tunnel
 

I was 19 in the 25th Infantry Div. Viet Nam ....crawled into a V C tunnel with a .45 handgun..........

Been there but not done that. You take the prize. I honor you SmileWavy

AND lived to tell the tale - well done.

Thanks I was young and pissed off after watching my friend blown up, by what we called a booby trap in those days....

When the first bullet kicked up dirt and mud a few inches from my head - it was then that I realized; some other human being, whom I didn't know, was trying to kill me.

No one joins the military expecting to die. But the first time you make the encounter above - everything you ever knew or thought you knew ...changes.

Ran out of air on a penetration dive on the USS San Diego of the coast of Long island. Was about 25' in the wreck In about 110 feet of water. Only had a single tank, cause i had to squeeze in one spot to try to recover a rack of rifles. Wasnt paying attention, and ran through my air in about half the normal time.
Almost blacked out, and ended up doing an emergency ascent to the surface.

Watched my 36 year old spouse go from: bit of pain... to sick... to hospitalized... to dead from cancer in two months. From hospitalized to passed away in about a week, much of which she thankfully was in and out of consciousness.

I'm sure it was infinitely more scary for her.

Of course the demons do come up every once in a while.

One of the worst was 2 years later when my wonderful 2nd wife and I went to the same hospital to have our own baby. She was in labor and we were ushered into a hospital room which also happened to be the same room my late wife was admitted to before going into palliative care.

I can tell you, I almost lost my grip....new wife in pain in front of me and nightmares from my past crawling around inside my head. Thankfully I pulled it together quick enough to ask for us to be moved.

So....life goes on for the lucky ones. I now have two great kids and wonderful 2nd wife.

For all those who's lives were cut short, hopefully they rest in peace.

Entirely too many light aircraft stories in that thread... ;-) That's not helpful ;-)

Light Aircraft
 

"Entirely too many light aircraft stories in that thread... ;-) That's not helpful ;-)"

The risk in flying light aircraft is largely controlled by pilot. While there is always an element of chance, the decisions made by the pilot either reduce or increase the risk that a bit of bad luck will cause true trouble rather than just some inconvenience. For example, if you are flying a single-engine plane at night in hard IFR conditions and you have an engine failure the chances of a good outcome are not high, but if you are flying the same plane in day VFR conditions, an engine failure will most likely result in a forced landing w/ no injuries.

Statistically general aviation is about as safe as riding a motorcycle. IMHO, the main difference is that on a motorcycle a large portion of the risk is determined by the actions of other drivers who you can't control, while in a light plane the pilot has greater control of the risk exposure. Every time I have pulled a "stupid pilot trick" I have been lucky enough that I made enough other safe decisions involving that flight, aircraft, etc that while I may have been scared, I was never hurt and I never hurt anyone else or the plane. OTOH, the one time I was rear-ended on a motorcycle while sitting at a stop light there was nothing I could do to control or diminish the risk.

Any tunnel rat stories win...

My scariest moments involved climbing with out ropes and flying in ice, but neither is what I can imagine climbing into a hole to kill people would be.......you guys are unfriggin believeable, good job.

After we were marrried just a few years, asking my wife for some "different kind of sex". Nope, don't ask, don't go there, nuff said. Be 40 years next month. Love her all the same. Well, it WAS scarey.

When I was 19 years old working on top of a 3 story coke oven in a steel mill, I found myself looking down a glowing open hole with one foot already half way over the edge, and the other ready to follow. It would have been a toasty end and a 35 foot drop. The heat turned my thin beard white as it burned off from the rising heat.

When I was 21, I crawled out a skylight to put some flashing and tar on it. It was a 10/12 or 12/12 pitch, and I was three stories up in the air (no safety precautions). One of my house mates on the ground spotted me, shouted my name and waved. Like a dummy I waved back with a gallon of tar in one hand, a brush in the other. I started sliding down the roof (shingle roof aggregate makes for little ball bearings) on my arse, gaining speed until I reached out and grabbed the skylight opening as I slid by.

I think that most men that have some milage behind them have experienced
"close to death" times. I have like you others out there.
However, if you have ever been in combat in the military, you know just how close you are with death. You look back years later even when you don't want to and
realize how fortunate we are. I really don't think most men dwell on it and just keep going on with life until something simple like cancer takes them out.

Went bodyboarding in Hawaii, I took a wave a little too big for my skills, and for a little too long. When I realized it was breaking on the rocks at the bottom, it was too late to exit, and I ended up on said rocks. Then I knew I had to swim and run for my life before another wave smashed me again on the same rocks. I was lucky I ended up with only a few cuts, and it took me about 30 minutes to recover my breath after I got out of the water.

I was surfing at a place called Uruti Point, a spot popular with commercial fishermen. The wave was good but the fishermen would process the fish and throw the bits they didn't want into the sea. So the place was full of all sorts of fish and the bigger ones that preyed on them. I saw two fins cruising just under the surface about 50 yards away and thought best just to stay still. One of the fins turned in towards me and came towards me fast cutting through the surface, and heading straight for me. I had my arms and feet out of the water by this stage. It ducked under the water just before it would have hit me them the 6' or 7' shark circled 180 degrees around me it it's nose to it's dorsel fin out of the water having a really good look at me. If we were to have had a conversation it would have been along the lines of "Yes, you are the boss around here Mr. Shark". Then it ducked below the surface and I kind of waited for it to strike. Along came a wave but I didn't want my bite sized hands in the water too much so I did a half arsed paddle for the wave and went over the falls (for non-surfers this means sucked up the wave face and flung over with the lip of the breaking wave). At this stage I just got on the board and paddled like a lunatic back to shore. When I told surfing buddies about it they said one of the guys had a similar experiance but got knocked off his board and the impact was such as to dent his board.

Living with a redhead.

Surfing! Wow now I remember a scary event. I was probably 14 and thought surfing would be cool. Living in Hawaii I figured I would just go surfing. First problem is getting a surf board to a good spot. Pretty much impossible on a bicycle, especially since I did not have a surf board. I asked around and some friends of my dad had teenage boys that surfed all the time. Their mom told them they were going to take me surfing. They were not happy but I did not know about that part.

This was a long time ago (1969) but I think it was Dillingham AFB that we went to because the boys loved the North Shore conditions. These boys had no interest in teaching me anything or really letting me hang out with them. The only spare board they had was thier dad's board and he was a an old school surfer that had a board that was so big I could hardly carry it. It was HUGE. We got into the water and the leader of the group said the good waves were out there. So we paddled out about mile. All of them got out there long before I did. I finally caught a wave, tried to stand up and went 10 feet and fell off. My board went right to shore without me. None of the boys were anywhere to be found. I had to swim all the way back to shore. Several times I did not think I was going to make it. I was exhausted. Swiming in the open ocean is tough. I finally crawled up on the beach and just laid there sucking air. One of the kids came up and asked where the board was. I could not even talk because it really hit me how close I cam to drowning, and all they cared abiut was a freaking piece of fiberglass.

I never tried to surf again.

My wife came home from a day of shopping and tried on her new jeans for me to see.

She asked me if they made her azz look big.

My heart rate doubled, my BP shot up, my mouth went dry. :eek:

Oh God I don't want to be in that position again. :(

My harness came off on the "Power Tower" at Cedar Point. Thank God for the safety stops...

The surfing stories remind me of trying to get out on a huge closed-out day at Hammonds in Santa Barbara. I got caught inside and got pounded - one giant roller after another. Pushed under and rolled around, panicking as I tried to swim through five feet of foam to get air, only to see another swell obscuring the horizon. Just thinking about it makes me sick. I was very close to drowning.