. It was thought of bang or boom and it was over. What was feared most was injuries causing loss of limb or blindness. And in my case, at least, my greatest fear was capture. You see, I was a mere sergeant. My fate would have begun by being shot or gouged through the hands and strung to gether with other prisoners. And I would have faced 2 or 3 days torture I won't even try imagining. Then I would have been killed. Only officers made it to the prison camps.
So, I had this John Wayne attitude that if wounded or overrun, I would pull the pin on a grenade and go out in glory and maybe take a couple enemy out. Nice thinking, not likely. When my opportunity came and I was wounded, shot in the chest and through the right lung, I found myself completely unable to move my right arm. My whole body felt like jello. I almost felt amused that it did not hurt like I thought it would. It was a burning pain and I felt like I had been run over by a truck but no real pain. Best I could do was move my left hand and get my med kit and pack of cigarettes from my helmet. The cellophane from the cigarette pack used to plug the sucking but bleeding hole in my chest. Anyway, I was treated by medics, put onto an outside helicopter pod and rushed to the field hospital. I'll never forget, at the field hospital they gave me my first shot of morphine. It hurt like hell itself. All the pain I had been holding back rushed forth. Note: the morphine normally kept in combat soldiers' and medics supplies had been removed due to concern for its misuse. But the thing that still pisses me off is I was shot by friendly fire by Special Forces door gunner from a helicopter. And the truth of my attempts to raise my right hand is I was going to kill him.
Anyway, things just don't go according to what you anticipated. I recovered relatively quickly and do get some pain and even waist down paralysis that sometimes lasts 5 to 15 minutes. Not debilitating though. And I have had some assaults as a civilian in my life. Though I was frequently armed nothing ever happened. Unarmed there have been a few events, but so sudden a gun really wouldn't have worked in the situations. Point might be made that I carried open. I may have very well scared off some incidents. I'll never know. But from my wounding in the army on, I always got sucker punched.
Let me add that I have a number of undeserved combat decorations. My Purple Heart a consolation prize. They're really supposed to be awarded for being wounded in combat by "enemy" fire. As many others will say as well, "the heroes are either dead or no one was there to witness their acts."
In the real world and among soldiers I knew, they were rarely afraid of dying. It was thought of bang or boom and it was over. What was feared most was injuries causing loss of limb or blindness. And in my case, at least, my greatest fear was capture. You see, I was a mere sergeant. My fate would have begun by being shot or gouged through the hands and strung to gether with other prisoners. And I would have faced 2 or 3 days torture I won't even try imagining. Then I would have been killed. Only officers made it to the prison camps.
So, I had this John Wayne attitude that if wounded or overrun, I would pull the pin on a grenade and go out in glory and maybe take a couple enemy out. Nice thinking, not likely. When my opportunity came and I was wounded, shot in the chest and through the right lung, I found myself completely unable to move my right arm. My whole body felt like jello. I almost felt amused that it did not hurt like I thought it would. It was a burning pain and I felt like I had been run over by a truck but no real pain. Best I could do was move my left hand and get my med kit and pack of cigarettes from my helmet. The cellophane from the cigarette pack used to plug the sucking but bleeding hole in my chest. Anyway, I was treated by medics, put onto an outside helicopter pod and rushed to the field hospital. I'll never forget, at the field hospital they gave me my first shot of morphine. It hurt like hell itself. All the pain I had been holding back rushed forth. Note: the morphine normally kept in combat soldiers' and medics supplies had been removed due to concern for its misuse. But the thing that still pisses me off is I was shot by friendly fire by Special Forces door gunner from a helicopter. And the truth of my attempts to raise my right hand is I was going to kill him.
Anyway, things just don't go according to what you anticipated. I recovered relatively quickly and do get some pain and even waist down paralysis that sometimes lasts 5 to 15 minutes. Not debilitating though. And I have had some assaults as a civilian in my life. Though I was frequently armed nothing ever happened. Unarmed there have been a few events, but so sudden a gun really wouldn't have worked in the situations. Point might be made that I carried open. I may have very well scared off some incidents. I'll never know. But from my wounding in the army on, I always got sucker punched.
Let me add that I have a number of undeserved combat decorations. My Purple Heart a consolation prize. They're really supposed to be awarded for being wounded in combat by "enemy" fire. As many others will say as well, "the heroes are either dead or no one was there to witness their acts."