Shooting (with a weapon)

They say that working for the Army is like working for the post office, but with weapons.

Which is the truth, to an extent.

But another, truthier truth is that since Basic Training at Fort Benning, I have not really had much to do with weapons.

Which is scary, in more ways than one.

I can handle the weapon. I could field strip my M-16 in 45 seconds at Basic.

But when I get up there on the range and the man in the tower loudspeaker says "Targets up...watch...your lane" I go to a bad place.

I barely qualified at Basic. Everything was going great and I had the highest PT score and the drill sergeants were propping me up in front of the company and I got to fire the live claymore but then there came weapons qualification.

You need to qualify to graduate.

Everyone else hit their targets and I didn't.

Maybe it's because I'm a right-handed but shoot lefty because I'm left-eye dominant.

Maybe it's because when shooting lefty you get hit hit in the lip with the forward assist and you start bleeding and you get a the gigantic cut on your lip and the drill sergeants make jokes about herpes.

But what occured was for the first time at Basic I felt that there was a genuine possibility I would not make it.

That's why it shocked me when I got chosen for the SAW machine gun.

"But Sergeant Kemp, I barely qualified on the M-16. And shooting a SAW is harder. It's a machine gun."

"I know, but I sure ain't sending an NCO out there."

So I went.

The first day Spec. Angelo and I sat through class.

I mostly took pictures.

The next day we loaded onto a bus for Range 93.

I took out my camera and the range guys said, "Hey Lawrence, can you shoot pictures better than you shoot weapons?"

My reputation preceded me.

And it was well-founded. I got up there on the line and I couldn't see. I could not see the targets. It got worse with the gas mask. I strained and blinked and turned this way and that, but I could not see. The mask and the fear closed in on me. My breathing was quick. Too quick. They told me I was done and I sprung up and grabbed my mask and wrested it off as quick as I could just to get that thing off of me. But I kept breathing as if that mask was still on and my freaking failure began rising in my throat and I took a wobbly half-step lean before they got me. "Drink some water," they said and I was told to lay down. That was it for shooting that day for me.

In the Army there's a notion that you cannot speak of your weaknesses. You grin and bear it. Don't whine but fix it yourself. hooah. Hooah. HOOAH! Perhaps someday an admission of weakness won't be seen as an admission of guilt. And whether or not that new Army thing they got going works or doesn't work, I'll work on shooting because it could someday save my battle buddies. I just have to slay a few demons along the way.

I got my story that day. Took some pictures, etc. The range guys felt sorry for me I guess, so they let me on the guard tower so I could have a better vantage point. The head range guy, a Captain who just got back from Iraq, gave us a briefing on life down range. "The units there will try to give you their weapons to get it off their books. There'll be M-9's everywhere. There's no way you guys are going to shoot these SAWs down there."

Huh. I found out weeks later that the Army records say I qualified anyway.