Over here, “safe” training saves lives. Over there, it ends them.

The closest I came to death from my time in the military (that I know of, at least) happened in early 2008 in Iraq. My platoon rolled into the middle of a firefight involving insurgents, the Iraqi army, and the armed neighborhood watch known as the Sons of Iraq. (Remember those jackalopes?) The rounds fired our way pinged around heads, bouncing off the Strykers and through the buildings behind us — close enough for that oh-so-distinctive whistle-whistle-crack effect. Ah, memories.

We had a few other hairy situations with IEDs and IED emplacers, but nothing too wild. We were lucky. In fact, my second closest brush with the Reaper in the military didn’t happen in combat, or in Iraq at all. It happened in Hawaii, during... Read More