Veterans Share The Most Horrible Thing They Experienced While Serving Their Country.
Veterans of Reddit were asked: "What is the scariest thing you saw in your service?" These are some of the best answers.
1/21 For me it was sitting in a windowless basement office helping to plan death and destruction 12-14 hours at a time for months on end.
Apparently, despite never being shot at or actually having my life in danger (unless you count the possibility of dying from sleep deprivation) that was still enough to give me PTSD. I'm still not completely convinced that this is possible, but several psychiatrists and therapists disagree, so I'm doing my best to deal with it.
coprolite_hobbyist
2/21 Round flew right by my head and hit the ANA guy who was standing next to me in the face. While that might sound scary just on its own, let me give you a bit of background on this guy. His name was Ahmad Durrani, he was 22 years old (same as me at the time), and was born in Kunduz.
He had joined up because he wanted to protect his family while saving up to afford visas and passports for his sisters and mother. This guy was sharp. His English was great. And he was a hell of a soldier. I remember this one time we were on patrol when we came under fire: his ANA buddies all started doing that pose where they fire from behind cover without aiming (see Liveleak if you have no idea what I'm talking about) and he ran up to them yelling "Aim like they taught you! Aim like they taught you!"
He had dreams of going to America and getting into law school, he wanted to "fight injustice across the world". He had this little 'catchphrase' I guess... "For the good of all" For the good of all...
All that potential. All that promise. Gone. Just gone. That beautiful soul wiped away in a split second. And I watched it happen. After the dust settled I made my way back to him.
This was the first time I had ever lost a friend. I mean a few guys in my unit had gotten hit before, but up until that point I had never seen a comrade laying in the dirt. It's a haunting feeling. Just a few seconds ago, you were talking about some [stuff, messing] around and making jokes that were often lost in translation.
And then they're gone. Reduced to corpse lying in the dirt with your once beautiful mind beginning to clump in the blood-soaked mud.
TheDomesticOG
3/21 I wasn't a line troop, but I supported an Infantry Battalion directly through two different tours in Iraq (06-07, 08-09) and we got some pretty gnarly AOs. While I never had any I'm Gonna Die moments, everybody sees messed up things...things that just make you think. I remember the first time I saw a HMMWV melted down - an automatic transmission liquefies like the T-1000. Seeing some poor [guy] who got smeared all over the inside of a truck by explosives is pretty gruesome. Same thing for VBIEDs (car bombs) - an Opel loaded with 155mm howitzer rounds shakes foundations for miles.
The scariest thing I think I can answer for...is human transformation. We had one guy who was an awesome guy - funny, joking, helpful...until he finally just saw the wrong damn thing. Our awesome guy received and scrubbed an MRAP (truck) after it got hit by an Explosively Formed Penetrator, which is downright scary in every possible way it can be. The EFP slug ended up going right through the driver of the vehicle and splattering him all around the truck.
Very few individuals are prepared to handle that situation with aplomb, some just don't have the coping mechanism to handle it at all. Our Awesome Guy was in the latter group - he was a changed man immediately after that incident: quiet, bottled up, slept little, etc. After that tour he got into drugs really bad and trashed his career...but he was done anyways.
So ya...human transformation. It shows just how vulnerable our personalities and psyches are.
kanonfodr
4/21 I worked on a sling-load team in Afghanistan in '10-'11. When the order came in for 50+ bodybags to be shipped immediately, got a little sick to my stomach. Then they called for more while we were flying back from dropping them off, because they ran out not putting more than one identifiable man's parts in each bag, I cried. Still do.
Baddest dudes in the world got scattered, all at once. Still catches me some days, chokes me up.... and I was barely associated with it.
deakon
5/21 I was deployed in Iraq in 2007, and ever since I haven't been able to bring myself to relieve myself on a squat toilet. I think this all began when I was taking a dump and the building I was in got hit by a mortar. So yeah, literally scared the [crap] out of me.
xKilgore
6/21 It's an entirely different universe. You spend so much time preparing to go to war and go through so many drills to really make sure you know how to react to anything, from a lone sniper to a complex ambush with IEDs, secondary explosives and an enemy squad.
When I actually had to use the things we'd practice, it was second nature. I wasn't thinking that the person I'm shooting at may have had a family or they were firing a pot shot just to earn money. I wasn't thinking about whether or not I was dying, to me it was just shoot back.
But they never trained you on the downtime. You had down time, you were always prepared for something. Hyper vigilant, is an appropriate term for it. It's been years since I came back, but I feel like I'm still ready to fight at a moment's notice. Relaxing is hard. They didn't teach us about how to readjust to a non combat environment.
mctacoflurry
7/21 I miss the war. Honestly, it's such a heightened experience. You know how you wonder if your friends are fake or not? They're not during war. They're as close as ever. You fall into such a daily habit of things you kind of overlook it. I remember just loading up the humvee everyday, we all knew our jobs, we all knew what was outside the wire and it just became a daily process. To be honest, it's just so simple. Everyone wants to do their portion because everyone knows someone could die if they don't.
It's weird for me to be around civilians (I am still in) because people are just so damn selfish. No one wants to do things to make others lives easier. Over there, everyone will do their best to take care of their task daily.
Everything is increased to a level you won't experience again. Friendship. Love. Hate. Suffering. Happiness. I've never had such friends as the ones I've had on my deployments. I never really cared for any men as much. I have suffered greatly due to my deployments. I have never experienced such happiness than knowing some [jerk] tried to kill me and completely failed.
Yeah, it was a rough couple of years. Those years was my youth though. Now that I'm a Drill Sergeant, I just try to pass on to my men that war is a heightened and truly different experience for everyone. It can be brutal but some things in it you'll always remember.
TheClownofRenown
8/21 I'm a combat veteran with PTSD. War is extremely boring. Several months of preparing, sleeping, playing golf in the sand, writing letters, drinking water, singing songs with guitars people brought along, pooping out in the open, playing football, freezing at night, burning up during the day, wishing you were home, and
.... several hours of pure terror, your heart pounding so hard you think it might leap out of your chest, your best friend on fire, running as fast as humanly possible, pure luck, sleeping with one eye open and your hand on your weapon, laser focused on the task before you, the world melting away as the only thing you observe is a heart beating and breath being taken in, then silence.
You walk along with the rest of the group. Everyone celebrating that we're going home, but you just give a fake smile. All you can think about is not having been there 5 minutes earlier, or why didn't he duck, or why him...
And the sound still stays muted even through the great yell being given by everyone as the plane lifts off the ground and heading home, the high fives given are half hearted and unenthusiastic as we stop at several airports on the way to the states. Everything quiet and just as dead as your best friend. Then you finally see your beautiful wife...and it hits you. That you were lucky enough to be here, now. That incredible moment when you finally hold her and kiss her deeply and forget everyone else there to meet you. Then remember that other beautiful woman not kissing her hero. Not making love to her prince - and the guilt starts again.
Then the real war starts. The yelling and screaming - you left the door open! What is wrong with you! Don't you know anything about security??? The feeling of fury over a burned sandwich-that smells like death. The anger over someone being sweet to you. The murderous rage over being woken up in the middle of the night by that sweet someone wanting to make love. The anguish of having experienced a break in and beating that person only to find out it was an elderly man with Alzheimers having accidentally walked into the wrong home and the blind fury over her having not locked the front door - again.
War itself is hard, sure. But the training and the adrenalin and the focus makes it all a blur. It's After war where we aren't trained and don't have an outlet for the adrenalin and the only focus is the pain and fear and guilt and sleeplessness that makes it last decades. Decades.
mherick
9/21 It's very surreal at times. It's boring and we know an idle mind doesn't help any. Every now and then you have bullets whipping by your head, pieces of concrete smacking you in the face, and dead bodies laying on the floor. How would I describe war? It's a different world, nothing like the movies, highly morbid and boring.
BeanGallery
10/21 I was in the USAF as a 2T2. Essentially I was the guy that helped get people and supplies flown into and out of the AOR. I mostly stayed on the passenger side booking people into flights and making sure they get on the right aircraft.
For us it's mostly a fight against boredom. It was 12-14 hour shifts 6-7 days a week. When off work there was essentially nothing to do besides go to the gym. I spent a lot of my free time reading my kindle at the smoke pit. We did get attacked damn near everyday but after the first month or so it didn't really phase us anymore. You'd hear the siren. Then sometimes walk over to a bunker and wait it out then go back to what you were doing.
That was my experience being in a war zone. Logistical support is necessary but it can be boring. There were a few occasions that were fun. When musicians or comedians came through on USO tours id get to meet and talk with them since I was going out to meet their plane and get them off the flight line. But for the most part it was an exercise in dealing with boredom.
nimieties
11/21 Watched, via ISR footage while deployed in Iraq, a kidnapping of a man by Al Quaeda and then the eventual execution in a rural field. It stuck with me how they tossed him in the car trunk, drove miles out to the rural area outside Baghdad, dragged him out of trunk like a sack of potatoes, then stood him up in the field and executed him with their Ak-47's.
And there was nothing we could do about it.
nimbusdimbus
12/21 I was a Navy Sailor who went out to sea many times for weeks at a time. One of my jobs was being a lookout to spot boats, planes, things in the water or air pretty much and report it back to the ship. My Lookout rotation could have me standing watch during the day or night sometimes both and it was during the nights where I was pretty afraid especially if you were at the back of the ship alone. For anyone who hasn't been out in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night should realize you see many more lights in the sky than you would ever in a city. And on Navy ships they like to have very little lights on at night so standing watch around 1am feels very alien sometimes. And during the nights without a bright moon to help with your vision, you may as well be on a different planet.
There was this one time I saw bright green color moving in the water slowly and I didn't know what it was. My mind told me maybe it's a USO or something else. Eventually I was told it was just plankton but it sure looked freaky to someone who wasn't aware of the glowing plankton produces. Another time me and another guy were standing watch together and I decided just to look up during 2am and see what things I would come across the midnight sky. I would see meteors streak across the sky but a couple of times there were bright lights moving slowly way out there. Perhaps a satellite, maybe who knows. But I stared for a good 20 minutes in the sky and encountered approximately 15 of those slow moving lights in different areas of the sky perhaps many millions of miles apart. Either way those were the few times I saw for myself how vast space really is and that there was so much unknowns out there that humans have yet to discover or explain.
terrificheretic
13/21 Yeah Iraq sucked for many reasons but that wasn't the scariest thing I saw. It's what we did to each other when we got back. Each month it got worse and worse. Sexual assaults, rapes, vicious fights, bureaucratic backstabs, mental breakdowns, and medical discharges.
My boss, I'll call her lieutenant M. was one of our battalion's SHARP (Sexual Harassment/Assault Response & Prevention) reps. This wasn't her only responsibility, just an additional one. Every week she had to face hell all the while showing a brave face and signing paperwork like it was just any other job. I saw and helped with only a fraction of the work and it disturbed me. This went on for a year but I saw in her eyes she had aged a decade.
I finished my contract and got out before she did, but not long after I left she was out on medical grounds, in rehab fighting severe alcoholism. Watching colleagues, friends, and family breaking all the while breaking myself was the real nightmare.
Slyfox00
14/21 Incoming was always scary, but it was also scary to watch a B-52 strike. The ground shook for miles around. Napalm was also scary to watch, especially when it was close; and it usually was close.
truthseeker444
15/21 I was part of Desert Fox/Nobil Anvil. I have a hard time putting it into words. I'm sad for those that had to die because someone on their side put them on a path that took them against our side. I spent a fair bit of time contemplating my existence and what I would do once I was out of that situation. Then I went and did my job.
I didn't have to worry about bullets because I was on a submarine. I had to rely on the actions of the ~100 other guys to keep me alive. It wasn't so much Band of Brothers, but I really do look back on those guys with a lot of respect. I don't put myself in the same class as the infantry guys though. It's an entirely different experience.
nontheistzero
16/21 Marine vet with 100% PTSD here. War was 99% boring as hell with some sporadic excitement thrown in whenever some Iraqis felt froggy. It is tons of driving and doing [stupid] work while being shot at. Then if you're lucky you go back to your base at night and get a shower and some hot food. Back on base you get to [defecate] in a luxurious porta-potty while listening to another man abuse his [penis] next door. Then you get attacked with mortars. Part of your building was destroyed but go ahead and try to sleep. You eventually get so tired that you're able to ignore the sound of a generator operating directly outside your window. Imagine sleeping with a lawn mower next to your bed.
As [crappy] as baselife was, raiding was much worse. At 2 in the morning we would drive or fly into towns and then raid them. We would stay for about a week and raid houses and shops during the night and hide out during the day. It is so damn hot that you can't sleep during the day. You end up going for days without sleep while being shot at with rifles, rockets, bombs, grenades and mines and then standing gun watch all night. War is incredibly stressful. Having to take another human's life is awful. I think the majority of veterans would oppose most military involvement.
[deleted]
17/21 It's kind of scary when the indirect fire (mortars, rockets, etc.) alarms go off and you run to a bunker.
While you're sitting in the bunker, which is really just a few slabs of concrete, there's this feeling of complete impotence. In all the war movies you've ever seen, an enemy attacks and the soldiers rush forward with their weapons to meet the attack head on. In reality, when the Taliban is firing mortars at you, there's nothing you can do except sit there and wait.
So you sit down in the bunker, with a loud alarm screaming at you, and you know you're completely powerless to do anything. You sit there and you listen for small arms fire, you listen for people screaming (if they got hit), and you listen to the explosions coming closer and closer to you as the Taliban adjusts their aim and tries to land rockets on your head.
The worst part is that when you come back home, everything sounds like that IDF alarm. Somebody scoots their chair back on a tiled floor, and your heart rate shots up to 120 and you reach for a weapon that you're no longer carrying.
[deleted]
18/21 Former Army infantry here so I'll chime in. Losing friends is hard but actually having to carry their bodies after they've been hit by an IED is the worst. Those things are scary in themselves, but when you can't recognize someone because their entire face is missing, that will [mess] anybody up.
notpersianbro
19/21 It varies from boring and mundane to heart racing adrenaline filled moments. Depending on your job, unit, and pure dumb luck the amount of time you spend on one side of the scale changes. It eventually becomes very routine and blends together, we worked 7 days a week with every day being the same thing. For me it went like this. You wake up, get chow, go to daily briefs, plan the mission, do the mission, come back and try to eat something, go to the gym, eat again, and try to occupy yourself until you get tired and start all over again the next day. The only variance in the schedule is what time you go on target, and if anything happens while there. If the mission gets cancelled for whatever reason that time is filled with classes of different topics. Everyday for months and months you see and live with the same people, eat the exact same food, go to the same places at the same time and watch the same movies, tv shows, or play the same games. All while 100% sober and celibate.
This monotony is dotted by your daily mission involving multiple hour long firefights, clearing buildings, S vests, various forms of IEDs, and sprinting through the mountains at several thousand feet above sea level, wearing 100lbs of [stuff] chasing people that are wearing normal clothes. Friends die, innocent people die, enemies die and the only distinction between them is where they happened to be standing on the planet when supersonic chunks of metal happened to also be there. Training, equipment, and planning all tilt the odds in your favor, but anyone that has seen real combat will tell you a bunch of it is pure dumb luck. You happened to be on the drivers side of the vehicle, you didn't step on the ppied the person ahead of you did, the rpg that hit the wall 2 feet from you was a dud, etc.
The worst part of all of that is coming and going from the states. Most units deploy and sit in Kuwait for a month waiting for their stuff, or have a 2 week layover in manas on the way out, not mine. I said goodbye to my wife, got on a bus to the airfield 10 minutes away, loaded up had a 3 hour layover in Germany and then touched down where ever we were going. With the expectation we were mission capable in 24 hours after landing. With all the time zone changing and flights the average time from kissing my wife to loading a helicopter to hit a target was ~48 hours, with 72 being the latest. For the trip to go home you stand down 24-48 hours before you leave to pack, clean, and do customs. Load the plane, fly to Germany for a 3 hour layover, then fly straight back to the base, turn in sensitive items break the pallet down and get released for a 48 hour pass. Average time from the last mission to kissing my wife was right around 4 days. That's the real [problem], going from being a normal citizen to a war zone in 2 days and then going from a war zone to citizen again in 4.
FMLRegnar
20/21 Going to shower, hearing the incoming fire siren go off. You continue to shower as the 122mm Russian made BM-21 GRAD rockets start hitting the area around you - because there's nothing you can do and nowhere within range is safe. A piece of shrapnel hits the outside of the field-shower, and you still do nothing.
Just lather and rinse.
ash286
21/21 I saw two mid-level Taliban leaders get shredded by the 30mm cannon off of an A-10. Body parts just scattered everywhere. About 10 minutes later, a pack of wild dogs showed up and ate what was left of them.
Reploid345
Sometimes everyone needs to hush up.
Wouldn't that be nice?
If people could catch onto social queues and actually engage in conversation with another human, maybe then we'd be able to triumph at the basic art of communication.
But humans seem to be failing in this department.
So who among us hasn't been trapped in a nonsensical splattering of words we'd give limbs to escape from?
Redditor Isingsongstomycats wanted to hear about what can completely make us regret speaking to another person, so they asked:
"What instantly ruins a conversation for you?"
I'm ornery. Anything and everything can turn me off.
Blocked
"Getting their phone out for no reason mid conversation."
Expensive_Pie_6943
"Sometimes I want to look up something pertinent to the conversation but I don't want to interrupt them to say that. Now when someone checks their notification mid conversation, that really burns me."
cutelyaware
Up & Up
"When someone feels the need to one up you on everything you say."
Apprehensive_Gap_368
"Had a coworker like this once, his one upping was so bad we would test it. Best one was a guy talking about catching a shark on a pole at the beach. He interrupted with the time he swam out a mile and got attacked by a shark and beat it and swam back with it."
Mess_Bubbly
Rude
"When they start saying nasty things about people they barely know."
WeirdShyKitten
"I have family like this. I once heard them go on on this rant about how the new waitress at their local coffee shop is fat and ugly. They made a thousands assumptions about this woman that included criticism to her service."
18062022
"Or start sh*t talking someone the second they leave the room. My dad's sisters do that, I was stuck in my parents house alone with them and I would get so paranoid every time I left the room. If they do that to each other, I can’t image the crap they talk about me."
vicki_chicki
War of Words
"When they ask for your opinion or talking about something fully subjective and then tell you how you are objectively wrong or get offended by you nor agreeing."
Prize_Interaction931
"Similar, but not quite the same: my old roommate would correct me on things that were objective, and not like facts."
"Like I mentioned it was hard for my folks to get a mortgage because they were self employed and he correct me that it wasn't. He wouldn't believe the story i was telling and told me what he thought might have happened with no knowledge on the subject."
"Needless to say I moved out."
SFXBTPD
Blah Blah
"When it feels like you're engaging a combination lock just to get responses to simple innocent pieces of a conversation. People who small talk you to death."
I swear small talk people should be arrested for attempted murder.
Useless
"When someone drags a story out with useless details. Like something that happened on the drive to work but they start the story at the point when they first woke up and what they had for breakfast. Just get to the point!"
ticklemebits
Paused
"When they interrupt me mid sentence."
HelpMeSweetJesus
"If it sometimes happens on accident whenever they think of something and get over-excited it’s whatevs. Now when they constantly step over you it’s like your opinion merely feels like filler at best and they ain’t even listening. Not even worth the energy to continue at that point."
BAKED_TATER_
"One of my coworkers only listens long enough to figure out what she's going to say next, and then she interrupts. I guess we're only there to feed her lines."
Witty_Commentator
Do Better
"When someone gives you completely useless advice you didn't ask for. A couple weeks ago I mentioned to a coworker that I was glad to be going home because I didn't get more than a couple hours of sleep."
"Dude first of all had the audacity to say 'Well, you need to do better.' When I said I have medication resistant insomnia he looks at me like I'm an idiot and asks if I've tried melatonin."
errant_night
Duh
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that. And it doesn’t take you very long to spot one of them, does it. Take you about eight seconds. You’ll be listening to some guy, and say, this guy is f**king stupid. Then, then there are some people, they’re not stupid. They’re full of crap."
"Huh, that doesn’t take very long to spot, either, does it. Take you about the same amount of time. You’ll be listening to some guy, saying, well, he’s fairly intelligent. Ah, he’s full of s**t. Then there are some people, they’re not stupid, they’re not full of s**t, they’re freaking nuts."
teaching-man
Gross...
"Sexualization. We're talking about a new video game and suddenly I get asked if I play naked, or if I'm turned on by a game mechanic or some such nonsense. Yuck."
GreenAppleLady
Good conversation is hard to keep these days.
Do you have any conversational red flags to add? Let us know in the comments below.
Moments of distress where you think your life is on the line are unshakable.
Many people have at one point experienced situations where they thought they wouldn't come out the other side alive but are somehow spared through some miracle.
They are lucky enough to tell their stories.
From mild to wild, strangers online shared their most humbling experiences when Redditor Intelligent_Role_675 asked:
"What was the most intense moment of your life?"
Traffic accidents were a common example in which Redditors feared for their lives.
The Universe Had Other Plans
"My ancient, used car randomly decided to stop working while I was doing about 70mph on the freeway. I skidded out, couldn't gain control of the skid, and slammed straight into a metal guardrail. I crashed through the guardrail, flew off the side of the freeway, and impaled my car halfway through a tree. I was perfectly fine afterwards, but my car was a smoking wreck. It was virtually unrecognizable as an automobile, it was so messed up. But I was ok. Not a scratch on my body."
"The moment my car spun out of control, and I knew I was going over the edge at that speed, I assumed I was going to die. I gripped the wheel, closed my eyes, and made my peace with the universe."
"For some reason, the universe decided it wasn't done with me. I was shocked to open my eyes and find myself alive and unharmed. Truly shocked. I thought for sure I was going to die."
"To this day, I'm always a little bit shook whenever I drive past that section of the freeway. For years, you could see the skid marks on the road. They cleared them off eventually, but it took a long-a** time."
– EllyHodl
Reclaiming Loose Articles
"I had a wreck years ago. A semi clipped the front passenger side with its trailer and sent me spinning, then started to flip when my car got caught by those metal cable barriers. I was going backwards down the interstate as the cables just shredded the passenger side of my car. The trunk busted open and I saw a tote bag that was holding my hair stuff and makeup fly in front of me as my car was trying to stop. When it started to flip, my head bounced off the driver's side window."
"Finally, when it was over, I was sitting there just stunned. Then, my stupid brain decided I needed to walk out on the interstate to go find my flatiron. Because apparently I thought, hey, I have head trauma, but I can still look good🤦♀️."
– mgulley08
There are heroes around us.
Trapped In A Burning Car
"Driving to work one morning. Icky, rainy day, lots of highway traffic. I assume a car hydroplaned in front of me but it was far enough ahead that I couldn’t tell exactly what happened. Took out several other cars with him. Highway was basically completely blocked."
"I was essentially the first car to pull up on the wreck and one of the more badly damaged cars was already on fire. Myself and a couple strangers run up to the car and realize his door is jammed. One of the guys starts kicking the window. I’m not sure how much time has passed (probably not much) but you can feel the heat and making eye contact with this dude you can see the fear in his eyes."
"I ran to the passenger side and as I’m pulling on the handle the driver is kicking on the door from the inside. It popped open enough that I was able to grab a portion of the door itself and we were able to pull it open and pull him out."
"I went to work but I shook for hours from the adrenaline."
– Mikeastuto
The River Wild
"Saving a woman from drowning. We were River tubing in a river that was way way more aggressive than normal. Long story short a woman got dumped off her tube and pinned under a log next to me. I had to bail on my tube and fight to get to her and pull her up, she was under for a few minutes. I was shaking for hours after. Two teenagers died there the next day."
"Moral of the story, if you’re going river tubing and the tubing company that normally runs there isn’t operating it’s probably because it’s unsafe."
– Puzzleheaded-Mood689
These Redditors didn't know what hit them.
The Human Body Is Unpredictable
"Two and a half yrs ago I woke up halfway on my way to work with blurry sight and an immobile body. I assume it was on a sidewalk. I remember I wondered if I had died, but quickly shifted to a theory of suddenly gotten drunk on a tuesday morning. But that didn’t make any sense. Couldn’t grasp what was going on, really. Suddenly an older man rushed to me and asked if I was ok. I said yeah. He told me to lie still. Looked concerned. An ambulance came and took me to the nearest ER - about 1 km down the road. It was a stroke. Still puts me off a bit when I think about it. Occasional aphasia, but pretty much fine now."
– KoalaCola-notPepsi
The Wrong Shot
"Had a severe allergic reaction and collapsed in the stairs of the cultural history museum. I had been prescribed penicillin a few days earlier. It turns out that this particular type of penicillin can cause me to die."
– Ashtar-the-Squid
Murder Survivor
"Took four 9mm rounds to the chest while delivering pizza."
"Was delivering to a party, and some kids jumped out and pointed a gun at me. When I first saw the gun I thought it was some kids trying to prank me with a bb gun or something. I heard 4 loud bangs. Next thing I know I was on the ground and I felt them tugging on my keys that I had clipped to a belt loop."
"I remember one of them actually crying, and I remember him saying sorry over and over."
"Don't know how long I was there but that party I was supposed to deliver too emptied out and I remember hearing a lot of crying and screaming. I just remember some guy saying, 'don't close your eyes dude, stay with me.'"
"Ambulance got there and picked me up, and from there it was going in and out, felt like I was just a passenger in my own body."
"The kids who mugged me and stole my car got picked up like 20 mins later at a gas station trying to use my card to fill the car. They all ended up going away for several years, and I got 4 scars that raise eyebrows everytime I go to the beach."
– Unyielding_Cactus
Part Of The Atmosphere
"Probably jumping out of a plane. Unfortunately I don't remember the first few seconds, which was exactly what they warned us would happen. You go from a somewhat known environment into an entirely new one and I guess it's literally just too much to process. Next thing I knew, I was under canopy, and I knew what to do with that."
– cutelyaware
The Big Tremor
"I was stationed in South Korea in 2015-2016. This was when the north had been initiating a wave of nuclear tests. It was a Monday evening, me and some of the guys from my shop were taking a Korean language class on base after hours (basic sh*t like how to tell a cab driver where you were going, etc)"
"The heightened tensions because of the nuclear test had everyone pretty on edge. The classroom we were in had no windows, and we couldn't see outside. The building started shaking, violently. We all thought it had happened, and the world was about to end."
"In reality, A 5.8 earthquake hit not far from base."
"Once we walked outside, didnt see a mushroom cloud, and realized we hadn't become the ww3 rapid response force, we all had a good laugh about it. But for about 2 minutes, it was the opposite of funny."
– cat_daddylambo
Almost losing a loved one can be the scariest thing in life.
A Father's Worst Nightmare
"When my son was 2.5yo he had a febrile (fever-induced) seizure in my arms. I thought he was dying - scariest, most intense moment of my life."
"He’s fine now. Never re-occurred, but we went after any fever hard with alternating Tylenol and Advil for both him and his brother after that."
– wembley
Unpredictable Seizures
"My special needs son had his first seizure when he was 1. My wife was in Mexico for a wedding and I heard him breathing funny, like snoring. I looked at him and he was grey and unresponsive. I was terrified, I didn't know whether to do CPR or what. I called my mother in law who is a nurse but I couldn't reach her. He came out of it after about 2 minutes and I just held him and held him. He's had like 50 seizures since then, some of them lasting upwards of 20 mins. He had one this morning, actually. Every time it happens we think it might be his last. The scariest part to me is that I know it will start as any normal day then my life will change forever."
– Alamander81
These moments shared by Redditors are a reminder that tomorrow is never guaranteed.
And whenever we encounter a life-threatening situation and end up living long enough to tell the story, each day following is a blessed day to be alive.
We can't ever prepare for the worst, but we can embrace the present with every fiber of our being.
Everyone has their own opinion about what qualifies as a good read, whether based on literary merit or the joy of reading it.
But there are some titles that people can pretty easily agree took a turn that really didn't do the book any favors.
Redditor 2D_brain asked:
"What's the worst book you've ever read?"
50 Shades of Grey
"'50 Shades of Grey.' It's just the worst. Not remotely interesting. There is way better erotica out there. Way better. This is just the worst."
- joanne122597
The Darksword Trilogy
"'The Darksword Trilogy' by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. It started out as a decent enough swords and sorcery series. Nothing special, but an amusing time-waster."
"Then, towards the end of the last book, a wormhole opens up, and the US Army invaded their fantasy realm."
- Catlenfell
Mein Kampf
"I’ve read 'Mein Kampf' for a history project and it definitely is the worst piece of literature I've ever read."
"Not only by the message, which already would make it the worst, but it’s just horrible writing. Feels more like an angry social media comment than a book."
- IceClimbers_Main
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
"I want to tack on 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,' as well. It's not literal Nazi propaganda, but it basically perpetuates Nazi myths like the Clean Wehrmacht and has you sympathize with the Nazis. In fact, not any Nazi, but an SS and leader of the Auschwitz camp."
"But even ignoring the plot itself, the book is so awful. It's full of historical inaccuracies. It claims to aim to bring awareness of the Holocaust to a young audience, but there are so many better literary works including those written by actual children as they went through the experience. But nope, let's go with the historically inaccurate book written by someone with basically no connection to the Holocaust (like, not Jewish, minority, researcher, that kind of thing) stupid drivel."
"So, of course, it made millions and got a movie out of it. There are now millions of children who think this story is true and might have become more sympathetic to Nazis as a result as well. None of that money (last time I checked, has admittedly been a while) went towards anything relating to education (or awareness...) regarding the Holocaust or anything else related or tangentially related to the Holocaust."
"I hate this book. It's nonsense and it is insidious."
- HabitatGreen
Go Ask Alice
"'Go Ask Alice' when you’re old enough to realize it’s just propaganda to scare kids and not an actually found diary of a drug user."
- sketchysketchist
Go Set a Watchman
"'Go Set a Watchman.'"
"'To Kill a Mockingbird' is a masterpiece. Her first book, it won the Pulitzer and then Harper Lee lived the rest of her life a recluse, never publishing another work. UNTIL… her caretaker/grifter sister came forward right before Harper passed away and announced to the world that there actually was another book, a sequel to TKAM."
"It was awful. Poorly written, boring story, rehashed characters…except for Atticus Finch. In Mockingbird, he was one of the greatest characters in american literature. In Watchman, he was a dime-a-dozen redneck racist. There was clearly a reason she never published it."
- Igotthesilver
Wicked
"'Wicked.' My wife and I listened to the audiobook on a road trip because friends had invited us to see the play. It was way too long and I remember it seeming like it was written by several different writers who didn't really communicate with each other."
"One was a totally nuts conspiracy theorist, another was on a really bad acid trip, and another was a child from a strict household who'd been told they could use no-no words and say naughty things all they wanted."
"We came super close to making up an excuse to not see the play but luckily we didn't. The play was actually terrific! If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend going. Just skip the book."
- Tangent_
Maximum Ride
"Everything after Book Three of the 'Maximum Ride' series. I use them as my go-to examples of bad writing and they are what made me entirely lose faith in James Patterson. The last book especially cost me so many brain cells."
"I wish I'd had the foresight to stop with Book Three, but I finished the whole thing. The last book was... interesting. The whole thing had the most self-contradicting plot and conflict stuffed with a hasty attempt to wrap up loose ends by just killing everyone and just as the cherry on top, the sky explodes in the end? I don't know, it was kind of unclear."
- ParkityParkPark
The Divergent Trilogy
"I loved that series so much until that ending..."
- PurpleMermaid16
The Dune Prequels
"'The Dune' prequel books written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Talk about missing the point of the original series! They read like a YA fan fiction based in the Dune universe."
- ImInJeopardy
Slammed
"I was hoping someone would mention Colleen Hoover, if only to talk about how absolutely terrible and hilarious her book 'Slammed' is. Reading it was honestly just such a ridiculous experience that I may never find again in another book."
- Leedamu
The Necronomicon
"'The Necronomicon.' I found it pretty boring and repetitive after the first five pages. Got halfway and said f**k this and read 'Good Omens' again."
- raidakens
Darling Girl
"'Darling Girl' by Liz Michalski. It’s a Peter Pan spinoff where Peter Pan impregnates Holly Darling, Wendy’s daughter, and then abandons them, and when the girl is a teenager, Peter tries to take the daughter back."
"I couldn’t stomach the idea of Peter Pan, a childlike figure, impregnating someone and all that ick. Peter Pan is 'the boy who never grew up.' But he’s a father now? No thanks. I got about 30 pages in, and literally gave up."
- MPD1987
The Fountainhead
"'The Fountainhead.' I was going to put 'Atlas Shrugged' down until I remembered how much worse 'The Fountainhead' was. And yes, I read both; any suffering inflicted by 'Atlas Shrugged' was something I deserved."
- ditchdiggergirl
Everyone has a right to their own opinion, and they should not be ashamed to read what they love to read. But they also should not feel bad about wasting time on a book they are not enjoying, when there are hundreds and thousands of books out there that they'll love that they could read instead.
Some people don't take in information as quickly as others.
Which is absolutely nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about, nor does it necessarily reflect on one's intelligence.
Even so, we all can't help but feel the tiniest embarrassed when we've found ourselves a little slow on the uptake regarding certain pieces of information.
Be it a random fact of trivia that everyone knows, or even realizing there's a reason your parents were trying to instill a life lesson in you.
Being hit by a ton of bricks might actually be a welcome relief to the embarrassment that will run through your body.
"What did you learn embarrassingly late in life?"
It's Hard To Love Others If You Don't Love Yourself
"Trying to treat myself as I would others."
"The ol' reverse golden-rule."- kageroshajima
Hey, It Worked!
"My grandmother had a clock that would break if anyone touched or tried to move it."
"I always found that curious."
"Then some time in my 30s my wife and I were talking and it came up."
"I was wondering how they moved it out of their house after they passed."
"As I was explaining, 'I think it must have had some delicately balanced mechanism or something that would be disrupted if moved...'
" My wife’s face made me quickly realize it was just a lie told to young me to keep my dirty clumsy hands off of it."
"Also, I’m an engineer."- P-eh-triot
Do We Ever Really Grow Up?
"There's no such thing as 'feeling like an adult'."
"I'm 34 and still forget I'm an adult sometimes lol."- scelestai
Hey, It's Not For Everyone...
"Riding a bike at 15."- Graehaus
Naturally Imposing
"That my height shapes how people perceive what I say."
"I'm a 6'4 male with a deep voice."
"I learned it at 40 when I had a boss who was 6'6."
"I was suddenly aware of my own height and the power position, looking up to him."
"I realized pretty much everyone is looking up at me, and I began smiling more and asking people questions about themselves to reduce the power implications of my height."- ClydePincusp
Easy To Get Tripped Up On Exotic Spellings
"How to say the last name Nguyen."- TD-Eagles
Though It Wouldn't Surprise Many If She Did...
"Martha Stewart does not own Martha's Vineyard...."- valhalla-at-your-grl
Shouldn't Be The Case... But Sadly Often Is...
"Hr is there to protect the company, not you."
"Hr is not your friend."- Puzzleheaded-Mood689
Just Focused On The Wrong Possibilities
"It never made sense to me that we would go under tables during an earthquake, because wouldn't the ground crack open?"
"The table wouldn't do anything then?"
"Wasn't until last year I realized that it was to stop debris from falling on us."
"Smh."- whats_yesterday
Easy To Get Tripped Up On Math...
"4% of 25 is the same as 25% of 4."- cdn_gooner
A Penny Saved...
"The importance of saving money or buying property early."- wetpickle_antichrist
Too Many People Need Reminding Of This Every Day...
"Who I am is more important than how I look."- Lazy-Thanks8244
Oral Hygiene Is Tougher Than You Think
"How to brush my teeth."
"I was super neglected as a child so that is something I've always struggled with and even after going to a dentist for 2 years and having exams every 4 months I only learned last month that you need to brush your gums."- HersheySquirtz2014·
"I learned that we're supposed to brush both sides of our teeth."
"The inner side needs to be brushed as well."
"I saw all of the commercials just showing them brushing the outer portion so I assumed that this is the way."- FaTes-EnD
Your Life Is Yours To Live!
"That I don't have to become a mother if I don't want to."- detective_kiara
Needless to say, should you find yourself making this realization in certain company, you might be met with jeers and laughter.
But as the saying goes, "slow and steady wins the race".