Duelling British Officers

[Merle]

No brains there i hate to say. I always was taught the No1 firearms safety rule is never point a gun at something you don't want to shoot, let alone loaded. Compounding the matter is them two would have been very well trained.

Or should have been. I wonder if alcohol was involved?

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[Eaglelord17]

Or should have been. I wonder if alcohol was involved?

No alcohol involved, just bored soldiers. People do some stupid stuff when they get bored. It also goes to show that just because you are trained doesn't mean that you are unable to do anything stupid.

[Bob Womack]

If you've read Chickenhawk, the definitive monograph on Huey slick piloting in the 7th Cav in the Vietnam war, you'll know this story. One day the author was relaxing in the cockpit of his chopper between lifts when his crew chief handed him his 1911 and said, "Check out the trigger job I did on this pistol!" The author said, "Oh, I'm sure it is great," and tried to hand it back. Crew chief says, "No. Go ahead! Give it a try. Dry fire it. It's empty." The author pointed it around, looking for a good point of aim. He decided to follow the rules for gun safety and not point it at anyone standing outside his windshield but chose the artificial horizon and steadied up on it. He thought "squeeze." He didn't squeeze. He just thought "squeeze." There was a tremendous explosion and the artificial horizon disintegrated. He handed the pistol back to the chief as casually as he could and said, "Yep. Light trigger."

Of course the author was called up by his squadron commander and reamed out for his stupidity and then the remains of the artificial horizon were hung over the blackboard in flight ops as an example. The author absorbed a lot of light-hearted ribbing along the lines of, "I've never been attacked by an artificial horizon before. When did you know he was going to make his move?"

Bob