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LET'S LOCK AND LOAD NOW
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
LET'S LOCK AND LOAD NOW
by DAVID H. HACKWORTH
Shooting first and straight while on a battlefield or a security detail is a
matter of life or death. That's why weapons training normally gets the
highest priority in the U.S. military.
If you're slow on the draw, you're dead, and your side loses.
Just ask the Marine guard in Lebanon in 1983 who didn't shoot fast enough
when a kamikaze driver rammed his terror truck through the gate. It took the
leatherneck one full second to chamber a round, another second to flip his
weapon off safety and fire. By that time, the truck had smacked into the
Marine billet he was securing and exploded. The Rules of Engagement forbade
this expert rifleman from being locked and loaded even though his unit was on
high alert for just such an attack. And those two seconds he lost arming his
weapon cost 241 American lives.
Lesson learned: An unloaded weapon is useless. A lesson we've unfortunately
learned and relearned the hard way over and over again.
Recently, the Navy dedicated a memorial to the sailors who were aboard the
USS Cole when it was savaged last year by a terrorist attack in the port of
Aden. But even though the members of the security detail on the Cole were at
their posts on high alert -- in an extremely dangerous port where they'd
already been warned that a terrorist attack was highly probable -- not one of
their weapons had a round in the chamber. The security detail gave the small
craft that almost sank the Cole and killed 17 sailors a big, friendly America
wave, and the terrorists waved back -- just before they rammed their human
torpedo into the ship. Again, the Rules of Engagement stated no weapons would
have a round in the chamber.
Not having a magazine in a weapon, even for a crackerjack marksman, adds at
least two more seconds before he or she can get off a round. Four seconds is
more than enough time to drive a 10,000-gallon gas tanker into a nuclear
reactor, a high school, a chemical plant or some other tempting target.
Yet today, at virtually every U.S. military installation around the globe --
and now at most of our airports, which are secured by the Army National Guard
-- the guys and gals manning the security details at exterior gates and other
critical or sensitive areas, including ammo dumps and armories, are as
impotent as the Marines were in Lebanon or the sailors in Yemen. They don't
have a round in the chamber, and in most cases, they don't even have a
magazine in their weapons. Yet America is at war, and we know that thousands
of fanatics are out there ready to strike.
When I was 15-year-old soldier in Italy right after World War II, I "walked
my post in a military manner" with a loaded M-1 rifle. My sergeant, captain,
colonel and general trusted me, along with thousands of other young soldiers,
not to shoot myself or anyone else who didn't deserve shooting.
But somewhere along the way that trust disappeared. In today's military, a
leader makes one mistake and he or she is toast. So the brass do the big CYA
thing to ensure that they don't get burned. As a result, uniformed MBA-types
have made micromanagement a General Order. In a military where a soldier gets
busted for drunken driving and his captain is threatened with relief, imagine
what an accidental rifle discharge would bring.
Last week in Germany, where some guards were ordered to tape their rifles'
magazine wells for safety, four-star Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs actually
charged his colonels with checking on the guards and reporting back to him. A
job the corporal of the guard used to do when careers weren't at stake.
The other key factor in the mix is that the troops -- less the Marine Corps
and special units such as the Rangers -- haven't been getting the training
time they need on the firing range to be fully competent with their
individual weapons. Even though there are millions of bucks for higher
headquarters' simulation war-game playing for military planners and the
brass, nowhere near enough money has been allocated for putting holes in
targets.
Will it take another USS Cole disaster before we allow the troops to lock and
load?
***
(c) 2001 David H. Hackworth
Distributed by King Features Syndicate Inc.
http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page, where
you can read up on other military issues and back columns. To get a free
copy of this newsletter each Wednesday, enter your email address in the
"subscribe" box there or at
http://www.sftt.org/hn_archive.html
on the SFTT site.
Snailmail address:
Twin Eagles Ink
P.O. BOX 11179
Greenwich, CT 06831 http://www.sftt.org/hn10172001.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
by DAVID H. HACKWORTH
Shooting first and straight while on a battlefield or a security detail is a
matter of life or death. That's why weapons training normally gets the
highest priority in the U.S. military.
If you're slow on the draw, you're dead, and your side loses.
Just ask the Marine guard in Lebanon in 1983 who didn't shoot fast enough
when a kamikaze driver rammed his terror truck through the gate. It took the
leatherneck one full second to chamber a round, another second to flip his
weapon off safety and fire. By that time, the truck had smacked into the
Marine billet he was securing and exploded. The Rules of Engagement forbade
this expert rifleman from being locked and loaded even though his unit was on
high alert for just such an attack. And those two seconds he lost arming his
weapon cost 241 American lives.
Lesson learned: An unloaded weapon is useless. A lesson we've unfortunately
learned and relearned the hard way over and over again.
Recently, the Navy dedicated a memorial to the sailors who were aboard the
USS Cole when it was savaged last year by a terrorist attack in the port of
Aden. But even though the members of the security detail on the Cole were at
their posts on high alert -- in an extremely dangerous port where they'd
already been warned that a terrorist attack was highly probable -- not one of
their weapons had a round in the chamber. The security detail gave the small
craft that almost sank the Cole and killed 17 sailors a big, friendly America
wave, and the terrorists waved back -- just before they rammed their human
torpedo into the ship. Again, the Rules of Engagement stated no weapons would
have a round in the chamber.
Not having a magazine in a weapon, even for a crackerjack marksman, adds at
least two more seconds before he or she can get off a round. Four seconds is
more than enough time to drive a 10,000-gallon gas tanker into a nuclear
reactor, a high school, a chemical plant or some other tempting target.
Yet today, at virtually every U.S. military installation around the globe --
and now at most of our airports, which are secured by the Army National Guard
-- the guys and gals manning the security details at exterior gates and other
critical or sensitive areas, including ammo dumps and armories, are as
impotent as the Marines were in Lebanon or the sailors in Yemen. They don't
have a round in the chamber, and in most cases, they don't even have a
magazine in their weapons. Yet America is at war, and we know that thousands
of fanatics are out there ready to strike.
When I was 15-year-old soldier in Italy right after World War II, I "walked
my post in a military manner" with a loaded M-1 rifle. My sergeant, captain,
colonel and general trusted me, along with thousands of other young soldiers,
not to shoot myself or anyone else who didn't deserve shooting.
But somewhere along the way that trust disappeared. In today's military, a
leader makes one mistake and he or she is toast. So the brass do the big CYA
thing to ensure that they don't get burned. As a result, uniformed MBA-types
have made micromanagement a General Order. In a military where a soldier gets
busted for drunken driving and his captain is threatened with relief, imagine
what an accidental rifle discharge would bring.
Last week in Germany, where some guards were ordered to tape their rifles'
magazine wells for safety, four-star Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs actually
charged his colonels with checking on the guards and reporting back to him. A
job the corporal of the guard used to do when careers weren't at stake.
The other key factor in the mix is that the troops -- less the Marine Corps
and special units such as the Rangers -- haven't been getting the training
time they need on the firing range to be fully competent with their
individual weapons. Even though there are millions of bucks for higher
headquarters' simulation war-game playing for military planners and the
brass, nowhere near enough money has been allocated for putting holes in
targets.
Will it take another USS Cole disaster before we allow the troops to lock and
load?
***
(c) 2001 David H. Hackworth
Distributed by King Features Syndicate Inc.
http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page, where
you can read up on other military issues and back columns. To get a free
copy of this newsletter each Wednesday, enter your email address in the
"subscribe" box there or at
http://www.sftt.org/hn_archive.html
on the SFTT site.
Snailmail address:
Twin Eagles Ink
P.O. BOX 11179
Greenwich, CT 06831 http://www.sftt.org/hn10172001.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
SSG idsman75, U.S. ARMY
~Secret Select Society Of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets~