Firearms...Pay Attention To Those Around You!
Posted: Thu May 14, 2020 10:29 pm
Saw this story forum and thought I’d provide a true story of an incident that almost took my life during my Navy career as a Firearms Instructor.
In 1994, I was given the opportunity to attend Instructor school for four weeks, and then move on to my ‘twilight’ tour for my last four years in the Navy. I eventually ended up at Little Creek Amphibious Base, Little Creek, Virginia as a Firearms Instructor. My first three months at this new Command had me learning the ropes and criteria of Instructorship. I attended another four weeks of firearms training (The Navy’s Firearms & Marksmanship Course, better known as “SAMI” Small Arms Marksmanship Instructor-NEC 0812) that involved the use and break-down and assembly of the now obsolete .38 Cal. Pistol, the Colt .45 Cal. Pistol, Beretta 92F 9MM, M-16 rifle and the 870 Remington Pump-action Shotgun. This was a particular intensive course, for one had to qualify and score high with each weapon they were going to instruct students on the use of, involving firearms nomenclature, firearm fundamentals, safety aspects and the assembly / disassembly and handling of each weapon.
That’s a bit of background to my schooling.
There were eight instructors total, from Second Class Petty officers to Chief Petty Officers. My rating was MAC, which is a Master-At-Arms Chief Petty Officer at the time. There was also an Officer who was in charge of our group…a Lieutenant and a civilian administrator and one other civilian instructor.
We taught two different courses; 1) A Shipboard Security Engagement Team (SSET) course, which utilized paintball guns to simulate actual gunfire. This was a very aggressive week long course we taught to shipboard sailors so they would be able to defend their ship if an intruder got on board. The GREATEST learning curve in this course was ‘live fire day’, which pitted the instructors against the shipboard teams. As mentioned, we used paintball guns…and if you’ve never been hit with a 400 FPS paintball at close range (40 feet or less, but no less than 10 feet) then you have no idea just how painful those little paintballs can be, especially during cold weather. For the first three months of being an instructor for this course, I would go home at the end of each course with no less than 12-15 paintball bruises all over my body. Yes…I had to learn how to control my stress level, the adrenaline coursing through one’s body and contend with tunnel vision, and not panic when five team members where coming at you all at the same time. Dealing with these things was not an automatic given, for one had to learn to overcome these physical aspects to become proficient as an instructor. Needless to say, I learned a lot about myself, tactics and how to perform under stress.
Moving on to the gist of the story.
2) The second course we taught involved the .45 pistol…and eventually, the 9MM Beretta 92F and the Rem. Shotgun. This course was an advanced firearms training course where the students were “supposed” to be vetted by their Command prior to attending. Vetting entailed each member having been pre-qualified on the above weapons by their command and being documented and signed off as being eligible to attend this course. However, many Commands would ‘fudge’ or what we would call, “paper-punch” (with a pen) someone’s quals just to get personnel qualified on paper to attend our course. We took their documentation and word at face value…(a mistake on our part) trusting that they were actually sending us appropriately qualified personnel. However, it was this shirking of one’s responsibility and job at their Command that almost got me killed.
At the time, we were using the Colt .45 pistol for our course. For those who are not familiar with the .45, it has four main safeties…the manual safety, half-cock safety, grip safety and of course…the person handling the weapon itself. We would conduct 16 hours of in classroom instruction prior to going to the range for live fire, stressing safety, safety, safety, nomenclature of the the .45, the course of instruction and what they could anticipate on the range. We constantly stressed the four main firearms safety protocols. But alas, this only works if one has a strong grasp on firearms, are confident in their abilities and they are always focused on what they were doing and what they needed to do to keep them and others safe. Every morning at the range, we would reiterate safety and go over all the range rules to ensure everyone understood. At the beginning of each and every course, on the first day, the first hour, we would ask the entire class if there was anyone there who DID NOT want to be there and did not want to go through the course. No one ever raised their hand to leave.
On the particular day that could have very well been my last, I was instructing a young man during a course of fire where we had six lanes set up with various courses of fire that required 18 rounds each. Each magazine was loaded with six rounds. Each lane was set up for a particular stage of the course, so that on the last day, we would combine all the stages together where the students would fire a total of 32 rounds during their final evaluation…and they had two minutes to complete the course of fire, and they had to meet a specific number of ‘hits’ to each target…or fail. Again, this was a very intensive live fire combat course that involved running 30 yards, approaching a stage, pick up the weapon, load it and engage specific targets. An instructor would then take the weapon from the student and they would move on to the next stage, pick up the weapon, load and engage...for a total of six stages.
The ratio of student to instructor was one-on-one on the range. As an instructor, one of the most important responsibilities we had was; to NEVER take your eyes off the student or become complacent, no matter how good they were or how experienced. We would stand close to the student on the side they were shooting with, and we would have both hands up toward the arms of the student so that we could ‘grab’ the weapon at any moment if we saw them do something unsafe. It happened a lot. The young man on my stage that day kept having issues with the weapon not firing. I sensed he was nervous, which piqued red flags for me, so my focus became even more intense on this young man. I continued to observe his shooting platform to see if I could discover what he was doing wrong, because his weapon should not have been ‘not firing’ as often as it was. After several more rounds, I realized what he was doing wrong. He was not griping the .45 properly and not pressing the web of his hand into the grip safety hard enough to disengage the sear so that the weapon would fire. Thus, every time he would squeeze the trigger, the muzzle would immediately drop down due to him anticipating the shot. We stopped, I took the weapon from him and provided on the spot reiteration about the grip safety and the application it required to shoot the weapon. After about five minutes, he said he understood, but it did not alleviate my concerns about him and my gut feeling that “something” was not right. I remember thinking; “focus on him, LJ…focus on him”. We got back into live fire mode and he fired three rounds…and then, when he tried to fire the fourth round, once again, he didn’t have the grip safety depressed enough. And then it happened…and it happened so fast, that if I hadn’t been focused and paying attention, I would have ended up with a .45 round through the left side of my cheek and up through my head. I would have been dead before I hit the ground.
What this young man did was; when the weapon didn’t fire, it was as though he forgot all about safety, what he was taught and just became brain dead to what he was supposed to do. He was so perplexed about the weapon not firing that he turned the .45 directly toward me. I saw the muzzle coming at me…all in slow motion. I grabbed his right arm to keep him from turning any further toward me and stepped back one step with my left foot and leaned my body backwards. Just as I did that…wouldn’t you know, with his finger still on the trigger, he depressed the grip safety and squeezed the trigger. I felt the round go over the top of my head. Had I not pushed his arm and stepped back a foot…well, not to over dramatize this anymore…I wouldn’t be here. I immediately grabbed his weapon, where he still had his finger on the trigger, placed my right thumb between the cocked hammer and slide so that it would not fire if he pulled the trigger again, but would only fall on my thumb. I took my left hand and wrenched the weapon out of his hands and told him to “get the hell off my range” and I called a ‘cease fire’ for the entire range. Yeah…I was pretty upset over this. This incident happened in a matter of seconds…it was that fast. And that’s how fast something could go wrong on a live fire range.
After briefing the RSO (Range Safety Officer) of what happened, I requested he go talk to the young man to find out what was going on in his head. He was on the benches crying, frustrated, shaking and scared. After the RSO talked with him, that’s when we found out that this young man had NEVER picked up a gun in his life, didn’t like guns, was scared of them and didn’t even want to come to our course. We asked him; “then why did you come…and why didn’t you say something the first day of the course?” He told us he was awakened that morning at 0530 and told to get up, you’re going to a weapons course. He was “just a body” to fill a quota the ship needed to fill. This young man, who was totally innocent, was just doing what he was told, and was too scared to say anything else. Needless to say, our LT sent a very angry letter to the Commanding Officer of the ship, addressing the lack of protocols, safety requirements, qualifications, etc., etc. Heads rolled for sandbagging this young man’s alleged quals. After this incident, my Command also enhanced more intense vetting measures to ensure we only received specific qualified students with qualifications placed into a system where we could actually verify and not just receive a piece of paper at face value.
That’s my story…I hope I was not overly long winded in writing this and didn’t bore you to death. Just one of those very memorable exciting days during my 20 year tenure in the Navy.
Thanks for reading…hope you enjoyed.
In 1994, I was given the opportunity to attend Instructor school for four weeks, and then move on to my ‘twilight’ tour for my last four years in the Navy. I eventually ended up at Little Creek Amphibious Base, Little Creek, Virginia as a Firearms Instructor. My first three months at this new Command had me learning the ropes and criteria of Instructorship. I attended another four weeks of firearms training (The Navy’s Firearms & Marksmanship Course, better known as “SAMI” Small Arms Marksmanship Instructor-NEC 0812) that involved the use and break-down and assembly of the now obsolete .38 Cal. Pistol, the Colt .45 Cal. Pistol, Beretta 92F 9MM, M-16 rifle and the 870 Remington Pump-action Shotgun. This was a particular intensive course, for one had to qualify and score high with each weapon they were going to instruct students on the use of, involving firearms nomenclature, firearm fundamentals, safety aspects and the assembly / disassembly and handling of each weapon.
That’s a bit of background to my schooling.
There were eight instructors total, from Second Class Petty officers to Chief Petty Officers. My rating was MAC, which is a Master-At-Arms Chief Petty Officer at the time. There was also an Officer who was in charge of our group…a Lieutenant and a civilian administrator and one other civilian instructor.
We taught two different courses; 1) A Shipboard Security Engagement Team (SSET) course, which utilized paintball guns to simulate actual gunfire. This was a very aggressive week long course we taught to shipboard sailors so they would be able to defend their ship if an intruder got on board. The GREATEST learning curve in this course was ‘live fire day’, which pitted the instructors against the shipboard teams. As mentioned, we used paintball guns…and if you’ve never been hit with a 400 FPS paintball at close range (40 feet or less, but no less than 10 feet) then you have no idea just how painful those little paintballs can be, especially during cold weather. For the first three months of being an instructor for this course, I would go home at the end of each course with no less than 12-15 paintball bruises all over my body. Yes…I had to learn how to control my stress level, the adrenaline coursing through one’s body and contend with tunnel vision, and not panic when five team members where coming at you all at the same time. Dealing with these things was not an automatic given, for one had to learn to overcome these physical aspects to become proficient as an instructor. Needless to say, I learned a lot about myself, tactics and how to perform under stress.
Moving on to the gist of the story.
2) The second course we taught involved the .45 pistol…and eventually, the 9MM Beretta 92F and the Rem. Shotgun. This course was an advanced firearms training course where the students were “supposed” to be vetted by their Command prior to attending. Vetting entailed each member having been pre-qualified on the above weapons by their command and being documented and signed off as being eligible to attend this course. However, many Commands would ‘fudge’ or what we would call, “paper-punch” (with a pen) someone’s quals just to get personnel qualified on paper to attend our course. We took their documentation and word at face value…(a mistake on our part) trusting that they were actually sending us appropriately qualified personnel. However, it was this shirking of one’s responsibility and job at their Command that almost got me killed.
At the time, we were using the Colt .45 pistol for our course. For those who are not familiar with the .45, it has four main safeties…the manual safety, half-cock safety, grip safety and of course…the person handling the weapon itself. We would conduct 16 hours of in classroom instruction prior to going to the range for live fire, stressing safety, safety, safety, nomenclature of the the .45, the course of instruction and what they could anticipate on the range. We constantly stressed the four main firearms safety protocols. But alas, this only works if one has a strong grasp on firearms, are confident in their abilities and they are always focused on what they were doing and what they needed to do to keep them and others safe. Every morning at the range, we would reiterate safety and go over all the range rules to ensure everyone understood. At the beginning of each and every course, on the first day, the first hour, we would ask the entire class if there was anyone there who DID NOT want to be there and did not want to go through the course. No one ever raised their hand to leave.
On the particular day that could have very well been my last, I was instructing a young man during a course of fire where we had six lanes set up with various courses of fire that required 18 rounds each. Each magazine was loaded with six rounds. Each lane was set up for a particular stage of the course, so that on the last day, we would combine all the stages together where the students would fire a total of 32 rounds during their final evaluation…and they had two minutes to complete the course of fire, and they had to meet a specific number of ‘hits’ to each target…or fail. Again, this was a very intensive live fire combat course that involved running 30 yards, approaching a stage, pick up the weapon, load it and engage specific targets. An instructor would then take the weapon from the student and they would move on to the next stage, pick up the weapon, load and engage...for a total of six stages.
The ratio of student to instructor was one-on-one on the range. As an instructor, one of the most important responsibilities we had was; to NEVER take your eyes off the student or become complacent, no matter how good they were or how experienced. We would stand close to the student on the side they were shooting with, and we would have both hands up toward the arms of the student so that we could ‘grab’ the weapon at any moment if we saw them do something unsafe. It happened a lot. The young man on my stage that day kept having issues with the weapon not firing. I sensed he was nervous, which piqued red flags for me, so my focus became even more intense on this young man. I continued to observe his shooting platform to see if I could discover what he was doing wrong, because his weapon should not have been ‘not firing’ as often as it was. After several more rounds, I realized what he was doing wrong. He was not griping the .45 properly and not pressing the web of his hand into the grip safety hard enough to disengage the sear so that the weapon would fire. Thus, every time he would squeeze the trigger, the muzzle would immediately drop down due to him anticipating the shot. We stopped, I took the weapon from him and provided on the spot reiteration about the grip safety and the application it required to shoot the weapon. After about five minutes, he said he understood, but it did not alleviate my concerns about him and my gut feeling that “something” was not right. I remember thinking; “focus on him, LJ…focus on him”. We got back into live fire mode and he fired three rounds…and then, when he tried to fire the fourth round, once again, he didn’t have the grip safety depressed enough. And then it happened…and it happened so fast, that if I hadn’t been focused and paying attention, I would have ended up with a .45 round through the left side of my cheek and up through my head. I would have been dead before I hit the ground.
What this young man did was; when the weapon didn’t fire, it was as though he forgot all about safety, what he was taught and just became brain dead to what he was supposed to do. He was so perplexed about the weapon not firing that he turned the .45 directly toward me. I saw the muzzle coming at me…all in slow motion. I grabbed his right arm to keep him from turning any further toward me and stepped back one step with my left foot and leaned my body backwards. Just as I did that…wouldn’t you know, with his finger still on the trigger, he depressed the grip safety and squeezed the trigger. I felt the round go over the top of my head. Had I not pushed his arm and stepped back a foot…well, not to over dramatize this anymore…I wouldn’t be here. I immediately grabbed his weapon, where he still had his finger on the trigger, placed my right thumb between the cocked hammer and slide so that it would not fire if he pulled the trigger again, but would only fall on my thumb. I took my left hand and wrenched the weapon out of his hands and told him to “get the hell off my range” and I called a ‘cease fire’ for the entire range. Yeah…I was pretty upset over this. This incident happened in a matter of seconds…it was that fast. And that’s how fast something could go wrong on a live fire range.
After briefing the RSO (Range Safety Officer) of what happened, I requested he go talk to the young man to find out what was going on in his head. He was on the benches crying, frustrated, shaking and scared. After the RSO talked with him, that’s when we found out that this young man had NEVER picked up a gun in his life, didn’t like guns, was scared of them and didn’t even want to come to our course. We asked him; “then why did you come…and why didn’t you say something the first day of the course?” He told us he was awakened that morning at 0530 and told to get up, you’re going to a weapons course. He was “just a body” to fill a quota the ship needed to fill. This young man, who was totally innocent, was just doing what he was told, and was too scared to say anything else. Needless to say, our LT sent a very angry letter to the Commanding Officer of the ship, addressing the lack of protocols, safety requirements, qualifications, etc., etc. Heads rolled for sandbagging this young man’s alleged quals. After this incident, my Command also enhanced more intense vetting measures to ensure we only received specific qualified students with qualifications placed into a system where we could actually verify and not just receive a piece of paper at face value.
That’s my story…I hope I was not overly long winded in writing this and didn’t bore you to death. Just one of those very memorable exciting days during my 20 year tenure in the Navy.
Thanks for reading…hope you enjoyed.
Alot of people are getting on the concealed carry bandwagon, who have absolutely no business in doing so. It's scary to think that these idiotic people have absolutely no training or at the least the bare minimum. It's a huge responsibility not to be taken lightly and most people would be to scared to react in a real situation. It's my opnion that teachers should not carry in a school or people just bragging I can carry a gun. ftd
