Quickstoppers

Mobility Forum, Nov/Dec 2000

As with many other world AA renowned awards like the scar, the Nobel Prize, the Emmy and the Pullet Surprise (otherwise known as the Pulitzer Prize), it's a rare thing when our highly prestigious rocket-- scientist-of-the-week trophy is presented to an organization instead of an individual. I reckon that's because in any military group, regardless of the height of the average blood/alcohol content, or the depth of the cumulative IQ, there's usually at least one sailor or marine in the gaggle who's sober/smart enough to say, "Dude, this is just too stupid to contemplate. Let's do something else instead."

Usually.

Now, if only these were usual times.

For instance, in the case currently under consideration, there wasn't a single marine in this whole van-load of basketball players who was courageous, smart, alert, mature, or forceful enough to say, "Hey! Changing drivers while this thing is moving is just about the dumbest thing I can image. Let's pull off at the next rest stop and do fright before we all get killed!" Nope, not a private, nor a lance corporal, nor a sergeant among them with the necessary moxie to take charge and stop the driver and another teammate from switching seats while the van caromed down the interstate at 65 miles an hour.

So it was that when the change-out was complete, the new driver looked up and was surprised to discover the van was off on the shoulder of the road. Without thinking of the consequences, she grabbed the wheel, jerked it back onto the highway, then flubbed a series of rapid over-corrections, rammed it into the guard rail, flipped it upside down and rolled it several times before the remains of the van and all inside came to rest in the ditch.

This escapade put a $30,000 divot in the defense budget and left half the girl's varsity in the hospital. (The other half was in another van.) The only other good news is, no one was killed.

"Accepting the award on behalf of her teammates (most of whom are still in traction) is..." ou know, I'm still not real sure where I come down on this gun debate stuff. On the one hand, you see, I've never heard of a gun crawling unassisted out of a nightstand and shooting someone. Contrary-wise, I'm not aware that anyone has ever been killed when 'someone pointed a finger at them and said "Bang! Bang!" Nope, from my lengthy observation of the problem, it seems the surest formula for gun tragedies requires a 50/50 combination of those two factors. While guns don't kill, fools with guns do.

One need look no further than today's headlines shocking to the point of incomprehensibility as they are - to verify that.

And while our tales may lack the media impact of some lunatic killing two strangers and wounding several others because his door wasn't repaired to his satisfaction, or of a six year old stealing a gun and blowing his first grade classmates away, the sad facts are that we are no less susceptible to this gut-wrenching insanity. Our lives are no lighter nor our hearts any less burdened because senseless tragedies of this sort involve sailors and marines killing and maiming themselves and others with guns.

* At 0230, while they were handling a loaded pistol, a petty officer shot and killed his brother.

* A sailor is charged with reckless handling of a firearm after he shot and paralyzed a thirteen year old boy in a hunting accident.

-A marine lost his leg after he shot himself in the thigh while cleaning his shotgun.

-Another marine shot himself in the foot with a .22 caliber rifle.

-A seaman, driving through a tough neighborhood at night, blew his own kneecap off when he slammed on the brakes of his car and simultaneously squeezed the trigger of the loaded pistol he was holding.

WAKE UP! A gun is a hazard by definition. Every time you touch one you should ask yourself who's life you want to destroy. Will it be yours? Your child's? Your brother's? Your best friend's? If you don't want to kill anyone, then you must do everything in your power to control the palpable lethality the gun you're holding represents. Anything less than the maximum possible effort on your part to manage the myriad of risks surrounding the handling of a firearm will inevitably result in death and lives ruined beyond redemption. And you can take dat to the bank.

LET'S FACE IT, the corporal was in the bag. Okay? It was nearly midnight. He'd been at the club and, having quaffed a few too many meads with his fellow warriors, he now found himself pacing up and down outside his apartment, trying to gird himself for the inevitable (and not altogether undeserved) onslaught of verbal abuse and recriminations sure to issue forth from the normally sweet mouth of his bride the moment he walked through the door. Suddenly, one of those cartoon light bulbs appeared over this guy's head. Not a halogen-bright light, you understand - they never are - but a bulb, however dim, that just might shed enough light to illuminate the way to the safety and security of his own bed without the necessity of having to run the gauntlet of hell-fire and damnation waiting for him on the other side of that front door.