Unexpected Lessons

[Robb Jensen]

I've done that myself.

I remember going through the shoothouse at Blackwater during one of the night exercises and after I had done my run through I remember thinking "Golly....That was louder than the day run..."

I go outside to the rest of the guys and go "Did anyone notice how loud it was in there?"

"Uh, Opie, were your muffs on your head the whole time?"

"....... .......... ........ ............ "

I was only using a 9mm at the time so the effects weren't too brutal.

I have also had an occasion or two where the muffs weren't on exactly right. At my last carbine class I was proned out doing a drill beside a guy Rob and his crew nicknamed "Winchester" who had a really oddly configured SBR with some hideous brake on it. When he started shooting I found out that I hadn't positioned my muffs exactly right.

Yeah 'Winchester' and his 11.5" SBR with a Smith brake was F'ing LOUD! You could feel your spine resonate with that thing near you. My 3gun rifle isn't even that loud.



My lesson:

Last year I once forgot to put my Pro-Ears on my first stage at a USPSA pistol match at Fredericksburg. I was so 'in the zone' with my shooting that I didn't even notice. We pasted the targets got the score and I go back to my range bag and reload my mags etc. Next shooters up, loads and makes ready, beep.........then BANG, BANG (I'm like OH SH**) and cover my ears. An Open shooter was shooting, I didn't realize it until then that I didn't have hearing protection on.

[Mac679]

So no sh*t there I was...
Clearing a 200+ room hotel about 100m from the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, Iraq, during the fighting back in August '04. A whopping 19 guys to clear those 200 rooms. Lucky me I got to be the #1 man for my squad...yay! We get to our first room and my team leader tells me to frag it, so out comes the green baseball of death, off goes the safety pin, out comes the main pin, and in goes the frag. Let me tell you, when you don't cook off a 5 second fuze it is the longest 5 seconds of your life-as you wait to see if some booger eater is going to roll it back out at you... Now what really makes you feel like an idiot is when you do it again on the next room.... Lesson Learned: cook em off

Not long after another squad went to frag another room that was a little too close to us so we pulled back for them too do the deed. Well said squad doesn't know exactly where the bad guy is in the room and decides to chuck two frags at once in the room... Ever been hit in the shin by a rock thrown from a vehicle peeling out? Imagine taking about 20 of those across the shins from 20 feet away because the frags just blew a section of the wall away... Lesson Learned: 1 frag is sufficient