What's Better Than One Bullseye?

February 26th, 2014. I woke up rather groggy that morning. It might be because everyone else was already awake. Normally, I would be the first one to rise, and any attempt to wake my dorm mates up would be in vain. Why, of all the 72 days being stuck in this hell-hole, did they choose this particular day to be so eager to wake up? Simple - on this glorious day, we get to fire a Colt M16A1 rifle.

I scoffed silently at them. It was as if handling a real firearm was more important than than their religious obligations. I've never seen them so excited to leave their beds. But to be fair, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. A quick shower via an upturned faucet later, I got dressed in my training uniform and put on my boots. I stifled a laugh as I flattened my beret over to the right. Everyone here called it a 'berry', as taught by our trainers. And for some reason, I was the only one who could wear it properly and look good in it.

We hopped onto a bus and made our way to the firing range. Once there, I took in the beautiful hillside landscape and chilly morning weather. Our commander briefed us on the day's proceedings and the military personnel ran a shooting demonstration. I watched in awe as the line of 12 shooters sent bullets flying 100 meters downrange. Even at that distance, the targets seemed quite big so I figured it was going to be easy. The sounds of the rifles firing were like an unorganized fireworks show. Snap! Bang! Boom! Standing about 10 meters away, the sounds were loud but not as deafening as I expected.

Soon after, we trainees were allowed to shoot. I was third in line to shoot at target number 2. A brief wait later and I was up. Before walking up to the platform, I put on my earplugs. My surroundings suddenly sounded much quieter and muffled. The effect was very calming, my excitement and nervousness dissipating to a more manageable level. My trainer ordered me to lie down prone and prop myself against the sandbag. I watched as he prepared the rifle for firing. He pulled back the bolt twice to make sure the chamber was empty, then pulled the trigger to release the firing pin. He loaded a new 30-round magazine, filled with only 20 rounds. He pulled the bolt again to load the first round into the firing chamber. He then turned the firing dial to 'Safe'. He instructed me to turn it back to 'Semi' once I was ready to fire, then handed me the gun.

I wrapped my fingers around the grip handle and barrel. The gun had quite a heft to it, just shy of 4 kilograms. I pressed the stock against my shoulder and adjusted my position over the sandbag. Somehow, just lying there, the gun in my hands, felt natural to me. I felt relaxed and calm despite cradling a lethal weapon. I kept my right index finger stretched out straight, outside the trigger guard. I closed my left eye and looked down the iron sights. I scanned for my target and aimed straight towards it. Now, for some peculiar reason, the target looked much more smaller than when I was watching the demo. Nevertheless, I focused right on the bullseye. My right thumb reached up to the firing dial and pushed it down to the semi-auto firing mode. I reached my index finger into the trigger guard and curled it around the trigger. I took a deep breath in through my nostrils, then breathed out through my mouth. Deep breath in. Out. In. Hold. Squeeze.

I felt the trigger 'jump', releasing the firing pin to strike against the base of the bullet. I felt the sharp snap of the explosion in the chamber. I heard the bang as the bullet left the barrel, the sonic boom as it sped downrange, the clink of the empty shell casing being ejected, the bolt being blown back, the next round being fed into the chamber, all at once. The barrel of the gun bounced up before I pulled it back down. I saw a dust cloud behind the upper left corner of the target. I reckoned that I wasn't gripping the gun hard enough. I tightened my grip and held the gun tight and steady. I took my time to steady myself and squeezed the trigger again. Dust cloud, upper left corner. 

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't control the recoil of the barrel. I kept aiming towards the bullseye but was always rewarded with the same dust cloud on the upper left corner. And then I realized what I was doing wrong. I completely forgot to correct my aim. The mere excitement of firing a real gun made me forget my 'training' and 'experience' gained from games and books. By then I only had a couple of bullets left. I pulled my gun down to aim at the lower right corner of the target. Bang. Bang. Click.

I felt the bolt catch upon firing the last bullet. Now, the rifle was silent. The smell of gunpowder filled my nostrils. It smelled like fireworks, albeit more bitter and sour. I raised the gun and handed it back to my trainer. He ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber, then put the gun back down.

"Shooting is fun, eh?" he asked.

I nodded as I removed my earplugs. The booming crack of the rifle on my left pierced my eardrums. I realized that with the earplugs, the sounds of the gun were muffled and somehow comforting. I turned my head and watched on as my friend continued to fire his rifle. I flinched at every shot. The volume of just his rifle was already too loud for me. Thankfully I had my earplugs on earlier, or the sound of 12 rifles firing would be absolutely deafening. I watched my friend's body bounce back and forth due to the recoil, then I realized, I never noticed the recoil when I was firing. My shoulder didn't hurt like my friends said it would. The only hint of recoil was the barrel rising. Other than that, I never felt the kick of the supposed 980 Nm recoil.

Once all 12 trainees finished shooting, we were told to stand up and take the empty mag to be refilled. I got down from the platform and passed the magazine to the person in charge. After that we 12 shooters lined up single file to find out our scores. The bullseye was worth 5 points, 4 points for the circle outside it and 3 points for the outermost circle. Our trainer informed us that the scorekeeper will announce 3 numbers for each target. The first number would be the number of 5-point hits, the second for 4-point hits and the third for 3-point hits. We were to do some simple multiplication and addition to calculate our score out of a maximum of 100. The average score so far was around 30.

Our trainer's walkie-talkie chirped to life as the scorekeeper began announcing our scores. He held the walkie-talkie up to the first trainee's ear for awhile, then moved on to me.

"Target 2: 2, 0, 18."

P.S. : Go ahead. Laugh at this picture.