Reminds me of my first experience with a USGI 1911.bauerdj wrote:This really has nothing to do with carry condition but I thought I would like to share my first expierience with a 1911.
I had just arrived at my first permanent duty station, Downs Barracks in Fulda, FRG. Home of the prestigious 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.
Being a redleg, I was assigned to Howitzer Battery, 1/11 ACR. Two days after I landed, the unit went to the field (not unusual, since we spent about 250 days per year in the field). I was bumbling through "in country familiarization", or whatever they called it, and spending the rest of my work days at the (empty) battery HQ, trying to put together a good set of maps, learn where the latrines were, etc., while serving as "Rear Ops OIC".
The building in question was a captured WWII German barracks, with high ceilings, tall doors, three stories tall, and one heckuva draft when all the windows were open. It was just like my college dorm in that regard. Since this was August, all the windows were open, and doors would close with great gusto if not carefully controlled.
I'm sitting there around 1500 in the FDO room, trying to stay awake on a lazy afternoon, when the hallway reverberates with a loud BLAM! I thought it was a door slamming at first, then it dawned on me... that was way too loud for a door!
I stepped into the hall, just as my "Rear Ops NCOIC" was about to break free from his frozen position. Said position being just inches from a big divot in the concrete wall, directly adjacent to his right ear. And "about to break free" meaning, "I stepped out just in time to stop him from pummelling the CQ", who was sitting at the CQ desk with a smoking 1911.
In the end, here's what happened: the battery commander (the only one assigned a pistol in the entire battery) allowed the CQ to draw his pistol, rather than an unwieldy M16. Our intrepid CQ didn't have the faintest idea how to operate a 1911. I don't know how he did it, but he fired a round through the CQ desk, which then riocheted off the floor, and ricocheted again off the wall next to the NCOIC's ear.
I got to learn a lot that day, about clearing a 1911, and reporting major incidents.
Kevin