Secondary lesson from Fort Hood shooting...

[ironglow]

 the brass above colonel are very political ..and obviously politically correct, or they wouldn't be there..

[BBF]

and in Canada they have to be french able to get above Captain grade.

[teamnelson]

Recently moved from a small Marine base where my guys would often be seen at night patrolling by squad or platoon through our housing area for practice. First time a new wife sees it, its a little unnerving, but it quickly becomes comforting. Our house backed up to a crater, inside of which is a mortar and mg range ... loved hearing that sound when I was out grilling dogs, or playing with the kids. Its comforting. If I can be trusted to know a civilian from a hostile in OIF/OEF, then I can be trusted to carry condition 3 on my home base. For most families in OUR community, its comforting.

Where I live now I have to constantly remind my son to hide the clip on his pocket knife for fear someone will turn him into the police. Everybody knows Nelsons carry knives ... even the ladies.

[ShadowMover]

Having a 4 in the beginning of the round name doesn't always guarantee it will do 'the job'. Aiming and thinking are very important factors.  Here is an interesting story about a .25 cal against a .40 cal. Given a choice, I'll take the bigger gun, but their are other factors.

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/what-stops-mass-murderers-a-gun-70134582.html

[beerbelly]

I don't know about now,but back when I was in the Marine Corps, if you were on guard duty you had a clip of live ammo in that M1.
                           Beerbelly

[billy_56081]

I believe we carried either 5 or 10 rounds of live ammo on guard duty. Well that was what was issued to us anyway. Usually depending on the NCO with us we carried probably 20 rounds each of commercial ammo.
 

[nw_hunter]

Walking on Guard Duty in W. Germany with a M-1 and later the M-14 without even one lousy round of ammo just didn't sit well with me. So I had a loaded 25 cal auto under my field jacket. At least it would go BANG if it accomplished nothing else.

You must have been there about the same time I was. We switched to the  M14 while I was serving at Baumholder Germany around 1961 or 62. The only time we carried live ammo, was when we were guarding the ammo dump, or escorting payroll.

[BBF]

Even the ammo dump, such as we had at HQ&HQ of the 4th Armored was guarded without ammo. The payroll arrived in the back of a Deuce and a half with a couple of MP's having 45's on their belts.