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Posted: 3/19/2002 10:33:10 AM EDT
Check out my story at the bottom of the page:

[url]http://ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=101192&page=2[/url]

My question is this, what would any of you do in the same situation?
I am sure that I missed some important parts of the incident. If anything is unclear, post your question and I'll try to sort everything out.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 11:14:29 AM EDT
[#1]
What was the Marine doing there?
How did he break his leg?  Was it the dog that did it?
What did your father actually shoot at?
Why didn't the Marine answer the challenge?
Why didn't you both have long guns?  What did you have?
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 11:21:52 AM EDT
[#2]
this is all speculative, 20/20 hindsight.

i'd have darkened the house, readied arms and stayed inside. i sure wouldnt have sent the dog out.

if the marine had night vision and been a bad guy, you would have been toast.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 11:30:07 AM EDT
[#3]
WWWD?
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 11:38:10 AM EDT
[#4]
I probably would have done the same thing, sans dog.  Alone, I would have been able to creep within 50 yards, and hopefully see more of what was happening.  
I don't think I would shoot at movement in that situation.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 11:38:50 AM EDT
[#5]
Quoted:
What was the Marine doing there?
How did he break his leg?  Was it the dog that did it?
What did your father actually shoot at?
Why didn't the Marine answer the challenge?
Why didn't you both have long guns?  What did you have?
View Quote


I'm sorry, some details were left out. The Marines were practicing covert HAHO insertions and movement. This Marine was blown way off course. In the past, the military had informed us of exercises in the area for just this reason
In fact, they had even asked us to help acting as unfriendly civilians trying to find them in our normal daily ranch work. Understand that we were not on or next to a military reservation. This Marine was way off course.
He broke his leg in the PLF (parachute landing fall).
Dad shot at an intruder that had already incapacitated a big dog and was not responding to repeated calls to surrender. Remember that this was on private land approximately one week after the rape and murder of a woman in the same area. We were all on edge after the DEA chief's warning of increased activity in our area.
The Marine did not answer as there was a covert element to the exercise. He had already called for evac and had marked his location with the strobe. Fom our side, we saw these actions, the radio and strobe as a possible drop of drugs with the drop zone controlled by BG's.
We were both armed with .357  S&W revolvers. At the time, we did not hav ay long guns available, a situation that was quickly remedied.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 11:48:59 AM EDT
[#6]
Quoted:
this is all speculative, 20/20 hindsight.

i'd have darkened the house, readied arms and stayed inside. i sure wouldnt have sent the dog out.

if the marine had night vision and been a bad guy, you would have been toast.
View Quote


All very good points, and if I were alone that would have been the way I handled it. With my Dad and his Army experience, he is more of an "offense is the best defense" type and wanted to have any type of gunfight away from the house and his wife and 2 kids. Along that line of thought, he felt that he and I were irreplaceable, but that the dog was not. Understand that there was a gradiated threat response in operation. The shot fired was after multiple calls, in English and Spanish, to surrender and after the dog was sent in and incapacitated. When we advanced, the marine in full camoflage, was peeking over the edge of some rocks. In the low light of this night (1/2 moon and broken clouds), it was impossible to tell if he was aiming a firearm at us. Remember that we were usually tipped off to these exercises and even asked to help out, and the repeated warnings of BG's in the area. In our minds, there was a druggie drop happening and there was a chance that another rape/murder situation would play out as our ranch was the only civilization in 20 miles or so. We were on our own in a real wild west scenario.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 11:50:29 AM EDT
[#7]
Quoted:
WWWD?
View Quote


What Would Wiggy Do?

ROTFLMAO [:D]
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 11:57:31 AM EDT
[#8]
Tactically speaking, I don't know how sound it was to advance on an enemy of undetermined strength with a force of 2. Maybe a 911 call before you headed out into the fray would have been the smart thing to do. That may have happened, but I didn't see it in your story anywhere.

On the other hand, on your own property you're the man, and the injured Marine damn sure should have sounded off when you warned him multiple times that you were armed and would send the dog in after him.

How and by whom were you and your father disarmed?
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 11:59:12 AM EDT
[#9]
Quoted:
I probably would have done the same thing, sans dog.  Alone, I would have been able to creep within 50 yards, and hopefully see more of what was happening.  
I don't think I would shoot at movement in that situation.
View Quote


And that would have been correct, but remenber that we were in a high threat environment and believed that we were up against at least one BG's. This situation had gone from bad to worse. The BG was sophisticated enough to have radio communication with someone else and had strobes to mark an LZ/DZ. This is on private land, not Forest Service land or BLM land and we had been warned of increasing BG activity.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 12:07:05 PM EDT
[#10]
Quoted:
Tactically speaking, I don't know how sound it was to advance on an enemy of undetermined strength with a force of 2. Maybe a 911 call before you headed out into the fray would have been the smart thing to do. That may have happened, but I didn't see it in your story anywhere.

On the other hand, on your own property you're the man, and the injured Marine damn sure should have sounded off when you warned him multiple times that you were armed and would send the dog in after him.

How and by whom were you and your father disarmed?
View Quote


Dad is kind of 'hell for leather' and is damned impressive in tactical movement. I had no idea how good he was until I was in the Army trying to do it myself.

The 911 call would be a definite, but in rural Arizona, there is no 911 just a administration number for the Sheriff that may be answered in several minutes with a 15 min. minimum response time. We had my step-mom call as were heading out the door. She was left with a Remington 1100 12 ga. and all doors locked on the phone with the SO.

Dad and I were politely disarmed by several armed Sheriffs deputies and armed MP's. While their weapons were drawn, none were pointed at us and trigger discipline was observed.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 12:20:21 PM EDT
[#11]
In that case I can't fault you one bit.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 12:26:01 PM EDT
[#12]
Didnt a group of marines kill a kid a few years back in a similiar situation?
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 12:36:03 PM EDT
[#13]
Thanks wiggy, that helped explain things.  So there were two Marines up there?  Where'd the second one go after getting shot at?  Did they know they were off course?  I presume they weren't armed also?

Anyway, I think you did fine.  The only thing I would recommend, besides cowering in the house and waiting for the cops, would be to have identified yourself as the landowner.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 12:37:40 PM EDT
[#14]
Quoted:
Didnt a group of marines kill a kid a few years back in a similiar situation?
View Quote

In 1997, a team of four Marines on JTF-6 drug interdiction duty was fired on by an 18 year old goatherd with a .22 rifle. One Marine returned fire and killed him. Questions remain about the circumstances.
Link Posted: 3/19/2002 1:19:05 PM EDT
[#15]
OK, just looked up the incident in '97

kid was out tending his goats and plinking or shooting at 'yotes.

Marines were hiding in full camo/ghillie suits.

kid shoots somewhere near the hidden marines.

A Marine shoots kid.

Marines leave kid laying there bleeding for 15-20 minutes til the border patrol shows.   The border patrol are the ones that called for assistance for the kid and are the first to admin first aid.  The marines had simply called in that there was a shooting incident.

The 'incident' was so screwed from the begining nobody knows exactly what happened.  The autopsy showed that the kid was not facing the marines when he was shot.

The marine team held to their story and no charges that I could find were pressed.  Of course, the marines were transferred out of state within 4 days of the incident, and the military refused to turn over any radio transcripts or other information.

Now dont get me wrong, I like Marines, they are good at that they do.  Of course they should not be out wandering the US desert on 'drug interdiction'.  And I want the bad apples to be gotten rid of.  

Esequiel Hernandez Jr was the kid shot.

Hell, that kid could have been me, I used to wander the farmlands and creeks and such, plinking and shooting at varmits and coyotes.
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