I’m reading a book now called American Warrior: The true story of a Ranger legend by Gary O’Neil. This is an autobiographical book covering Mr. O’Neil’s time as a special forces soldier. It’s been a quite interesting read so far, but I’m having a hard time buying what I’m reading. If what O’Neil says of his time in special forces are true he makes even Rambo look like the biggest pussy to ever walk the face of the earth. This guy is the Forrest Gump of military men, apparently being involved in every military event from Vietnam to the Gulf War. And of course he is a master of every weapon ever invented and a Bruce Lee equal when it comes to martial arts.
I’ve looked his name up on Wikipedia and apparently he was in the special forces, but how much of his book is true, I just don’t know. I was believing it for the most part until I read a passage last night where he claims to have, using nothing more than his bare hands, decapitated a enemy soldier. He then threw the severed head at another enemy, hitting him square in the chest causing him to run away in terror.
So my question is: Is it possible to remove a human head with nothing but a quick twisting motion and human strength? From his book:
*
Instantly, I was back in combat. All my American Warrior Free Fighting practice got unleashed. React. React. React. No thought involved. I grabbed the one guy closest to me, a small guy but real strong, and spun him around. Using his body weight I put my arm around his head and twisted, and I pulled his head right off his body. That was not my intent. It just happened. I just grabbed him, put him in that technique, threw his body, and his head snapped and ripped. Taking somebody’s head off is not as difficult as people imagine. You just need enough torque and anger. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody else coming toward me, so I flipped the head and hit him right in the chest. Nobody’s real comfortable having a head thrown at him. He scrambled away from it, terrified.
So, what do you think? Possible or compete bullshit?
I would think am infant head would be relatively easy to detach. This guy is claiming he took a full grown man’s head off, like he was removing a twist cap off a bottle.
The SF guys I knew, although reeking of confidence, were more likely to describe incidents like that like “Well, I got into a bit of a fix but managed to wiggle my way out of it” if they were talking to muggles.
People who brag about their Rambo-like exploits are always lying. Always.
When they made a movie about Audie Murphy, staring Audie Murphy, a legitimate real-life Rambo, Murphy insisted they tone down his genuine exploits a bit.
Among firearms enthusiasts, there seem to be a huge number of people who were Marine Recon Special Operations Snipers. There are also a great many who are former Navy Seal Team Special Operations Snipers.
Which is why “executioner” was a job, back in the day, instead of making capital punishment a “get a couple of guys together and pull real hard” situation.
Sometimes older 1977- and 1978-model heads have been known to pop off under low pressure situations, like high-altitude mountaineering or attempting to remember the phone numbers of ex-lovers, but I believe they were all recalled and the faulty pins that caused the problem were replaced. He must just have come across one of those older heads that had not been repaired.
Well, heck, the Trollenberg units had no problem pulling off heads, even of mountaineers. But they weren’t human beings, after all. And they usually froze them, first.
(assuming this guy really was a SF soldier) Why do people write crap like this? Maybe us muggles don’t know for sure, but his fellow SFers know. Does the author get calls from his old SF buddies where they laugh and make fun of him?