“Fireproof” was the
title of the movie. I had never seen
this movie, but have heard great reviews from fellow Soldiers. The acting was terrible, but the message was
great. I learned that all the actors and
actresses in this movie were volunteers (this explains the bad acting, but says
a lot about the movie). The director of
the movie was a pastor, hence the immense infusion of religion into the movie. Once you were into the movie, the bad acting
was easy to ignore. If you aren’t
freaked out by religion, I would highly recommend this movie.
Work today has been the ordinary sit-around and do-nothing,
so when the Personnel OIC invited me to lunch a bit earlier than usual, I
agreed to join him. I invited the new
CPT to join us and he obliged. The
dining facility was a bit more crowded than usual. I thought perhaps there was something good on
the menu for once, but upon further observation the main meal option was a bad
choice. I settled for beef stroganoff on
top of some elbow macaroni though because I did not feel like waiting in a long
line for something fried. I found my
lunch buddies and sat down to enjoy the meal with them. They had not been impressed with the menu
either apparently because one had chicken fingers and French fries while the
other had two slices of bread, a few slices of turkey, and a chunk of cheese on
his plate. It turns out my choice was
not so great either because I found a pickle spear in my beef stroganoff. The dining facility was becoming increasingly
crowded the longer we sat there and soon we noticed that people were sitting
next to each other and not leaving the obligatory empty seat between
groups.
My group was engrossed in people watching and idle
conversation when we heard a loud boom.
It sounded like someone popped a large balloon right next to my
ear. I did a self assessment and
realized I was not injured, so I continued with my meal. All of a sudden people started throwing
themselves to the floor. “Oh, I guess we
better get down,” I thought as I started moving slowly towards the floor. Then it hit me, “Oh shit, what if the shooter
is after more people? I am screwed, the
victim is only about 15 feet from where I am and I am somewhat in the open.” It was true.
I could see the victim. I was
sitting on the end of the table in plain view about 15 feet from the
victim. I was located at the crossroads
of walkways in the building. I started
to crawl under the table and heard a few Marines behind me lock and load a
round into the chambers of their pistols.
Two snuck past me in a low crouch with their weapons drawn. Someone cried out for a medic. The new CPT is a nurse, so he hurried over to
check out the situation. A man in
uniform with a CID (Criminal Investigation Division) patch on his shoulder took
control of the situation telling people to stay down and block off the
doors. He called for any MP’s (Military
Police) within the dining facility to block the doors. They did not have the weapon nor did they
have the shooter.
The new CPT returned to our position to let us know what was
happening. A civilian contractor had
been shot in the foot. He said the
bullet hit the floor and bounced up into the guy’s foot. There was a hole in the bottom of the guy’s
foot and what looked like a scratch on top of his foot. A tourniquet was applied above the ankle and
the foot was wrapped in Israeli bandages, the Army’s latest in bandaging
technology. The CPT also mentioned that
the puddle of blood on the floor was impressive and grew a little faster than
he thought it would.
The theory is that it was a negligent discharge. This means the shooter did not mean to fire
his weapon. Somehow his weapon loaded a
round into the chamber, was placed on fire, and the trigger activated without
the knowledge of the owner of the weapon.
This happens a lot more often than you would think. We have procedures to clear weapons and while
on post there should be no rounds in the chamber. It is a safety precaution in place for this
exact reason.
Once the shot was fired, people scattered, left the building,
or hit the floor. One of our Soldiers left
the dining facility as soon as she heard the shot. She ran all the way back to work where she
started to freak out so bad we called the Chaplain to come talk to her. Since she was able to escape un-noticed, it
is possible the shooter left the building as soon as he realized his
blunder. There was a delay between the
shot and blocking off the exits.
Civilian paramedics arrived and took the packaged patient to the
hospital. Once the victim was clear of the
building, CID began filtering people out of the dining facility. They were checking everyone’s long barrels
(M16/M4’s) because the shot fired came from an assault rifle. If you had a pistol, you were free to
leave.
As my group left the dining facility we started joking
around about the incident, but you could tell that we were all shaken up by it. We joked about heading over to the Combat
Operational Stress Control unit just to procrastinate from returning to
work. Puppies and ice cream was my
requirement for returning to work, the others wanted movies and sleep.
I walked into the office to find our NCOIC dressed as a
superhero. He had an afghan as a cape,
he had cut holes in a black sleep mask, he cut the bottom out of a large
plastic protein powder jug and cut a face hole out as well, and to top off his
costume, he had a catcher’s mask tied around his waist as a crotch protector. I took a picture, but it may be a while until
I can transfer the data to my FB.
I am alive and well, there is no need to worry about me =)
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