Inside the Chattanooga recruiting station
Our buddy, Susan Katz Keating has been working diligently on the story behind the terrorist attacks in Chattanooga last week. Her latest article for People magazine describes the scene inside the recruiting station when Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez began his rampage. Susan talked to 25-year-old Sergeant Demonte Cheeley, one of the recruiters on duty that day;
“It was a normal, routine day,” Cheeley says. “Another Marine and I were sitting on a couch by the front window” inside the Marine Corps section of the Armed Forces Career Center.
At 10:45 a.m., Cheeley heard a loud pop. The nearby window sprayed glass. He assumed that someone was playing with pyrotechnics left over from the Fourth of July.
“I thought, someone set off a firecracker, broke our window, and now they’re in trouble,” he says. But a split second later, the Marine next to him spotted a rifle pointed directly at them. All hell broke loose inside the center.
Sergeant Cheeley was the only Marine shot at the recruiting station. He says that he limped for a few days from the bullet to his leg, but that he’s fine now. But you should click over and read the rest of the story.
Category: Terror War
LMAO, well he will never live down the name ‘Dumpster Diver’ from now on. If that picture gets around his dough boy buddy better unfuckerate his alignment.
Dude, were you ever a recruiter? I’m willing to bet no because the command doesn’t give a fuuuuuck about uniform or physical standards. All that matters to them is contracts.
“We trained for this. We just did what Marines are trained to do.” I know what that those lines were meant to convey but based on what was described in the article, I had to laugh too. The Marines in that recruiting office were assholes and elbows out the back door. No, don’t go misreading me. Getting out of Dodge is all they could do, but how many training hours did it take for them to learn to do that?
Well, looking at the picture, I can say with some confidence that the two pictured are not Combat Arms, not that would make them any better as a Marine, but in terms of his statement “We trained for this”, it makes it kind of laughable. I can’t say that I was ever trained to conduct a mass unorganized exodus out the back door.
In the end, I am glad none of them were seriously wounded in that station.
Actually, I believe DoD now has mandatory training regarding “Active Shooter” incidents for both civilian and military personnel. If I understand correctly, UAtAO (e.g., “un-ass the AO”) is the preferred option if it can be done safely.
So yes, he probably is correct in saying has received training for this.
“I believe DoD now has mandatory training regarding “Active Shooter” incidents for both civilian and military personnel.”
Yea, right! I can see the Power Point now. “Now, imagine you are here and you know there are incoming rounds. Since we don’t trust you highly, range qualified service personnel to have a weapon in our “Gun Free Zones”, your best option is “Duck and Cover”. We repeat, “Duck and Cover”. In the event “Duck and Cover”, is not possible then, to use street vernacular, “Run like a raped ape from the AO”. Please be sure to check “Accept” at the end of this presentation and fill in your service number to receive proper credit in your training file”.
Just cut to the chase Obama and have at least one ball, if Michelle will allow you to borrow one from her purse for a few minutes and repeal Clinton’s bull shit Executive Order and allow these soft targets a fighting chance.
There is a great deal of “Active Shooter” training available, all of it aimed at security and police personnel response to an active shooter. The Fatherland’s Dept of Homeland Security does provide training material for others. It’s not too difficult. Option #1 is RUN. Option #2 is HIDE. Option # 3 is the last resort: fight. Trainees are advised to “show their hands” when running and to throw whatever can be thrown at the shooter if the last resort is available. Yes, it’s true and ,yes, I’m laughing.
Yes, there is. Sparks pretty much got it right, tho. It’s one of those online animated scenario thingys, but the Marines did what they could to survive. Maneuver and counter-attack were not options they had. Oh man, Gunny got caught in a rather unflattering shot. By camera, that is.
How do you know they didn’t undergo pre-deployment training to do rifleman stuff? Maybe the AO they were in was calm, hence no CAR? Maybe they saw something during that deployment and simply didn’t get a CAR?
I know there is this tendency in the infantry BNs for Marines to think that only infantry Marines are taught to rifle, but it simply isn’t true.
One of the great things about the Low Crawl is that it can be used in both directions. Toward the enemy or away from the enemy, as required. When you find yourself under fire and unable to shoot back, the high speed low crawl in the retrograde direction is a viable option to being shot. Remember low crawling under machine gun fire in boot camp? That training seemed to last for hours.
2/17:
Exiting the impact area, most riki tik, when confronted with an ambush situation, rather than going full on stunned dumbox, is a rather decent display of a basic immediate action drill.
Yes, I get that not freezing is rather important. So, are you saying that the Marines practice running away to minimize THE FREEZE? I would point out that the account is that the report was mistaken to be a firecracker AND that the firecracker broke the window AND that someone thought that whoever was responsible for that firecracker and breakage was going to be in trouble. I refuse to dress this up as something it isn’t. It was a terrorist attack against (presumably) unarmed Marines who did the reasonable thing: got the hell away. And that’s that.
You gotta tip your hat to a guy who doesn’t even realize he’s been shot through the leg – and who was originally planning just “to go home and put a bandage on it.”
That’s a damn tough man. Well done, young Marine.
Word
My first thought was that if these guys had been armed, the terrorist would have never lived to go to the Navy Reserve Center and gun down the men there.
THAT would have been what they are trained to do.
Agreed – though one or more of them might have been more seriously injured.
I can understand depending on perimeter security at large installations, though I don’t necessarily agree (regarding why, see “Navy Yard, Washington”). But at isolated sites like recruiting offices and Reserve Support Centers/NG Armories, that policy just doesn’t make any freaking sense.
Small isolated sites like those don’t tend to have a large security presence. They need a different policy.
You don’t want to know how many soldiers are armed with personal weapons during the normal duty day at an Armory. I think the only person who wasn’t armed was the recruiter, but that’s because we barely trusted him with crayons for filling out his paperwork.
I read this and wondered what is the likelyhood of Sergeant Cheeley being awarded a purple heart. ISIS has declared war on us and threatened to attack us in our own country, actively recruited people to carry out these attacks, and publicised their efforts.
Does “(6) After 28 March 1973, as a result of an international terrorist attack against the United States or a foreign nation friendly to the United States, recognized as such an attack by the Secretary of the Army, or jointly by the Secretaries of the separate armed Services concerned if persons from more than one service are wounded in the attack. ” cover this action?
TheChief..Thank you Sir! Sergeant Cheeley and all those who died deserve the Purple Heart. In light of the wounded and dead from the Ft. Hood shooting finally being awarded the Purple Heart after Obama initially and continually insisted it was simply “work place violence”, then these men too deserve this recognition. We’ll see how long it takes Obama to make a decision and tell the Pentagon what to do.
Remember the White House response to the Lesbian Gay SCOTUS decision? It took Obama less than three hours to shine the Rainbow Colors on the White House. After this incident it took him five f’ing days of pressure to order the the White House and all federal flags to be lowered to half staff. Only then because of Tennessee ordering it in their state and pressure from his public relations clowns. Obama is an anti American, Muslim apologist ass hole and will be forever.