Professionals’ corner, personal experience series:
What’s the best weapon? Jaibi
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Introduction
As we have some top secret projects that we are working on to unravel them soon with partners in crime being
@Joe Shearer and
@PanzerKiel I had feedback from the poll that we just conducted. There were considerably high votes for professional’s personal experiences in the services. I’d like to take the start and then tag someone to share an incident that either is funny or made them grow.
Weapons training
Being a psychologist in the armed forces is a unique experience because most people don’t know what to make of you. Are you a doctor? Then why aren’t you at CMH? Are you from the Education branch then why aren’t you teaching? Are you from the fighting arms? Then why aren’t you in the field? What do you do?
It’s with this gaze that I came upon the firing range to my instructor a relatively young Subedar of the SSG who was the owner of this gaze. I was a city slicker and more importantly from the air force so he was even more curious as to why I was here but being a good NCO he did not ask.
His greetings were crisp and to the point and he invited us officers to have a refresher whereby he was showing us different weapons in the arsenal at our disposal. I was a keen learner because prior to the military I had had no experience with firearms but I wanted to learn this well because that is my perspective at any opportunity to learn.
After the introduction we were to fire and we all did. Not surprisingly, I was an average scorer on the first day but I talked my way to come again to practice tomorrow again.
As I returned I fared better this time but again not up to what I wanted.
The Subedar came to me and asked if I would like to stay for some more pointers because he saw that I was eager to learn.
The biggest question
Being Punjabi but away from Punjab I couldn’t resist the offer of having
Gur-wali-chaye (tea with natural sugar) and so as we were sitting the Subedar asked me a question.
‘Sir, if you have a G-3, MP 5, an AK-47, a revolver, a knife, a Glock and an RPG and your position was under imminent attack which weapon would you choose and why?’
I sipped some tea and considered the options. ‘I think the best choice would be a G-3 or maybe the RPG or a machine gun if I have more range and I could know where I am at and what position is being attacked.’
‘It could be any position, sir ji and you’ve seconds to react before the enemy is upon you. Which would you choose and why?’
‘G-3,’ I said, confidently.
The Subedar scoured at the bag right next to him got out my targets with my name and G-3 written on it. Out of 10 bullets that I had fired I had hit 4 on the target, so it was a 40% accuracy. That had been one of my experiments to gauge my proficiency with the weapons.
‘You’ve a 40% chance of surviving then, sir,’ he said and sipped his tea. ‘I don’t like them. Do you?’
The deadliest weapon
‘Your results with the MP-5 are the best; why didn’t you chose that one, sir?’
‘It gets inaccurate with the range, I suppose.’ I answered being a little embarrassed.
The Subedar smiled, ‘Sir ji, please don’t listen to the critique of men who have not seen war. What if you had cannon with you? It could take out everyone but if you cannot use it then it’s as good as wings are to a fish!’
‘I see,’ I said with genuine interest. ‘I’ve been firing with the MP-5 in the air force a lot or maybe it’s because it’s an easier weapon to handle, that my scores are better there?’
‘No, sir, it’s because you’ve been practicing with it. The weapon that’s the deadliest in the field is the one you’ve the most experience with. It is the one which your hands don’t feel like they’re holding a gun. I would advise, sir, if you don’t mind; don’t try to master the weapon by your mind but by your body. Practice with them and you’d do just fine.’ He finished his tea.
I thanked him for this invaluable lesson and it really stuck with me throughout service.
Qismat hi Kharab hai
ap mera naam le len .. Omer is my name ..
