Another School Shooting

[Smitty-48]

On one exercise, after endex, we were all piled into a tent city for post ex drills, and then there was this huge bbq and beer party at the end, but there were two companies in the camp, there was us, and there was a company of Vandoos from Quebec, and when the sun went down, that went off like a bomb, it was like a biker war that went on for eight hours. It was out in the training area, and all the higher ups had left, and there were no MP's around, so that one was off the hook.

[Smitty-48]

We were like literally evacuating casualties n' shit, like guys beaten to a pulp and we're casevacing them back to our tents for trauma aid

Good times.

[Okeefenokee]

There were two different types of fights in the army for me, fights with guys in your own unit, which were like Okee says, like a hockey fight, settle it out behind the woodshed, then everybody back to work, but fights with guys from other units, those could get pretty crazy, and it could escalate to full on formation vs formation brawls, platoons, and even companies going at it in massive rolling rumbles, contacts all over the place, flare ups which would come and go all night, teams of guys out hunting for guys in the other unit, make sure you didn't go anywhere alone.

When that happened in Germany, the Colonel made everyone dig in. Sand bag bunkers surrounding the barracks. Everyone intermixed, living outside in the elements for weeks in the German winter. Then everyone went to Afghanistan.

Some of the best memories I have were of the ever loving hell that would rain down on all of us when we couldn't get along. Almost no one got punished individually for what went down, say when our unit fought those fags in FA, but afterwards, we'd have to suffer through the shit together as the tops brought us back together.

My entire OC team got banished to the desert at Irwin for weeks over one MP call. We came back from that thinking, "Hell, that was pretty nice. No wives, and no getting hassled by CQ."

[Smitty-48]

I found that sort of thing to be quite thrilling really, maybe it was liquid courage or whatever, but I loved it when army mayhem got off the hook, I mean, you're so locked down all the time, the chickenshit starts to grind you down, and then all of sudden, endex, the higher ups bugger off to who knows where, and it's just lord of the flies, and even the senior NCO's are hammered and off the hook. It was bliss.

[jediuser598]

Bluffing your way through as a gentle giant is fine I guess, so long as you don't try to bluff a pit bull, scariest fighter I ever knew, was only 5'9", and he had a thing about tearing big guys to pieces, any who ever tried to bluff him, he made pay a steep price for it.

Generally just not looking for a fight. Not going out squaring up to people, generally being polite, de-escalating situations. This one guy I used to hang out with when I'd go hang out with my cousins would always get in fights with everyone, he was all alpha dog, squaring off against everyone he could get a fight out of, one day he got drunk and I thought he was all mad at me and he looks at me he's like "Dude, you're the nicest guy I know, I'd never bother you." I had to laugh.

All my brothers are kind of the opposite, they're always down. You disrespect them they'll just clock you, or mess with family, get clocked. My Father is the same way. Some guy was talking shit to one of my family (heard about it later) in some retail store, called my sister a cunt, he woke up on the floor.

I get why people fight, blow off steam, matters of respect and all of that, I get it, but hey man once the other guy hits the floor and is out, leave him alone. That's really the only time I'll get involved. No honor in hitting a man that's unconscious.

School for me though? Had two bullies that picked on me for a bit, when I was a bit smaller. I remember both their names. Ben Wright and Eli Lilly. Dude would just always start shit with me, my dad told me just solve it, he wants to hit, hit him back. I remember the last time me and Ben fought, was recess and he just takes a basket ball and just bounces it off my head, hard. So I take it and do the same thing right back to him, and he comes running, and sucker punches me after I turn my back, goes for a second punch and I catch it. I just tell him "Stop!" Never had trouble from him again.

Other one, guy is just giving me endless shit, walking by and punching me, shit kids do at that age, told him meet me out by the bus after school. He meets me and I say "ok lets go" walk up and punch him three times in the head, he just takes it, I'm like fuck, not going to fight a guy that's not fighting back. Later found out his dad had died recently and he was just taking it out on me. Still makes me feel bad to this day. It probably shouldn't, but it does.

Ben died from a drug overdose bout 6 years back, no idea what happened to Eli.

[Smitty-48]

It's a little different when you're institutionalized, when you're living in a gladiator school, being polite and trying to deescalate is pretty much just interpreted as weakness, unless you're going to just hide in your room and lock the door, you're pretty much going to have to step up and represent on a pretty regular interval, guys will just call you out for the sake of calling you out, and you gotta answer the bell.

You're on a fighting team in a league of fighting teams, "thanks but no thanks, I'm not up for a fight", is not really an option.

[jediuser598]

It's a little different when you're institutionalized, when you're living in a gladiator school, being polite and trying to deescalate is pretty much just interpreted as weakness, unless you're going to just hide in your room and lock the door, you're pretty much going to have to step up and represent on a pretty regular interval, guys will just call you out for the sake of calling you out, and you gotta answer the bell.

You're on a fighting team in a league of fighting teams, "thanks but no thanks, I'm not up for a fight", is not really an option.

True.

[Smitty-48]

Also, army chickenshit will drive you into a fighting rage at some point, there's only so much chickenshit you can take, before you become recklessly indifferent to the consequence of just getting it fuckin' on with the next mutherfucker who stands in your way, whoever the fuck he is, fuck it, it's go time.

It's a 24-7-365 job that never lets up, eventually a chimp's gotta do what a chimp's gotta do, just to vent some of this pent up aggro.

[Okeefenokee]

I found that sort of thing to be quite thrilling really, maybe it was liquid courage or whatever, but I loved it when army mayhem got off the hook, I mean, you're so locked down all the time, the chickenshit starts to grind you down, and then all of sudden, endex, the higher ups bugger off to who knows where, and it's just lord of the flies, and even the senior NCO's are hammered and off the hook. It was bliss.

We had this one DS who was the devil incarnate. Our last night before graduation we had a full dress dinner with family before the graduation the next day. The D's dropped us back off at the barracks and left. We went ape shit. Scores were settled. The barracks turned into animal house.

The next morning we're scrubbing the walls and getting shit up to snuff so we could leave, when out of nowhere the DS latrine door opens, and the devil walks out, still in his dress uniform from the night before. The realization swept down the hall. It was his night to be our warden, and he'd gone into the shitter and passed out from the drinking we did during the dinner. At any point in the past night when we were raising every form of hell we could, we could have woken him up and been royally fucked.

Ran into him about five years later. Totally cool dude. Shot in the head in Iraq, and stayed in to be the worst DS you could ever imagine.

[jediuser598]

Also, army chickenshit will drive you into a fighting rage at some point, there's only so much chickenshit you can take, before you become recklessly indifferent to the consequence of just getting it fuckin' on with the next mutherfucker who stands in you way.

Me and my younger brother, oh man. It was every bit alpha dog bullshit that I usually avoid. 16 and 17 year old, we'd fight every single day. He'd look at me wrong or wrong channel on the TV, WHAM, we'd be just going. Every single day, for like two years. My dad's pretty much like "just let them fight it out, it's what boys do." "Take it outside!" He'd always say. Always trying to make the other give up, and that little fucker would never give up, but he's my brother, I don't want to really hurt him. Can't mount, then ground and pound. My poor parents had to deal with that shit every day.