It was a pivotal moment as the whole of Charlie Company looked at me, wondering why I was suddenly no longer just "Davidson" to my superior.
I got lucky on two counts: first, that Burgey's nickname for me didn't stick; and second, that it hadn't turned out to be accurate.
Late March, 1991, hostilities had come to a halt. Hussein's disarmed troops were pushed back to a manageable area or captured for later release. Tank and armor units settled in for an extended stay while lighter units, like the 82nd, prepared to fly home.
One of the things we had to accomplish on the way out was to disarm ourselves. In its infinite wisdom, the U.S. Army decided that having us expend all ammunition was smarter than packing it home and hoping no one stashed anything for use in the civilian world.
So we got to have a mad minute, several mad minutes, in fact.
We went to an area of unoccupied desert, surveyed to make sure it was devoid of life, to relieve ourselves of what armament we had. Capt. Marty P Schwietzer spelled everything out clearly: from 9mm pistol to M-60 machine gun, we were to "expend all ammunition."
Anyone found with munitions afterward would learn exactly what Shit's Creek smelled like.
It was as nice a day imaginable when return to civilization is less than a month away. They marched about 40 out at a time. The Army requires a safety briefing before each live fire (actually, the Army requires a safety briefing before just about anything—even a long weekend). So, an officer tromped into the sand ahead to reinforce the tenets of responsible marksmanship.
Then, he got out of the way. Down range, a few mutilated targets still hung, and markings indicated the nearest we were allowed to aim. Safely behind us he said the one phrase guaranteed to excite any infantryman, "Lock and load."
Forty M16 rifle bolts slammed forward almost simultaneously. Some of these guys had gotten confirmed kills in Panama; even they looked thrilled. The big difference from other training exercises was the absence of a limit. All others set them. This time, we had at least seven 30-round magazines each. The goal was to fire them all.
Protocol required that we check if anyone was in our firing lanes. "Is anyone down range?" We all shouted. The safety officer followed with "Rotate your fire selectors to burst," indicating the setting which fired three bullets with every squeeze of the trigger. And then, he said something that has largely fallen from the military lexicon since the end of the Civil War.
"Fire at will."
I've heard and seen myriad explosions from many different sources. But as 40 fingers eased out the slack on 40 triggers and we released a wall of lead into the shimmering desert, we were a match for any of them.
Most of the Joes had spent the morning lamenting that we never got to use the ammo on Iraqi troops. But they were having a good time. Most aimed beyond the targets to the top of a dune where they could see clearer evidence of their accuracy.
The remains of an ammo can filled with sand teetered amid the onslaught but never fell.
I had chosen to sit. I had fashioned myself a little hill in the sand and crossed my right leg under my left. My left elbow rested on the knee beneath it as I fired burst after burst at a stake that once held a target some 150 meters distant. My goal was to cut it in half with 210 rounds or fewer.
One magazine gone, I ejected it to the sand and shoved in another. Empty, another. I don't know if I even hit the stake. While I rattled them off, I didn't notice the small collection bullet casings from the guy on my left that had landed around my right foot.
The M16A2 assault rifle fires a NATO standard 5.56mm round. Brass casings eject after each shot at 300 degrees Fahrenheit or hotter. The ones that landed on my leg and hadn't fallen off would have hurt on bare skin, but through my DCUs, they only heated up enough to surprise me. Where I had felt nothing, I suddenly felt heat.
Without losing the rhythm of my trigger squeeze, I jerked back to look for the heat source. The sudden movement caused the small sand hill beneath my ass to give, and I slid off balance. I lifted and straightened my left leg to keep from tumbling backwards—this would have caused the whole group to have to stop. In the process, I lifted my left foot into my own line of fire, just as I was squeezing off a three-round burst.
It took me a second and another burst to realize what had happened. I felt it, but no pain, nothing obvious, just heat and numbness in my left foot and small hole in my boot.
I lowered my rifle calmly. Still holding the pistol grip with my right hand, I reached forward and felt my foot. The boot yielded little; I couldn't tell, and whatever was going on inside the boot, I couldn't feel anything. Sgt. Bernholtz sat to my right. Firing left handed, he was facing me.
"Bernie," I shouted in a whisper. The third time, he heard me. Not moving the butt stock from his cheek, he eyed me.
"What?"
I pointed to the boot.
"What the fuck did you do, Davidson?"
Plenty of firing was still going on, but I looked around nervously anyway. "I think I shot my boot."
"Is it bleeding?"
"I don't know."
"Does it hurt?"
"I can't feel anything."
"You're fucked," he said, and returned his eye down range to fire more.
It wasn't a wave of nausea so much as butterflies the size of sparrows that gripped my stomach. I put my rifle down and had just started untying my boot when Bernie saw. "Don't take it off, dumbass," he spat. "If it doesn't hurt, you might as well finish firing and go see Doc after."
It wasn't the best plan. It was, however, a plan, which I hadn't hitherto had. I didn't finish firing my remaining ammo. Dropping the remains in the bin as we filed off-range, I found the senior medic.
Individually and collectively, medics are known as Doc. I don't remember his name, the sergeant in charge of the medics for our company. I found him standing by a truck talking with a couple others. We were friends. My arrival prompted almost immediate attention.
"How'd it go, man?"
I leaned toward him almost conspiratorially. "You got a second?"
The look on my face said enough. His demeanor changed to concern as he led me away from the crowd. In the back of an empty half-ton truck, I ripped my boot off as he opened his medic bag.
Much to my surprise, I found five toes. Doc inspected my foot for any damage, cleaning it first with iodine, then alcohol. Once we determined I was fine, he started laughing. I don't remember the jokes he made at my expense; I only remember the look of relief on his face before he broke.
Apparently, the bullet had passed directly between my left big toe and the toe next to it; about 1/8 inch separates them at the widest spot. We couldn't imagine the odds of me not suffering any damage, so much so, that Doc made me stand a few times so he could compare the bullet hole to the placement of my toes as I put weight on them.
By all rights, he figured, the bullet could have taken both toes and a significant portion of foot with it. One lucky count was that the bullet hadn't had time to expand, as it wasn't even six inches from the barrel when it passed through my shoe.
Another lucky count was that of all the places it could have done significant damage, it hit in the one place where it couldn't. I passed Bernie as I walked back. He said something suggestive to find if all was OK. It was.
Not long after, they put us in formation to load the trucks. Ssgt. Burgemeyer wondered aloud if anyone had a chew, and I supplied it. I saw him exchanging laughs with Bernie; I knew the topic. En route back to camp, the jokes started privately. For some reason, the story never made it around, partly I think because I accidentally made Bernie an accomplice the moment it happened, but mostly I think, for reasons of their own, the two of them decided that it was better not to fry me. If word had gotten out, I would have gotten in real trouble.
The jokes never stopped about how, here or there, I'd come up half a foot short. Burgey would call me Nine Toes if I saw him out drinking but never at work. When I got out of the Army, I kept one of my desert uniforms, including the boots that I wore that day. I still have them, haven't seen them since I put them on for a Halloween party in 2001, but they pop into my head now and again when I'm contemplating something stupid.
And of all the lessons, experiences and even college money that I had when I left the Army, the best thing I took away, by far, was something that I took in with me: my tenth toe.
