In today's JPFO alert, I share some memories brought to the fore by Wednesday's Ft. Hood shooting.
Just as we began the run, a mentally disturbed sergeant opened fire on us from the treeline, killing Major Mark Stephen Badger with his first shot, and then continuing to fire, apparently without regard to specific soldiers as his targets.
That ended up being 18 additional targets, all of whom survived, although one was paralyzed.
And we, the supposedly elite paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division, ran like frightened rabbits, because in a "gun-free" zone, the armed predator is king.
Stumble it!
1 comments:
After the "workplace violence" at Ft. Hood in 2009, at least one columnist in an Atlanta newspaper smugly cited the incident as an example of how guns are useless for self-defense. "Being armed didn't help those victims, did it?" Of course, it was in a hospital, not an armory, and the victims were all unarmed.
US military bases are "gun-free zones" if ever there were any. Most military personnel seldom handle weapons except when on a target range, training and qualifying (maybe once or twice a year). And relatively few service members have ever been in actual combat.
Even military police and civilian Defense Department police only carry weapons while on patrol. They sign out at a handgun at the start of their shift, then turn it back in when they go off-duty. In fact, if you are the victim of a violent crime (mugging, rape, carjacking, shooting spree, whatever) the odds of an armed, off-duty cop coming to your assistance are probably better in New York City than on a military base.
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