Posted on 07/31/2002 11:36:58 AM PDT by blau993
TUESDAY JULY 9 2002
An Open Letter to Members of Congress
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
Dear Honorable Congresspersons:
One of your vital tasks is to ensure that our warriors who hang it all out on the killing field are equipped with the right stuff.
I don't see that happening anytime soon unless you get enough straight skinny to counteract lobbyist propaganda and other military-industrial-congressional-complex spin. So to help provide more fair and balanced input, I plan to occasionally pass along some of the most commonly recurring bitches that come my way weekly in e-mails, letters, phone calls, etc., from our warriors.
Let's begin with the M-9, the 9 mm Beretta pistol – which our combat troops say is the first item that should be tossed into the junk pile!
"They're constantly breaking," reports a warrior from Afghanistan. "To make matters worse, the 9 mm round is like firing paint balls. I had to pump four rounds into an al-Qaida who was coming at me before he dropped. We're dealing with fanatical crazies out here who won't quit until they die for Allah."
The Beretta can only be used bone-dry. Even then, it jams repeatedly if sand or grit gets into moving parts. Its ball round has proven to be worse than the .38 Colt pistol slug used by the U.S. Army in the Philippines until it was retired almost a century ago in favor of the .45 ACP M-1911 pistol – fielded to stop the Moros, who ironically were also Islamic fanatics.
Now Special Forces and Light Infantry soldiers in Afghanistan want to bring back the century-old .45, and some elite Marine units already have. A Special Forces sergeant says, "The large-caliber, slow-moving .45 bullet puts the bad guys on the ground. Lighter stuff like the Beretta's 9 mm will, too – eventually – but on the battlefield you almost always have to double tap, and in close combat a gunfighter hasn't the time or the ammo to lose firing two rounds."
Rangers, Marines and most Special Ops troops are some of the other elite warriors in the U.S. military who carry personal firearms in combat while the brass look the other way. Quite a few choose to pack two purchased handguns. But the only Rangers who use the Beretta – even as backup – are those who can't afford to buy their own firearms, and they and the rest of these elite fighters unanimously agree that they "can't trust this fragile, unreliable sidearm."
Almost all the Rangers engaged in hand-to-hand combat during Op Anaconda packed their own personal sidearms. "When I ran out of ammo with my rifle, I pulled my pistol," a Ranger sergeant says. "It saved my life. I hit a number of enemy 30-40 yards away who went down immediately from my .45 rounds. With a Beretta, I wouldn't have made it because of the far-too-light 9 mm bullet, play in the action and its limited range."
In another fight, a Ranger fired several torso shots with a .45 pistol before his foe fell. "When we looked at the corpses, we found their mouths full of khat," he says. "It was like these guys were pumped up on PCP. With the Beretta, I'd have had to fire all 15 rounds and then thrown the pistol at this wild-eyed dude."
We went into Vietnam with a bad weapon, the M-16 rifle, which was responsible for killing thousands of our soldiers. It was a jammer, and if you have a jammed rifle in a firefight, you're dead. The M-16 was such a loser that some jungle-smart grunts refused to carry it and packed captured Soviet AK-47s instead.
What the M-16 was to Vietnam, the Beretta is to Afghanistan. And a soldier with no confidence in his weapon isn't the most motivated fighter in Death Valley.
"We're frustrated here that no one in Washington seems to have the slightest concern for our survival," writes a sergeant from Afghanistan. "It's a damn good thing that we have air superiority and so far haven't had many heavy fights."
Perhaps you congressional folks can figure out how to recycle some of the bucks we'll save from the Pentagon-zapped Crusader and get our combat troops a decent sidearm. This would surely relieve some of that frustration and, just by the way, keep our warriors alive.
The Sig P220 is exellent. For 1911's Kimber, Wilson and Les Baer have some exellent executions of the design. The Mauser M2 is a convenient pocket pistol with eight rounds of .45acp. There are also some South African versions of the 1911 that are exellent.
I hope this helps.
Stay well - stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
I would suggest contacting Naval Spec Warfare in San Diego for info.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay Armed
In the 1950's and 1960's some frogs carried Browning Hi-Powers because of the large capacity magazines. Other frog's have at times carried other large capacity 9mm's on certain ops. I note that the average VC was not a religous fanatic chewing Kaht.
Stay well - stay safe - stay armed - Yorktown
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
a Glock .45 and
a Desert Eagle.
Then they can play pinball with the "wild -eyed" crazies.
Not wanting to flame the caliber wars any more than they already are, but I'm with you on this one. I've fired both guns and both calibers, and if the s**t hit the fan, give me a .45 anytime.
I'll take knockdown power any day of the week. And I've fired the .45 often enough (25+ years now) to put it where it will do sufficient damage to put down the bad guy.
You rae most likely correct. The .45 acp was used in two World Wars Korea and Vietnam. It got its reputation as a reliable stopper on the battlefield. It got its reputation for overkill among those who only fired it in a range. The 1911a1 is an accuate reliable sidearm and the .45acp is probaly the best defensive pistol round ever designed.
Stay well - stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
Unfortunately the regular armed forces are restricted to ball ammunition and can not take advantage of hollow points. This fact mandates they be given a .45 acp service pistol, IMHO.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - yorktown
Unfortunately the regular armed forces are restricted to ball ammunition and can not take advantage of hollow points. This fact mandates they be given a .45 acp service pistol, IMHO.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - yorktown
This is not to say I advocate ball for carry in a .45acp. I most strongly reccommend hollowpoints as they are less likely to overpenetrate. Overpentration is not so severe a concern in a military situation as it is for a self-defense situation.
Doesn't some military convention or other prohibit the use of hollowpoints in combat? If so, the effectiveness of 9mm HP is irrelevant to our troops (though not, of course, for us civilians defending ourselves & our families). Thus, the old standby - 230 gr. .45 hardball - seems to be called for once again.
Funny, ain't it - the morons who chose the 9mm for our guys 20 years ago seemed to think that the human body has changed since the early 1900's, when it was proven that .38-sized rounds were insufficient to reliably and quickly stop a determined attacker. That's why we had the .45 in the first place. I could have seen changing pistols to a more modern design (though there's not much wrong with the 1911), but not the caliber. I can see us going back to .45 someday - and hopefully not too long from now.
If anything this silly should happen, you can bet the wound would enter his back, not his front.
Never, EVER trust a draft dodger!
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