We spend too much of our time listening without actually hearing, and looking without actually seeing.
This past summer we pulled up to our travel trailer, after dark, and unloaded our two dogs. About the time they got out of the car, the dogs got really upset. They wouldn’t quit barking, they wouldn’t listen to me and they wouldn’t calm down. I figured they were just reacting to a coyote or some other critter in the pasture next to us. Finally, it dawned on me that I ought to find out what they were upset about, and started looking around with my flashlight. Luckily, I found and killed the Mojave rattlesnake before it bit any of us. Col. Cooper would have called me in Condition White, and he would have been right.
Awareness in our everyday lives gives us time to evaluate a situation and prepare to respond to it. Away from home, awareness often helps us spot a potentially bad situation while there is still time to go the other way. Heck, you might even spot the traffic cop while there is still time to slow down and avoid a speeding ticket.
Awareness should be part of the discussion in your family defensive plan. And, it really helps to have friends and family members encouraging each other to be conscious of what’s going on around them. A criminal attack is dangerous, but it should never be a complete surprise. Tune your senses—they are some of the best defensive weapons at your disposal.
If you hang around hunting camp or the shooting range for more than, say, seven seconds, you will soon be regaled with the most outrageous fibs, half-truths, bald-faced mendacities and straight-up Category Five lies ever inflicted on civilized mankind. It’s the nature of our shared passion. Frankly, most of us actually embrace dubious storytelling as a wonderful part of the experience.
In fact, hunters are often chased out of camp by their cohorts brandishing large sticks if they have the temerity to share a tale that includes more than 5% actual verifiable fact. It’s never been done, but if a hunter ever told a shooting-related story that was absolutely true start-to-finish, it’s likely a massive rip would develop in the space-time continuum and we’d all end up exploding into icy clouds of anti-matter.
Therefore, despite my lifelong dedication to “never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” along with my status as a professional writer, I’m going to risk the universe imploding by sharing a supposedly-true story. Though I hang around with hunters, shooters, anglers and other compulsive liars, the person who shared this episode swears and affirms it is true. Where the actual truth lies, I shall leave up to the audience but I will note on humid days my friend did radiate an unusual bouquet, so perhaps there is legitimacy in his claims. Let me explain.
Prelude
The protagonist in this tale shall remain nameless but he is an older gentleman who I’ve known for nearly 40 years. We’ve grown apart over the last decade and haven’t spoken but previously, we spent many years shooting, hunting, fishing and generally committing various outdoor-related outrages together. He is also the person in my life — and we all have one — who can take a simple situation and turn it into a full-blown, four-alarm catastrophe in the name of fun. This was one of those times.
A mutual friend of ours witnessed this incident and told me about it. It occurred sometime in the late 1960s, before I knew either party, and involves a stupid and childish act — of course — but wasn’t illegal and was fairly commonplace at the time.
One fine late-winter day, the person telling the story and my lets-make-matters-worse buddy were driving out to hunt coyotes with rifles. Cruising along the backroads, they happened to spy a large gathering of turkey vultures, also known as “buzzards,” feasting on the odiferous remains of some poor creature that met its demise two weeks earlier on the country road.
Slowing to look upon the group, my friend spontaneously announced he had always wanted a full-body taxidermy mount of a buzzard to grace his home decor. Why this would be a better conversation piece than, say, a nice piece of driftwood or an oil painting remains open for debate to this day.
Before we go any further, we must note the turkey vulture is federally protected under the Migratory Bird Act of 1918, though legal protection wasn’t granted until 1972. Today, like all animals, turkey vultures have advocacy groups and a political action committee in Washington D.C. so please note our admonition: The turkey vulture is a critical part of the ecosystem, a fine fellow and generally misunderstood soul you shouldn’t harm or harass, despite the fact they smell like hot garbage, their vomit is acid enough to destroy car paint and they regularly urinate on their legs instead of bathing. So, regardless of any legitimate aversion, they are illegal to molest without federal permission.
The deed
Showing a critical lack of long-term thinking or any inkling as to how wives and future houseguests might view the acquisition, our heroes unanimously agreed potting the vulture and turning it into an objet d’art was a grand idea. Pulling over to the shoulder of the road, my friend grabbed his bolt-action .22-250, laid it over a weathered fence post and fired. At the shot, one buzzard flopped over as his frightened dining companions took wing.
Our victorious rifleman hopped the fence, walked over to the remains and gingerly picked up the stinking, gore-covered bird. Returning across the fence, the two men discussed what to do with the reeking carcass.
As vultures are known for their normal diet of rotten meat, the witness noted the smell was somewhere between unbelievable and unimaginable.
Because of last-minute mechanical trouble, the pair was driving the car of one of their wives instead of their usual pickup trucks. This meant the only reasonable place to carry the fetid beast was the trunk of the sedan. They figured they could wrap the bird in an old blanket, which they would later burn, and then use some type of disinfectant spray to rid the car of the lingering traces of stench. I’m guessing kerosene.
Satisfied with this dubious plan, the two then drove to another buddy whom they knew was an amateur taxidermist.
At the taxidermist’s home, my friend inquired if it were possible to mount the buzzard in a full, menacing, gothic wing-spread pose. The wildlife “artist” allowed that he could. After a bit of haggling, they agreed upon a price and the three men walked up to the trunk of the vehicle. There was an ominous rustling from inside as my friend turned the key in the lock.
Hostilities Commence
As the trunk lid popped open, the now-conscious and thoroughly angry buzzard stood up like the Phoenix arising to glare at the men. The furious bird then spread its five-foot wings menacingly, squawked loudly and proceeded to vomit with great force and volume.
For those unaware, vomiting is the vulture’s standard first line of defense and they are quite practiced in the art. For what seemed like an eternity, the bird swiveled its head like a lawn sprinkler spewing liquefied roadkill all over the three men and the car.
The smell was excruciating. Most of the trees within 30 feet began shedding leaves and several flying insects died in midair. To make matters worse, in the panic borne of hyper-gagging, my buddy tried to grab the now-apparently-healthy bird by the wings as it continued flopping and spewing the upchuck geyser.
The struggle turned into a short wrestling match with the bird expending its entire arsenal on his hapless tormentor. Locked arm-in-wing, the duo struggled around the driveway in a life-or-death battle as vomit, feces and urine spurted every direction — the majority of which came from the vulture.
The horrific, clinging odor seared every nostril hair within range and in turn each man added their lunch to the gory tableau. The driveway grew slippery with barf and after three or four circuits of the immediate area, the bird and man went down for good.
After several more seconds of driveway grappling, the man finally conceded defeat and curled into a ball in the hopes the whole thing would just be a bad dream — a very wet, extremely smelly, bad dream. His friends didn’t witness this as they were indisposed, crawling on their hands and knees while looking for somewhere cleaner to hurl again.
With this sudden break in the action, the bird took flight with a loud squawk. It was never seen again and no one knows why it flopped over unconscious or if it eventually succumbed to whatever wound it had sustained in the initial encounter. Some believe it just had a sick sense of humor.
Epilogue
In the end, there are several lessons to be learned. First, you shouldn’t shoot vultures because it’s illegal, immoral and serves no purpose, decorating needs notwithstanding. Secondly, if you do happen to need to shoot a buzzard under legal circumstances, as Robert Ruark said, “Use enough gun.” I’d suggest something along the lines of a .458 Winchester Magnum, though my friend now thinks only a .470 Nitro Express safely meets the criteria.
And, most of all, always warn your wife beforehand when the clothes hamper contains an extra-special surprise.
The early 1960s saw a smoldering border dispute between East Malaysia and Indonesia bubble over into violent armed conflict. Note the Sterling submachine gun carried by the soldier in the foreground.
In the early 1960s, a tidy little war broke out along the border between Indonesia and East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. European colonialism had subdivided the planet into a bewildering amalgam of fiefdoms and protectorates, and the sundry peoples involved yearned to define themselves in the aftermath of the Second World War. On August 29, 1964, this tidy little war got quite messy.
Though typically small of stature, the Gurkhas are legendarily hard warriors.
Lance Corporal Amarjit Pun was the second-in-command for the point section of 10 Platoon, C Company, 2d Gurkha Rifles, on a company-strength patrol along the border south of Kumpang Langir. A company-sized element can be unwieldy on a protracted combat patrol, and all involved were looking forward to getting back to base for some rack time. However, as the patrol headed for home, they unwittingly walked into a kill zone.
On the tail end of an extensive combat patrol, LCPL Amarjit Pun and his men were tired and ready to get home.
The ambush was of the classic sort. Indonesian infantry well concealed in the jungle underbrush allowed the Gurkhas to walk deep into their killing ground before initiating the ambush with a murderous rain of small arms fire. In the first salvo, Lance Corporal Amarjit’s section commander was grievously wounded, while one of his NCOs was killed outright. The light machinegun team was also taken out of action. The Number 1 gunner was killed and his Number 2 badly hurt. Another rifleman was hit as well. The situation for LCPL Amarjit’s Gurkhas looked grave.
The ambush is a staple of Infantry warfare. An enemy unit launches a surprise attack from a position of stealthy advantage. The defending troops have only moments to respond.
It is the most basic tenet of Infantry training to instinctively assault through an ambush. This goes against every natural urge a man might have in combat. When faced with murderous fire from an unexpected quarter, the natural response is to drop or hide. However, hesitating inside a kill zone equals violent gory death.
A buddy who was there once told me that mobility was life on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion.
A friend who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, once told me that stagnation meant dying. He said the fire coming from the German pillboxes was indeed overwhelming, but that combat leaders on the ground pushed their men forward into the chaos. He explained that he charged across the beach to cover, but that every member of his small unit that hesitated on that beach died.
To survive a proper ambush an attacked unit must respond quickly and instinctively with overwhelming violence of action.
Infantry soldiers are therefore trained on immediate action drills in response to an ambush. They are expected to react instinctively without a great deal of conscious thought. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t. In the case of LCPL Amarjit Pun, this compact little man seized the initiative and took charge.
Turning the Tide
The magazine-fed Bren light machinegun was the unit’s most effective weapon. Getting the Bren back into action was therefore the top priority.
LCPL Amarjit charged forward and retrieved the fallen L4 Bren gun intending on using the discarded weapon on the attackers to help break the ambush. As he hefted the heavy gun another burst of fire raked over him, striking the Bren and putting it out of action. A lesser man might at this point have run or broken. LCPL Amarjit, however, was a Gurkha.
LCPL Amarjit Pun’s primary weapon was the compact Sterling submachine gun. The young Gurkha put his SMG to good use this day.
Amarjit Pun stood his ground in the center of the worn jungle track and unlimbered his British-issue L2A3 Sterling submachinegun. Fire poured in from Indonesian troops concealed a mere ten yards away. LCPL Amarjit thumbed his selector to full auto and squeezed the trigger, raking the jungle with 9mm rounds.
Aggressively run, the Sterling submachine gun produces a prodigious volume of fire.
Amarjit emptied his Sterling at its cyclic rate and dropped the empty magazine. All the while he shouted encouragement to his comrades. He fished out a second 34-round mag, shoved it into the gun, jacked the bolt back, and emptied it at the nearby Indonesians as well. Throughout it all, heavy fire from the ambushing soldiers ripped the jungle and tore Amarjit’s patrol to ribbons. LCPL Amarjit burned through magazines as fast as he could cycle the gun.
The Weapons
The Bren gun was a staple among Commonwealth forces for decades. The rimmed .303 cartridge fired by the original versions demanded the sharply curved magazine.
While the Bren light machinegun has become irrevocably associated with British and Commonwealth troops fighting everywhere from North Africa in World War 2 to the Falklands, the gun was actually a Czech design. A license-produced version of the Czech ZGB 33 light machinegun, the ZGB 33 was itself a modified variant of the ZB vz. 26. Vaclav Holek was the primary designer. The name Bren is a portmanteau derived from Brno, the Czech city in Moravia where the gun was designed, and Enfield, the site of the Royal Small Arms Factory.
The L4A4 Bren was the center of mass of LCPL Amarjit’s Infantry section.
The earliest Bren gun weighed about 25 pounds and fed from a sharply curved magazine located atop the weapon to accommodate the rimmed .303 British round. The L4A4 Bren used by LCPL Amarjit’s men was the later version rechambered to accept the rimless 7.62x51mm cartridge. This variant can be identified at a glance by its straighter magazine. This 30-round box magazine was intentionally designed such that it would be interchangeable with that of the L1A1 SLR FAL rifles used by British forces at the time.
During the earlier Malay Emergency (spuriously named because British insurers wouldn’t pay claims incurred during a declared war) there was a $1,000 bounty offered for every Bren gun surrendered by Malayan insurgents.
The Bren is indeed heavy in action, but its sedate 500-rpm rate of fire renders it thoroughly controllable. The Bren served in a similar role as the American BAR. Unlike the BAR, the Bren enjoyed a quick change barrel capability. The reliable tilting bolt, gas-operated action rendered splendid service in dirty environments. Additionally, while the gun was limited by its magazine feed system, the top-mounted design made mag changes fast. Each man in a British Infantry squad typically carried spare magazines for the Bren.
The Sterling submachine gun (right) was a thoroughly civilized and generally improved version of the previous Sten gun.
The Sterling submachine gun was an evolutionary improvement on the Sten that helped the British win World War 2. Developed in 1944, the Sterling was the brainchild of George William Patchett, the principal designer at the Sterling Armaments Company of Dagenham. Trial versions of the Sterling actually saw limited action in the closing months of World War 2, specifically with British Commando forces and at Arnhem with the British 1st Parachute Division during Operation Market Garden.
The Sterling was one of the most advanced open-bolt SMGs ever produced. More than 400,000 copies saw service.
The Sterling generally favored the Sten that inspired it but represented an improvement across the board. The pistol grip was set at the rough center of balance of the gun, and the weapon fed from a superb side-mounted 34-round curved magazine. The Sterling was designed from the outset to feed from either Sterling or Sten magazines.
The Sterling represents a balance between ease of manufacture and tactical effectiveness.
The Sterling is built around a drawn steel tube milled out and perforated as needed. It is finished out in a peculiar bake-on crinkle finish. This finish seems strangely similar to pickup truck bed liner. While early Sterlings featured a charging handle slot milled in line with the ejection port, production models were moved slightly higher.
A skilled gunsmith can combine a demilled Sterling parts kit with a transferable Sten tube to form a hybrid Stenling.
One curious aspect of the Sterling design as it relates to American shooters is that the gun can be legally constructed from a registered transferable Sten tube. The BATF has allowed enterprising gunsmiths to adapt Sten tubes to accept demilled Sterling parts kits. The final product is referred to as a Stenling in the vernacular. As the Sterling is a markedly more pleasant and effective weapon than the Sten, this is a popular conversion.
The Sterling saw extensive service with the Indian armed forces.
The Sterling’s delightful balance and sedate 550-rpm rate of fire make it unusually controllable. The gun fires from the open bolt and is selective fire via a thumb-operated selector level oriented above the trigger. The collapsible stock on the Sterling is a bit complex but remains nonetheless rigid and effective.
The bloke shown here in the foreground is packing a Sterling SMG.
The Sterling is one of the most controllable open-bolt subguns I have ever run. The telescoping recoil system of the German MP40 is perhaps incrementally smoother, but the Sterling still runs like a champ. The Sterling is also unusually compact and handy. This makes it the ideal weapon for combat leaders and second-line support troops who might need their hands free for other tasks.
The Rest of the Story
Jungle combat is frequently close range and pitiless. Note the early .303 Bren carried by the Number 2 man in this patrol. The last three troopers are packing Australian Owen guns.
LCPL Amarjit stood his ground on that tiny jungle trail, dumping magazine after magazine of full auto 9mm fire into the Indonesian troops. His furious close-range assault broke the back of the ambush and bought enough time for the rest of the company to maneuver in place and displace the enemy. The Indonesians subsequently retreated into the jungle. Amarjit’s Gurkhas gathered up their casualties and returned to their base camp.
Despite the furious exchange of fire, LCPL Amarjit Pun was miraculously unhurt.
LCPL Amarjit was unhurt during the chaotic exchange. However, his uniform and equipment had been pierced by Indonesian bullets in three different places. The combination of LCPL Amarjit’s unswerving bravery in the face of the withering enemy attack and the heavy volume of automatic fire from his Sterling submachine gun broke the Indonesian ambush and prevented further casualties to his Gurkha unit.
LCPL Amarjit Pun was awarded the Military Medal for his bravery during this exchange. This is a 1918-vintage version of the decoration.
LCPL Amarjit Pun earned the Military Medal for his actions on that jungle trail back in 1964. The Military Medal was established in 1918 and was used to recognize acts of valor among other ranks such as NCOs and Warrant Officers. Recipients were granted a modest stipend and entitled to include the post-nominal letters “MM” after their names in official correspondence. Though the award was discontinued in 1993 in favor of the Military Cross which is granted to all ranks, the Military Medal still recognizes exceptional bravery in combat.
Soldiers throughout the centuries fight for their comrades on either side. Vapid slogans and lofty ideals don’t count for much amidst the fury of a dank jungle ambush.
Wars are fought for territory, greed, and all manner of lofty nationalistic motivations. However, men invariably fight for their buddies. When the incoming fire seemed overwhelming and his comrades were falling LCPL Amarjit Pun unlimbered his Sterling submachine gun and won the day. Sometimes big things do indeed come in small packages.
The L4A4 Bren gun soldiered on all the way through the First Gulf War.The Sterling SMG was ultimately supplanted in British service by the L85 assault rifle.
The Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation fought in Borneo was one of the world’s first conflicts to see relatively widespread use of airmobile helicopter assets.
