Inspired by this thread, in which I get pretty confused about bravery. So;
Have you ever been in a situation where you were pretty likely to die or suffer grave injury? I mean real danger, not of your own making.
To be clear: Riding a motorcycle @ 100 mph in the rain doesn’t count, earning “The Look” from a 1%'r does. Drinking a beer in Manila doesn’t count, combat does.
Have you?
Peace,
mangeorge
I’ve been involved in fighting shipboard fires while in the Navy. I was in an engineroom shortly after the Iwo Jima’s incident in 1992(?) when a steam relief lifted and I craped my shorts while trying to see whether the steam was going to cook us or just burn us. (It did neither, but damn that scared me.)
I was attacked for ‘acting gay’ by drunk squids.
I was walking across a foot bridge next to a trailer park and the inmates took pot shots with, I think, a .22.
I even got involved in a ‘domestic dispute’ at NYC’s Port Authority Bus Terminal.
In each case, I’ll admit I don’t think I was in danger for my life, but danger for maiming at least was possible, and sometimes the perception of danger for my life was there. Does that answer your question?
BTW, what’s a 1%'r?
No combat, thankyouverymuch but I have had a hysterical 13-year-old boy point a loaded shotgun in my direction when I was babysitting him and his sister. I made everyone get the hell out and got a real adult (a neighbor parent) to help me talk him down. No one got hurt.
Yes, it does.
A one percenter is an outlaw biker. I forget who coined the phrase, but it refers to the idea that only 1% of motorcycle riders are outlaws. Some (most) serious Hell’s Angels have a 1% patch on their colors.
“The Look” is what a 1%'r gives you while he decides whether or not to hurt you. Just like in the movies. 
I figured it was something like that. Just never heard the term before. Thanks. 
I don’t think I’ve ever been in a dangerous situation that I wasn’t partly responsible for. the two worst I can think of are almost drowning on a number of occasions (I would have definitely drowned at least once if it were not for a nearby stranger that saw me thrashing in the water while I was hidden from my parents by a huge boulder in the river) and, although you said it doesn’t count, driving too fast on a highway. Fishtailing on a busy highway while going 80 mph at night and almost hitting a concrete barricade strikes me as truly dangerous.
I’ve been on a runaway horse over rough terrain. Does that count? I guess so because it wasn’t anything I did by choice (like riding a motorcycle 100 mph in the rain).
When I was a small child, I was pursued by a Cobra.
Also some unafe free rock climbing in my early twenties. Once I was stuck on a crumbly outcropping for about twenty minutes. Death was a possibility but I managed to carefully extricate myself and never went climbing without ropes again
Sorry, missed the “not of you’re own making” rule.
Scratch the rock climbing episode then.
I have been in at least two situations that I believe had fairly good chances of ending in my being assaulted murdered for my sexual orientation.
Ok, forget the “of your own making” part. I was trying to eliminate professionals, like Xgamers and race car drivers. People who do things specifically for the danger.
I got myself stuck on a shale outcropping once myself. I was about twelve. One of those “angle of repose” things above a cliff. Scared the crap outta me. Every time I moved, even a little, I slid a little closer to the drop and shale would skitter down all around me. The stuff was loose. I was just trying to take a short-cut. :wally
Finally an old guy lowered a hose down and it gave me enough balance so I could get back up to the trail. When I reached for the hose, I slid down another foot or so. It was close.
Did I mention that it scared the crap outta me?
I think I have 2 cat lives left. Life and narrowly missed death and maiming can be very interesting.
The third floor apartment I was spending the night in was on fire. Big, bad, scary fire. The exit doors were aflame. The only thing we could do was hang out the bedroom window and hope the firefighters arrived before the temptation to just jump kicked into high gear. I coughed up soot for a week after.
I was thrown off the rocks into the lake by a jerk whom I’d gone to school with a few years earlier. The entire time he was carrying me I was screeching that I didn’t know how to swim. No lie, fucker.
We hit a spilled load of pea gravel while exiting the highway on a motorcycle. We were not doing 100 mph and it wasn’t raining. Helmets is good! 
Heard the unmistakeable “whump” of tires hitting a curb and turned to see a car barreling toward me. I’ve learned I can run backward very, very fast. The car came at an angle between two trees, sideswiping one and sending shredded bark all over, and came to rest by plowing into the section of fence I had been walking by when it jumped the curb. There were a few funny moments after this last one. My BF had seen the aftermath when he passed the place a couple hours later, on his way to the health club. As did a friend who was meeting him there. They had talked about it, in a “Wow! That must have been bad!” way and then forgotten it. Until I met up with them for dinner. The looks on their faces when I recounted my day were awesome.
This was of my making with the help of mother nature and my husband.
We were in the oean on a HobieCat, quite distant from shore when a freak electrical storm came out of nowhere. One minute we were having the last quiet sail of the day and the next minute lightening was cracking over our heads and right beside us and absolute stillness…NO wind. We could have touched the bolts but that didn’t seem like such a good idea. We were getting into position to “turtle” the boat and put the mast under water when we caught a little wind and made it to shore. It is the only time I have been afraid in the water. Still not as bad as combat to be sure.
BTW, mangeorge, how about yourself? Have you ever been in danger?
-Just being nosey, here.
Gah, I’d even READ your post about the cliff… me go bed, now, before my brain melts further. :smack: :smack:
I’m in Iraq, so I get a few more than I’d like.
Due to a scheduling screw up, I was dropped off at the Iraqi/Kuwati border with no one to pick me up. I had to negotiate a price with a guy driving a camel truck to take me to the Raddisson in Kuwait City.
A helicopter I was in received ground fire.
While driving one night outside of Tikrit, tracer fire shot over my car. I don’t know if they were shooting at us or what, but it’ll wake you up.
I’ve a block or so from some car bombs when they went off.
My hotel has been hit with mortars.
I was in a car one night after curfew with this idiot driving who got lost in Baghdad. He couldn’t see very well and pulled up to two men walking down the street carrying AK 47s to ask them directions (I was yelling they have guns go go go, and the drivers direct quote was “hold your horses,” while he turned on his blinker and checked his mirrors before driving off).
Insurgents fired a rocket at a US tank and missed, hitting a house on our street and killing everyone in it.
During the April uprising I got caught out of the city and had to drive to Turkey to get out of the country.
In Kosovo, my neighbor’s apartment was hit with an RPG.
In Afghanistan my car was stoned.
When I was 13, a panel truck doing between 50 & 60 mph hit the car I was riding in. It hit the passenger door next to me; spun the car around; and threw me into a ditch.
I have also had an aneurysm of the aorta and a heart attack. The heart attack may have been partly my fault.
Do cranky grizzlies count? I’ve encountered three of them. One in person but several feet away and only showing his butt, and two that just 'gruffed" and shook trees at us from within the trees. No charges, they just let us know they were NOT happy, and would soon be making their presence a visible one.
We did as we’d been trained, and none actually attacked us. But a bit nerve wracking all the same. On one of the trips we had a gun. But on some of the others we were on restricted, closed, remote military bases, and no weapons were allowed (and no pepper spray allowed either as we’d flown in on small unpressurized planes).
I wouldn’t count it as “real” danger, as most of us had been trained about bears since we were little, but maybe half danger, as they are still somewhat unpredictable animals.
I posted twice, once in a VVC thread, about having been chillin’ at a playground (I was 21; my parents didn’t let me smoke in the house) when what I thought was a German shepherd emerged from the surrounding forest and headed towards me. Then another. Then another. Soon, there was a whole pack.
So I walked briskly back to the house. I don’t know how far they followed me, if at all, but I got back in one piece. The point is, when I posted, someone informed me that they might have been wild dogs or coyotes.
Coyotes don’t usually bother people, because they only like small fry: rats, raccoons and lapdogs. They very, very rarely take a nip at quiet babies, but only if that individual coyote has become used to being fed by humans. (And when that baby cries, the coyotes scatter like they’re on fire.)
I’ve been hit by an 18-wheeler during a blizzard, and was then left standing on the median of a highway by police. I don’t know whether death was closer during the accident, or trying to run to safety afterwards…