.38 Caliber Colt vs Smith & Wessen

At fire support base PACE, probably less than 100 ft. from where Ron Masti kicked the 40MM on the front of the Cobra, we had another incident that got everyone's attention. Because the pilots had to sit around and wait long hours for missions, the Army had brought in a giant culvert for us to stay in. This thing was kind of a triangle shape, about 8 foot high at its top and the sides sloped down, and the bottom was about 8-10 feet across. It was probably about 20 feet long and was made out of metal. It makes a place for the pilots to stay when it is raining or to get some shade. In Viet Nam, you take any housing you can get. Pilots spend lots of time sitting in there waiting for missions.

One day the XO (executive officer, or second in command of the unit) was flying with us. Some how the discussion got around to safety and carrying a .38 revolver. The Army has in its inventory both Smith & Wessen and Colt manufactured .38 revolvers. The XO was telling one of the pilots how he only puts 5 bullets in his revolver which could hold 6. He was informing the pilot that he does that so if the hammer accidentally gets bumped, there will not be a round there for the hammer to hit and discharge. Next he tells him that you do not keep the empty round under the hammer, because if the hammer gets pulled back, it turns the cylinder to the next round. And so you should always keep the empty chamber one space off to the side where the hammer and barrel are located. As his lesson continued, he was going to show how this could happen. He pulled back on the hammer and the cylinder rotated. This demonstration took place inside of this giant tin can that we were staying in.

What the XO did not know was that a Colt revolver revolves one way and a Smith & Wessen revolves the other way. He had the empty chamber on the wrong side in his revolver, which ever it was, he had it wrong. So when he pulled the hammer back and released it, there was a bullet there. And the gun fired, the bullet went out, and started ricocheting inside of this tin can. The bullet did not hit anyone. But, the area was immediately emptied as all pilots started running. Fortunately, he had not killed or injured anyone and his idea may have been a good one, but he just didn't know what he was doing. The demonstration certainly got everyone's attention and no one asked him for any more advice about weapons. I don't remember him flying with us after that. So we had two captains that almost got us killed at fire support base PACE.

There are many things in life that we need to understand or we can hurt someone. Sometimes we hurt ourselves and other times we hurt others. Most things in this world operate by laws. D&C 130:20-21 tells us that. When we obey the laws we are protected by the laws but when we break the laws we can be hurt. The laws don't change. They don't favor one person over the other. Cecil B. DeMill, the great Hollywood Director said, "You can not break the Ten Commandments, there is no way. You can only break yourself against them." They are for our safety.