I don't know if any of you have been in a situation where you were going to shoot someone, but I have.
Hannover 1979 02:30 I was on gate guard armed with an SMG, magazine of ten rounds attached. There had been IRA activity which had put BAOR on high alert.
The driveway up to the hospital terminated in a 'T' junction, turn left and you pass through an archway which has a light shining down, turn right and you are into darkness. Turning left leads to the other ranks accommodation, cars are parked directly below.
I was on duty with a Cpl, who was asleep in the sentry box.
A car came up the driveway at some speed, and weaved between the barriers and turned left. I was cocked, safety off, loose aim, waiting for the driver to be silhouetted in the light over the archway, ready to shoot him in the back of the head.
At that point, the Cpl, who had been awakened by the car, saw what was happening, shot out of the sentry box and pushed the weapon aside saying 'That's Jim Cowie the Lab Tech'. He had come back from the town in his car drunk, as he often did. Because I was married and lived in a Quarter away from the hospital, I didn't know what cars people had.
I had been within a few pounds of trigger pull from killing one of our own, it was a range of about thirty yards.
The really odd thing was that it wasn't a human being I was going to shoot, it was a target that it was my duty to knock down.
Had I fired I would not have been found guilty of anything, which would have been small comfort, having to live the rest of my life knowing that I had killed someone.
The decision to open fire was taken in a couple of seconds, training takes over, you do what has to be done.
I very much doubt if that policeman (assuming that he remains a policeman) will ever handle a firearm again, and he has to live with the fact that he has killed someone.