At the end of my Marine Corps career I was sitting in the E-club one Saturday morning having an early bloody mary when 2 carloads of off duty marines came and told me they needed my help. I won no favors from the many brown nosers and was somewhat known as a badass but otherwise a real good person to good people. A fellow marine was off base threatening to kill himself over a dear john letter from home. I put my drink aside went with them, and slowly walked up to the house where he was at and calmly told him that things would be okay, he was crying with the barrel of the M-16 under his chin. I got to him and took the rifle away and was escorted back to my barstool without a second thought to finish my bloody mary.
The next time was when I was working in an underground copper mine in Arizona. I was about a mile underground working in a drift pretty much with just an old time miner when an unexpected explosion of dynamite occurred. The old miner knew that it was desperate in that a fellow was drilling up in the undercuts along the drift and had been buried alive; we hoped he wasn't dead. The old miner started down the drift popping off control boards while I followed helping him. I stopped at one and to this day don't know why and started digging. I found the bottom of his boot and yelled for help. I was clawing at that muck until the old miner and I, and some others who showed up got him out. His head was covered in blood, unconscious with a gash down the length of his forearm. I took off my shirt and wrapped his arm as we prepared to take him to the tram for immediate extraction. He was back to work 6 months later.
The final life saved was a woman running across a field toward a four lane busy road at about midnight when I heard a man behind her screaming that she was going to kill herself. I was walking home from work and took off in a sprint toward her along the sidewalk. I went into the superman pose just as she got to the sidewalk and I tackled her before she got to the curb. We talked a bit and the police showed up and they took her away. I had two real chances to kill someone but both times I didn't pull the trigger and instead put the gun down and dealt with it with my fists in one case and the other was lucky because I was just fooling around with a gun I didn't now had a round in the chamber.
The next time was when I was working in an underground copper mine in Arizona. I was about a mile underground working in a drift pretty much with just an old time miner when an unexpected explosion of dynamite occurred. The old miner knew that it was desperate in that a fellow was drilling up in the undercuts along the drift and had been buried alive; we hoped he wasn't dead. The old miner started down the drift popping off control boards while I followed helping him. I stopped at one and to this day don't know why and started digging. I found the bottom of his boot and yelled for help. I was clawing at that muck until the old miner and I, and some others who showed up got him out. His head was covered in blood, unconscious with a gash down the length of his forearm. I took off my shirt and wrapped his arm as we prepared to take him to the tram for immediate extraction. He was back to work 6 months later.
The final life saved was a woman running across a field toward a four lane busy road at about midnight when I heard a man behind her screaming that she was going to kill herself. I was walking home from work and took off in a sprint toward her along the sidewalk. I went into the superman pose just as she got to the sidewalk and I tackled her before she got to the curb. We talked a bit and the police showed up and they took her away. I had two real chances to kill someone but both times I didn't pull the trigger and instead put the gun down and dealt with it with my fists in one case and the other was lucky because I was just fooling around with a gun I didn't now had a round in the chamber.
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