In 1983 I was in Ft.McClellan Al. in MP school. We went to a range to familiarize ourselves with the M60 machine guns. The range was a curved ridge over a bowl shaped field that had buildings , roads , junked vehicles and trees and signs and stuff.
We had 5 guns set up , on bipods , one shooter and one tender to feed the belts through , with tracers. No scoring or testing , just burn through a few hundred rounds to get used to really letting the guns rip.
So I start in , 4 other guns going as well , huge adrenaline rush , tracers everywhere , little fires starting to smoulder down there , and something is moving. All 5 lines of tracers converge on the thing and the Range Officer kicks me in the helmet. Oh ****e ! That was a moving truck ! And it's burning , now. A telephone utility truck.
The range officers and Drill instructors zip down there in a jeep and pull a man out of the truck , alive , uninjured. And proceed to explain to him in very sincere terms about the dangers of taking shortcuts through live ranges when there are 19 year olds with machine guns around.
Only time I ever shot at a human , & it was just youthful enthusiasm , didn't even realize it... Just having fun blowing **** up.
