Crazy Paintball Battle and Friendly Fire

It felt like I had been lost behind enemy lines for hours. I was tired, hungry, losing light fast and my ammo was dangerously low but I refused to give up. I had to complete my mission. However, my luck was about to come to an end.

I ran through the foliage into a clearing and everything suddenly changed. I was surrounded. Guns were pointed at me from all directions. I counted at least eight of them. There was no way out, no escape, no hope. My mission had been a failure. I had been defeated and I was about to get covered in a lot of paint.

Caught in a Crazy Paintball Battle

There are a few things I have discovered when playing paintball:

1) Do not eat the paintballs.
2) I am not Dirty Harry, Neo, John McClane or John Rambo (but it is fun to pretend).
3) The Matrix slow-motion double back flip while shooting two guns is not as easy as it looks.
4) Never ever get surrounded. Especially by members of my own team.

After I found myself surrounded the events that followed probably took place with-in a single second but in my mind the scenario played out in slow motion with ‘Barbers Adagio for Strings‘ playing in the background to highlight the tragedy.

There was the moment of sudden panic when I burst through the foliage into the clearing and realized I was surrounded. Then, quick relief when I saw the blue arm bands which indicated that these fine soldiers were members of my own team. I had not been defeated after all. I had found my way back to friendly territory. I could relax. I was safe. I was going to survive this crazy paintball battle.

Friendly Fire

Unfortunately, it seemed that my entire team was colour blind and they did not notice that I was also wearing a blue band around my arm. By the time I realized something was wrong it was already too late. There was a confused moment of silence which was suddenly broken by my rather loud and long screams of painful colourful language as my brothers in arms opened fire upon me from all angles (some hitting me in ‘sensitive’ areas). One shot was not enough either apparently and my trigger happy comrades continued to fire until I was completely covered from head to toe in bright green paint.

Even when they realized their mistake and finally stopped firing I continued to do the ouchy dance of pain and sing the non-edited version of the, “You dam idiots!” song which probably gave our position away to every enemy with in a 10 mile radios in the process.

I like to think that even John Rambo would have reacted in the same way had he been in a similar situation.