Home on the Range

Guns Don't Kill People - Stup Does



This past Thursday morning, at precisely 7:45 am, I found myself at the military shooting range located just outside the hospital facility here at Landstuhl. It is apparently written that every member of the United States Army stationed in Europe shall "qualify" with a 9-mm pistol at least once every six months.

I was with my friend and colleague Jeff, and the two of us were adorned in our Kevlars (helmets), Flak Vests, and LBEs (Load Bearing Equipment). In full fatigues, we strolled up to the range to promptly get our kill on.

It was ridiculously cold outside - 36 degrees when I started the car that morning. I was wearing poly-pro under the uniform, but didn't have any gloves, which later proved to be pretty foolish.

Like all military activities, the day started with a ridiculously early arrival. Following that was the obligatory acronym-filled, mostly useless briefing by the NCO in charge. Then came the standard filling out of multiple harshly-worded, complicated and boggy forms. Finally, there was the prerequisite mind-boggling amount of sitting around waiting and doing nothing time. (The theme of "hurry up and wait" is pervasive throughout the military. For any given activity, you must inexplicably be somewhere by some obscene hour (sharp!) only to end up waiting another 3 hours for anything to happen. This happens every single time.) I used this two hours of waiting time to do two things. First, I picked up an unloaded 9-mm and practiced my shooting form for a few minutes. Second, and for far more of the down-time, I made about 900 jokes in Jeff's direction about how I was a 'straight killa', how I was going to shoot the gun gangsta-sideways-style, how I was going to say "Eff center of mass, I'm going straight head shots", how I was going to add-on to the M-16 range, how I was going to score 'expert', how skillz from Bond, Counter-Strike, and Battlefield Vietnam computer games were going to make it damn hard for me to miss a single shot, how today was going to be a good day 'cause I wasn't going to have to pull out my AK, etc.

That was basically the funnest part of the day.

(And, as it turns out, aiming an animated weapon with a mouse or playstation controller is a lot different firing a real pistol. Who knew?)

I had only fired a real pistol once before - in a highly-controlled firing session at OBC (Officer Basic Course - Hoo-ah!) in San Antonio in the summer after my first year of medical school. We shot at targets and didn't get scores or anything. As I recall, I didn't do too well that time, either - I was too freaked out by the oppressive rules and constantly screaming sergeants ("YOU WILL PUT THE SAFETY ON - NOW!" and "IF YOU ARE SPOTTED POINTING YOUR GONE ANYWHERE BUT AT THE GROUND OR DOWN-RANGE, YOU WILL BE REMOVED AND YOUR FAMILY KILLED!" and so forth) to actually think about firing the gun correctly. But that was long ago, now, and I barely remembered that time this past Thursday.

When it became our time to shoot, Jeff and I and about 12 other people filed down toward the actual shooting enclosure (think like a shooting range in the movies, but outside). Then we stood there and got the same lecture we got inside (but now standing outside in the sub-arctic temperatures). For about 10 minutes, we were told (again) some useful information to go along with the obligatory "make sure you point the weapon at the target" and "finally, squeeze the trigger to fire" commentary.

As it turns out, the length of that lecture was also about the amount of time it took for my hands to go more or less completely numb. Right after that, we filed into our stalls, received a set of earplugs, were familiarized with our weapons and got some final instruction (more useful this time).

To "qualify", one must hit the blackened figure portion of the standard-target at least 24 times (out of 40 shots) from a distance of 25 meters. The shots are taken from several different posititions. One begins with standing, then goes to crouching (feet shoulder width, knees slightly bent), then kneeling, and finally the prone position. There are a preset number of shots from each position, and you must reload the gun after each position.

Before actually qualifying, we all received five familiarization shots to get the feel of firing the gun. If you've never fired a pistol, it's a little more complicated than it looks, at least at first. There's the whole safety thing, followed by pulling the chamber back to load the first round - then you have to make sure the hammer is cocked back for the first shot (or you will be pulling very hard on the trigger which will take precious accuracy away) - and finally you have to pull just a little bit of slack out of the trigger prior to the full squeeze on every shot, again to prevent pulling the weapon while firing and to maximize accuracy. Loading, unloading, and reloading the clips isn't too difficult. As I did this portion, I kept imaging I was in the Matrix or something.

So we picked up the guns and fired our test shots. I was right next to Jeff, and we had the same NCO over-seeing our shooting. (Damn, was he about to be impressed with our mad skillz...) We walked down to inspect the targets - on my trial run I had hit the target (meaning the rectangle) with 4 of my 5 hits - and hit the blackened figure portion (which takes up about 2/3 of the rectangular sheet of paper, all told) with 3 of the shots. I felt good about that, I guess.

(More on the target: I couldn't find any good picture of the thing on google. Basically the black portion is a figure-shaped silhouette with concentric figure-shaped regions for different amounts of points. The 'center mass' spot is 4 points. There's a 3 point region around that, and a 2 point as well on the outer border. Interestingly, the head portion of the figure was only 2 points - which is what probably ended up killing my score. You see, I'm used to killin' execution-style...)

Then we walked back to the stalls and prepared to do it for real. I realized by this point that my hands were a) numb and b) shaking (probably from a combination of the cold AND my morning coffee.)

Finally, it was time to let the bullets do the talking. On the command of the head NCO, I picked up the weapon and started bustin' caps. The NCO behind me was trying to correct both Jeff and I, and he kept flinging out generic instructions, and sometimes more specific instructions. This was not a good sign. Furthermore, with the earplugs in and like 15 other guns constantly going off, I couldn't ever tell if he was talking to me or Jeff. So I would hear things like "aim higher!" or "too far left" after some shots and I couldn't figure out if he meant me or Jeff, so I just kept shooting.

One problem I definitely had was focus. It seemed like in theory it wouldn't be that difficult to take aim and fire the gun. In practice, however, my mind felt like it was in a thousand places. I kept thinking about how cold it was (my fingers WERE numb). And for some reason all these common sense questions kept popping up as well. Like, "Why the hell am I firing a gun at work - didn't I go to medical school?!". There was also the existential things like "Does trying to fire a gun well make me a bad person?" and "Is what I'm doing morally wrong?". Then came the realization, "this isn't like firing the Quake 3 Arena rail gun at all..." Finally, I was left asking for the millionth time, "Why did I join the Army again?". (Oh, Gabe, if you had only tackled and gagged me the day I walked out of the apartment to go swear in...)

While I was in the prone position, my over-sized Kevlar kept dipping down right over my eyes and made things difficult. Also, brass from the next stall over kept hitting me after being ejected up and sideways from that stall's gun, which was sort of odd and annoying. (I kept conjuring up visions of John Woo movies where shells are bouncing everywhere in slow motion.) After emptying my clips, I stood back up and put the gun on the table. After everyone else was finished and after we scoured the floor and picked up all our shells, Jeff and I were patted down for loose brass and ammo clips and finally went back to the briefing room and waited around until they called our name out to get our results.

It turns out we both sucked. I only hit 14 of the required 24 hits and thus my paper came back, in classic military fashion, with a gigantic "NO GO" scrawled across the front. Jeff did similarly poorly, though a little better. Somewhat demoralized, I wondered what the hell went wrong. I'm coordinated, right? It didn't seem like it was that hard - I think most of my problem came with a lack of concentration (not to mention numb fingers), which proved later to most likely be true.

So, having failed, Jeff and I and several other retards were told we had to have at it again. We were forced to suit back up, tromp back out to the stalls, and continue to waste more of the military's ammo. Ironically, we got the same 'basic principles' lecture in the freezing cold the second time around. As we filed back toward the enclosure and into the stalls for the second time, I kept thinking "Look out, 9-millimeter SHORT BUS coming through!" When I actually made the comment to my friend Jeff and followed it up with a snicker, I could see the range NCO (whom had overhead) just shake his head with a look of boredom-slash-disgust.

The second time around, I made it a priority to focus - mostly so I could just effing qualify already and get the hell out of there. (I have a very limited patience with most every military activity, even ones with the joke-potential of shooting a GAT and the like ). I also realized the second time around that I hadn't been putting enough counter-pressure on the gun while I was firing - this made a huge difference in the latter firing sequence. Even though my gun jammed several times during the second round, I did a hell a lot better.

When the scores came back, I had hit 29 shots and was officially qualified as a "Marksman". (Note - this sounds cooler than it is. After "no go" comes "marksman", then "sharpshooter", then "expert".) Jeff qualifed as well and so team-9-millimeter-short bus finally got around to rolling out of there. Unfortunately, however, I hadn't shoved my left ear plug in well enough for the second round of firing and as Jeff and I left the range, my ear was ringing (which annoyingly continued over the next 24 hours).

Later that day, it was back to work seeing patients in the clinic. An odd transition to say the least. And more proof that military medicine is a land of contrasts. I would say that the lesson of all this is that unless they find a way to program a soldier with a computer-chip and have me control him with a remote keyboard and mouse (or PS2 controller), we ('we' being all lovers and defenders of freedom) are all screwed if it comes down to me in a warzone being required to do anything with an actual weapon. Yes, it's sad, but it looks I'm just not cut out to be "smoking Haji" any time soon. I suppose I'll have to resign my NRA membership and it's unfortunately back to being a doctor, I guess. Sorry, freedom.


(Notes on that picture at the top: Yes, it's a real 9-millimeter. The picture is from my 2 weeks in "the field" back in August. I had to carry that thing around, blue tagged and all (as if I bought it from K-mart), everywhere I went - even to the bathroom. I even had to literally sleep with it - soldiers are responsible for their weapons at all times, you see. And no, it wasn't loaded. Nor did I ever fire it.)