NAVY SEA BEES

I served in the US military in the Navy Sea Bee Reserves as a steel worker.  "We build, We fight."  Most of it I thought was boring, but I did get to do some pretty cool things.  I got to shoot a .50 caliber machine gun.  I got to ride in a military helicopter.  I got to throw grenades.  I got to ride with the Air Force in C-130's and C-141's.  I also made some good friends.  Well, for the six years I actively drilled, that's about all the fun things I can think of :-)  The following are pictures of us shooting the .50 cal.



Learning how to operate the weapon



More training



Time to actually shoot the gun.  We had 200 rounds to let loose.



What an awesome gun!



Look at all those shell casings below the gun!

We had to sit with our feet on the tripod and then the gun was fired by a butterfly looking trigger.  The barrel gets really hot so you have to periodically swap them out (hence the handle on the barrel).  Every so often is a tracer round so you can see where you are shooting.  I was totally amazed at how far those bullets were flying.  We were shooting at the base of a small mountain.  Those bullets reached all the way out there to the base of the mountain, chewed up some old vehicles, and then some of the ricochets even bounced right over the mountains and started little fires.  Amazing!

Continue on for some water fun