Spare me the semantics. It’s the rule on EVERY FOB in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s saved many, many lives, I guarantee you. People, even Soldiers, get careless with their weapons. I would not want to be on a FOB where everyone was in red status at all times. It would only be a matter of time before some fool killed me by tripping over his sling or some such nonsense.
Once again, we have a FR thread populated almost exclusively by people who don’t have a GD clue what they’re talking about, but BY GOD do they feel very strongly about it!
“It’s saved many, many lives, I guarantee you.”
Spoken like a true liberal: Give them guns but no one is to be trusted because that many guns means a bazzillion people killed.
If that were the case then we ought to be having a bazzillion people people right here in Colorado as 250,000+ people now have concealed weapons permits. Gun ranges would need ambulances standing by and cops would be dropping dead left and right as they carry every day.
Thank you.
During WW 1, my dad was wounded as a result of an accidental discharge that grazed his femoral artery. That happened in New York State. He did survive, albeit barely and with a big scar and volunteered again for WW 2. He managed to get to Europe that time and was discharged as a mustang Major. So he must have done something right and had at least half a brain. One of the things I most remember about him was that he was always very, very conscious about firearm safety. The US military did not just make up it's firearms rules for no particular reason.
Maybe it is time to change the rule.
9 Americans were executed because they did not have access to immediate fire power in a war zone. Many of the Afghan soldiers we are training are more loyal to Islam than they are to our mission. We need to make sure that our troops are ready for these terrorist attacks. Walking around with unloaded weapons when you are surrounded by potential terrorists is the height of stupidity.
Our police officers are walking around with loaded weapons every day all the time and our soldiers are for the most part better trained in weapon handling than most of the police officers we have here in the US. If we are engaged in a "police action" then our soldiers should have the same obligation to carry loaded weapons in the field and on the base as our police are obligated to carry them on the street.
True Story: We were on a mission in then wayward Panama in early fall 89 when one of our LTC’s had an accidental discharge. He was a friend and our cots were next to each other. He was supposed to clear it as we entered the building into a 55 gallon barrel of sand. He forgot. He dropped the .45 and it discharged. The round when through his cot and the harmlessly into the air. Thank God no one was hurt. He probably should have been issued bad paper, but they protected him. All the shooters, though, were really in turmoil over that (though many of them had had bonehead moments in their own careers.)
I understand doing that in Panama, and I think the same safety danger exists in Iraq and Afghan, but I think the highly probably disloyalty of Muslims makes them much more the danger and not accidental discharges.
There should at least be a designated “force protection” roster INSIDE all work and quarters areas at all hours who are armed and dangerous and designated to deal with all threats.
This particular executioner then suicided himself, so there was no teaching him a lesson, but I think it still would have made him think had there been an armed and dangerous room instead of a perfectly safe one.
I submit, sir, that we have a FR thread populated by a great many vets of MANY conflicts, AND a great many FReepers who walk around safely and responsibly in dangerous locales daily with a round in the chamber. I’ve done so 24/7 for years. No lives lost. In fact, the knowledge among the criminal class that there are more and more out there like me has drastically reduced deaths from criminal-perpetrated violence.
If civilians can do it, why not soldiers?
Do you really think fewer lives would be lost over there by having our armed forces seriously trained and ready and vigilant, and having the enemy know that was the case?
What war did you fight in that you won with such safety-conscious timidity?