we'll blackout the stars and close your eyes
starting fires can be fun. except when you get burned. went to the range yesterday, obviously to shoot. left with some cross training in firefighting. ever walk by a fire extinguisher, and get the urge to snatch it off the wall and spray it to see what it does? yeah well i found out. so i was firing and firing. finished zero-ing my optics, and then put up a multi silhouette target, and start doing soe rapid acquire and fire practice. put the dot on a silhouette, pull it, and move to the next one. finished one mag and grabbed another to finsih the sheet. well um, apparently i had a tracer at the bottom of the mag i was firing. the tracer is supposed to give me a heads up that after that i have two shots left, so grab a new mag. well i didn't realize it fired, but um, it did. so when the bullet went through the tires that are supposed to keep the lead from ricocheting, the phosphorus stayed in the tire, and what do hot weather, plus dusty old rubber, plus burning phos produce? thats right kiddies, a fire. ever watche black hawk down? those massive fires that produce that thick black smoke? yeah they're tires. so thats what we were dealing with. well only one at first, then two. buttt, they were in the middle of prolly five hundred other ones, so yeah, it could quickly be a disaster. but we ran foward and started to pour water on it, someone came up with the idea to throw dirt on it. let's see, large truck tire, hand full of dirt. hmmm. the water helped, but then it finally hit some one like a brick in the head that they had a fire extinguisher. yayy, so being the one right by the tire, i was the one to grab it and go. add fire fighter to my list of duties. put it out, but in the process tried to lift up the tire. burning tire, melting rubber, hot sharp shreads of metal, glove, melts hits hand. fingers now have big white blisters. but i got the fire out. put some other tires in place of the charred ones, went and killed some more paper. came back, found out the angry mexican sliced open his hand and had to get stitches, so that was cool, sucks for him, but now we can pick on him. today tho, someone got their finger cut so i had to treat it, all the other guys huddled around because they thought i was gonna do some really cool stuff and were dissappointed that bandagin a finger was just gauze and tape. i told them to shot a haji in the chest, then they could see all the cool stuff. none of the hajis would volunteer tho. took the individual to the medics where i got to observe and help out a little, saw the nasty gash, it was a crooked and such get sewn up. the first time i ever got to watch stiches be put in, it was great. i think i may have found a new calling. at least as far as the army goes. the human body and such is so much better than engines and trucks and all that stupid stuff. they can be fun as far sometimes, but the stuff you end up doing as an army mechanic, well it just doesn't grab my attention all that much. i haven't yet had a sever trauma patient, bleeding out of the abdomen, hole in the chest, lungs collapsing, going into shock, blood and such all over the place, but some how, fixing someone up and making them all better seems to have so much more appeal. the struggle against the odds, against nature, fate, death. it seems kind of cavalier to say such things when regarding a life, but it is that life that you are trying to save, so i think it is justified. ok well thats about all for now. duty tonight, then football against the airforce in the morning. later.