Mojo2
Gold Member
- Oct 28, 2013
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A clearer understanding after 40 years
I was a PFC fresh out of AIT and was a brand new photographer at my unit.
I'd never been very adept at the very popular table game of soccer called, Foosball, but one of the guys in my unit sure was!
He was a whiz. He saw the ball and immediately knew which row of men he should move and which plastic Foosball playing figure should take the ball. And when he shot the ball the sound was like lightning instantly followed by a thunder crack-POW. His balls were ALWAYS on target and usually went in and when they went in they went in at a speed which was too fast to see with the naked eye.
Even though he was only a Spec4 and only one rank above me he was a little older, maybe 23 and he seemed very serious, as in, "don't-fuck-with-him-he's-crazy" kind of serious.
Seems before he cross trained into the Photo MOS he'd been a helicopter door gunner in Viet Nam.
So just now, 40 years later, it occurred to me that the extraordinary hand-eye coordination he displayed when playing Foosball may very well have been instrumental in saving his life while hanging from a Huey skid and fighting off determined VC or NVA attacks with his M-60 machine gun in the War.
His Foosball prowess was a peacetime by-product of the Viet Nam War and it took me 40 years to realize he was probably just physically gifted in that regard.
And even though I never much cared for the game of Foosball I always thought I had a decent degree of hand to eye coordination.
But not like Bruce.
He was scary good.
And just plain scary.
PTSD?
Prolly.
What are some revelations which only came to you after several (many) years?
I was a PFC fresh out of AIT and was a brand new photographer at my unit.
I'd never been very adept at the very popular table game of soccer called, Foosball, but one of the guys in my unit sure was!
He was a whiz. He saw the ball and immediately knew which row of men he should move and which plastic Foosball playing figure should take the ball. And when he shot the ball the sound was like lightning instantly followed by a thunder crack-POW. His balls were ALWAYS on target and usually went in and when they went in they went in at a speed which was too fast to see with the naked eye.
Even though he was only a Spec4 and only one rank above me he was a little older, maybe 23 and he seemed very serious, as in, "don't-fuck-with-him-he's-crazy" kind of serious.
Seems before he cross trained into the Photo MOS he'd been a helicopter door gunner in Viet Nam.
So just now, 40 years later, it occurred to me that the extraordinary hand-eye coordination he displayed when playing Foosball may very well have been instrumental in saving his life while hanging from a Huey skid and fighting off determined VC or NVA attacks with his M-60 machine gun in the War.
His Foosball prowess was a peacetime by-product of the Viet Nam War and it took me 40 years to realize he was probably just physically gifted in that regard.
And even though I never much cared for the game of Foosball I always thought I had a decent degree of hand to eye coordination.
But not like Bruce.
He was scary good.
And just plain scary.
PTSD?
Prolly.
What are some revelations which only came to you after several (many) years?
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