Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. AH_HotNewV6f300.pdf 1 11/1/07 11:21:42 AM and the business and they don’t leave, but rather take you to the back room and tell you ‘lie down,’ the chances of then being shot are very high.” After stories like this hit the news media, “chair-borne commandoes” come out of the woodwork to pompously theorize how they could have handled the situation better. Some such critics have suggested that he should have fired once at each opponent before re-engaging either of them. The problem with criticizing someone’s tactics based on a sterile newspaper account, is the account doesn’t give the real-world details that determine what tactic is appropriate for what scenario. It appears the Marine couldn’t have shot the second assailant after firing one shot at the first, because that first armed robber was still his primary threat when the Marine fired the second shot, and the second perpetrator was not yet in his line of fire. The Marine explains, “The first man had staggered back against the wall but hadn’t yet fallen so I could just see over his shoulder the face and shoulders of the second robber. I saw he had something in each hand. My firing was continuous without pause.” News accounts never discussed shooting technique. Long familiar with the 1911, the Marine was able to bring up his Para LDA and fire the shots ending the encounter in a smooth and fluid movement born of years of training. He observes, “I carried with the safety on. I have no recollection of releasing the safety. I started firing.” He fired one-handed, and scored kill-zone hits with almost half his shots against two men, neutralizing both. His gun never came up to line of sight. Few of us could criticize that performance. But the Marine himself can. Criticism The most valid criticism is often the self-criticism of the individual involved. In this case, we are talking about a man who spent both his careers with human lives constantly in his hands, in situations where the slightest error on his part could extinguish those lives, as well as his own. It was so when he piloted Marine One, the Presidential helicopter, for John Fitzgerald Kennedy and for Lyndon Baines Johnson. It was true when he was the pilot responsible for hundreds of passengers at a time aboard Pan American Airways and Delta Airlines jetliners. Such men tend to be perfectionists, and ruthlessly self-critical. Here is what he tells us about his own performance that night, as he sees it. “I am not happy with my accuracy. There was no time to take up a modified Weaver stance or anything close to it. The best way I could describe it is the reaction you have when you walk into a spider web and think the spider is on 74 WWW.AMERICANHANDGUNNER.COM • JULY/AUGUST 2009