Ammunition Premonition
Assuming you're playing Russian Roulette with a 6-chambered revolver, the best odds you'll ever get are 1 in 6. And the odds diminish real quick if you don't spin the chamber after each trigger squeeze. Of course if you do give that old chamber a whirrrrrr every time before you squeeze the trigger, your odds are always 1 in 6 but I can guarantee, in reasonably short order, someone will be scraping skull fragments and brain matter off the walls in less time than it would take to sing a Gilbert & Sullivan show tune. If you're looking for something to play for weeks on end that will keep you entertained, try playing the radio; chances are good you'll survive the ordeal, but it will be a painful exercise given the number of radio stations playing shitty music these days.
U.S. Army Sgt. La David T Johnson, a 25-year old Special Forces soldier serving in Niger, was killed a couple of weeks ago. U.S. President Donald Trump, demonstrating once again what an inconsiderate prick looks like, reportedly told La David Johnson's widow that "he knew what he was signing up for". Setting aside the Donald's propensity towards being such an asshole, consistency is one of his finer qualities: he is often wrong.
I feel reasonably confident saying that I do not believe that the vast majority of servicemen and servicewomen enter the armed services convinced they're going to get killed. In fact, I'll bet half my stuffed armadillo collection and two bottles of Wild Turkey that most believe, and rightly so, that they will survive their tours of active duty. I would say the same thing holds true about individuals serving in the police force or fire services. I suspect they're cognizant to the fact that their chosen professions come with greater risk to life than say, a bureaucrat, but I seriously doubt any of them sign up with a preconceived notion that they will, as Trump seems to suggest, die. Why would I make such a broad claim?
A quick Google search for Vietnam war facts reveals that 2,709,918 Americans served in uniform in Vietnam. Of those who served, 58,148 were killed. Or, put another way, 2.15% of active uniformed personal who served in Vietnam were killed in that campaign. Similarly, if we consider the World War II statistics, we would find that roughly 16.1 million Americans served in that conflict. Of those, roughly 405,000, or about 2.5%, died. For anyone who may be interested, the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs has published a fact sheet which quantifies personnel and losses for all American conflicts beginning with the American Revolution.
Sgt. La David T Johnson, I would argue, did NOT know what he signed up for. He signed up, aware of risk, but fully expecting to return home. Because President Shit-for-brains can't tell his arse from a burned biscuit, he's totally incapable of understanding that the vast majority of military personnel will remain unscathed. Not convinced of Trump's lack of appreciation for rational thought yet? Consider this...
Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States. (Some pundits assert that he's really only the 44th President since Grover Cleveland served as both the 22nd and 24th President with Benjamin Harrison serving as the 23rd President from 1889 - 1893.)
A quick review of American history reveals that four American Presidents have been dispatched by assassin's bullets. Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth on April 14th, 1865. James Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau on July 2nd, 1881. William McKinley died 8 days after being shot by Leon Czolgosz on September 6th, 1901. And in Dallas, Texas on November 22nd, 1963 John F. Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. Wowsers... An astonishing 9.1% of those who have served as President of the United States of America have been taken out by a gunman's bullet!
On the off chance that the Donald gets whacked by some wingnut (before he gets impeached or resigns) let me be the first to say... "He should have known what he signed up for."
Submitted by Norm de Plume, 31 October 2017