… As you knew it.
So a little bit about me before I go into this. And, before you ask about it, I am going to be incredibly vague about a lot of specifics; If you’ve ever worked in cybersecurity or for the government, you’d understand why I’m cagey.
I graduated from high school in the late 2000’s. I tried college, it didn’t work for me, so I enlisted like I had already planned to after I got an associate’s. I got into the Navy, passed quals for the “special warfare” training block while in Basic, and after completion went and started training to become a SEAL, which I did not complete because that shit is no joke, but it’s cool because I went SWCC instead, and became a “dirty boat guy”. SWCC are the guys you see in movies arriving just in time with fast boats blasting lots of firepower at the bad guys so they can pull our boys out of hell. Sometimes they work with helo crews, or man the helos themselves. Most often they just patrol riverways in Iraq begging for someone to shoot at them to break the monotony.
That sounds way cooler than it really was; Aside from becoming an expert in all things small watercraft, and doing a good amount of diving and aircrew shit as well, I didn’t get to do the cool SEAL shit. There’s things I DID do while strapped to a SEAL team, but I don’t think I can talk about that. No door-kicking, no breaching, no Team shit. Only on a handful of occasions did I even get into a firefight.
Side note: Most Youtube “Special Forces Operators” are former Team or Group guys who are full of shit and their colleagues did most of the heavy lifting. They just tell the stories from their perspective so “somebody gets to tell it” without divulging identities, etc.
Anyway, I got out of boat shit eight years in after being injured, and did my last four years of my 12 year career doing other stuff in special warfare, more cyber-oriented. I retired, collected my VA card, and went to school for couple semesters to bone up on shit I needed for some cybersecurity certifications, and I’ve been working private sector since early 2019. Got my own LLC and everything.
So this story actually starts in early 2016.
I had been back in my hometown for a while, which was near a major naval base. I had changed career tracks and was on med leave for a bit after my injury, so I had been able to take some time to reconnect with an old high school sweetheart of mine, and we had been dating for several months. She was my best friend growing up, and I absolutely blew it when I had the opportunity to take her to junior prom, and we didn’t see much of each other after we graduated and I enlisted, so we’d grown apart and in the several years it’d been since we’d parted ways and reconnected she had had a kid of her own, an adorable little 3 year old girl, and “daddy” wasn’t in the picture which was absolutely his loss because she was a gem of a child. We grew close quickly, and after a couple months she’d occasionally call me daddy which made my heart soar. And, as for her mother, I was head over heels for her years ago, and reconnecting with her only reinforced those old feelings because it took off like a rocket. We were inseparable for the first couple of months, and when we weren’t going on fun play dates with her kid or acting like horny highschoolers after we’d send her to bed, we were texting each other at work, tagging each other in funny memes on Facebook, y’know dorky cheesey lovey-dovey kid shit that’s embarrassing to admit to as an adult in his 30’s now but… I mean, we were in love. Real love, something that, to that point, I’d never known like that before. I’d been shot at and stabbed, hell my whole injury was due to getting my leg blasted with a 7.62, but none of that made me more nervous and scared than this new love I was feeling.
I had it bad.
However, there was a complication in the form of her “brother”, some lanky, inbred, wannabe gangster wigga boy, whiter than driven snow, who came in and started crashing on her futon a month and half into our relationship. This piece of shit had the highly unfortunate blessing of also being the kiddo’s godfather/”uncle”. He had no blood relation to my girlfriend or the child, he was just some former tweaker who worked at the Target they both worked at who started crashing from “low blood sugar” (He was coming down from whatever he was high on) so she got him a cheeseburger and soda which, in the tweaker culture, is like being given a handful of gold. He was forever in her debt, and became her right-hand man, never wanting her romantically as he preferred trash similar to his own kind (Thank you, God). She referred to him as “brother”, and he of her as “sister”, so naturally he was “uncle” to the little one.
Which meant when he showed up in the middle of the night mid-way through our relationship, it was a very bad sign for me, because that homeless, now-jobless, feckless idiot was moving in.
Our “friendship” started out on a very “suddenly bad” note, because he was met by me and a .45 in his face wondering why a grown-ass-man was in my girlfriend’s apartment while we were in bed, and I heard something going “bump”.
(Side note for any “concerned citizens”, the kid was sleeping between us, and they didn’t have any pets, so I knew whatever was making noise out there wasn’t anyone in the room, and nobody else should’ve been there. Pair that with recent break-ins in her complex, and you can see why I was justifiably armed)
Now I did not live there. I had my own studio near the base, I just stayed the night often because it was convenient and fun. And with the recent break-ins, they also felt safer with me there, so win/win/win. So naturally I didn’t have any say in anything regarding him living there. In an effort to placate the young whippersnapper after holding a fucking 1911 to his nose, I let him borrow my PS3 and a spare TV I had so he had something to do, because fuck him if he was gonna actually go out and find a job. Instead he smoked weed out on the balcony all day and played Need for Speed and COD on my Playstation.
This fucker acted like my girlfriend was his mom. Expected her to cook him food when she got home from work, expected her to take his laundry out and fold it for him, god he once asked her if she could re-lace his shoelaces onto his sneakers because “she does it better”. The kid (He was 23) was a fucking loser, and beyond just being a live-in babysitter for the actual child when mom and I were at work (Because my med leave ended eventually), served absolutely no value. We’d come home to a messy kitchen and shit all over the apartment. Numerous times he’d leave a growler in the toilet and neglect to flush, and FUCK HIM for asking my girlfriend to do his laundry because I DIDN’T ALWAYS SEE TP IN THE WATER when I was the one to flush it. That man had an itchy asshole all the time, I guarantee it. He was good with the kid though, I will give him that. She never had a dirty diaper before she transitioned to the potty, so good on him for actually being a little useful.
And it was like this for four more months. Eventually, I was spending so much time over there that she and I were talking about getting an apartment together so we’re not paying two leases. And of COURSE dudeguy was hitting us up for a “spare room”, which we fought and argued about because four months after moving in, motherfucker still had no job. The guy who talked so much game about being a “successful drug dealer” in his late teens (lol), couldn’t move LEGAL weed. He claimed to be a “professional drift car driver” but he nearly backed my car into a light pole FOUR TIMES the handful of times I trusted him enough to park it for me. And every single time we argued, or had a little spat, his choice of words were “I’m gonna kick your ass, If I can’t kick your ass myself, I have a whole bunch of friends who can and will”.
Now, I want to reiterate – I was NOT a SEAL. I did not go through the rigorous combat training the Navy teaches special warfare operators and Team guys. I learned SOME, enough to qualify you for Special Warfare… But what SEALs go through in BUD/S and their supplemental training schools, their individual specialty schools, and whatever clandestine shit the agencies and JSOC have them doing nowadays, was completely missed on my career track. We drive boats, we fly/fly in choppers, we jump out of planes, SOMETIMES we do a mission with a SEAL team but most of the time it’s a partner force op or some kind of escort op in some territorial waterway we’re not supposed to be in. Maybe we’re pulling a few divers out of the murk and not talking about it the rest of the way to extract because it’s “one of those” missions. There’s a reason SEALs are also called “frogmen”.
I was also injured, I could walk on both legs by this point but if my painers weren’t working well enough or if the weather was bad, there were days I couldn’t stand up straight without leaning on something. But the rest of my body was still in decent shape. I’d trained Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the fleet. I practiced Kali and Silat with some Filipino guys I’d met on-base (They are why I love lumpia so much). I picked up different shooting stances like Center-Axis Relock, I went to CQB shooting courses thanks to my Navy career. I wasn’t Rambo, but I wasn’t a fucking slouch, either.
And I could kill this fucker with my bare hands, no 1911 necessary.
But I loved his “sister”, and I wanted to marry her, and adopt her child. So I bit my tongue whenever he flashed on me. Weeks went by, every now and then he’d snap at me for some shit. I decided I’d had enough, and one night when I was leaving to head home I took my PS3 and TV with me. He loved that. He declared that I was “banned from the apartment”, to which my girlfriend reminded him that it’s her apartment and her rules, and that he needed to be respectful.
Then one fateful morning, maybe a week after that, I had spent the night and we were getting up early because I needed to be on base and she had to go to work, so we got out the door with the kiddo and just as we were buckling her into her carseat I realized I had left my wallet inside. So, I went back to the apartment and retrieved it, and as I was walking towards the front door Assfuck McGee pipes up with “You’re cleaning those dishes when you get back”.
Dear audience, “those dishes” were dishes he had dirtied the previous night when he made late night stoner mac and cheese and somehow needed a mixing bowl and four different wooden spoons to make it.
I looked at them, looked at him, looked back at them, then back at him…
… And said “you’re high, clean them yourself, bitch, and don’t ever tell me what to do again”, before doing the damned best about-face a man can do when low on painkillers and high on pain and salt, and walking out the door.
I was maybe six or seven steps down their stairwell when I heard the door fly open behind me, I turned to see him coming at me with both hands and he threw me the rest of the way down the stairs. I landed hard on my back, knocking the wind out of my body and hitting the back of my head hard on the concrete deck. My leg caught fire with fresh pain. Then he jumped on top of me, snapping me out of my daze and I went to work on him. I grit through the pain and started working to get on top of him, where I proceeded to rain hell on his face with my fists. I split his lips, I popped him in the eyes and the temple, I even gave his Adam’s Apple a nice little tap, I was fucking furious and I honestly didn’t care if I killed him in that moment, someone had to die and it was definitely not gonna be me.
But she saved his life a second time. She was wondering why it was taking so long, and when she heard the yelling she came running and found me on top and beating the gravy out of him. She screamed for me to get off, and I did. As soon as I did, his mouth started running… “SISTER HE THREATENED TO KILL ME AND HE ATTACKED ME AND THREW ME DOWN THE STAIRS BECAUSE I ASKED HIM TO BRING BACK THE PS3!”, which she knew was fucking bullshit and the neighbor’s security camera outside backed that up, but in that moment, she was livid, and rightfully so.
I took her to work. I took the kid to daycare. I went to base. I had to explain to my CO why I had bloody knuckles, and why I was holding a cold pack to the back of my head. They offered to call the police so I could press charges, I told them no. My CO damn near ordered me to call the police or he’d put me back on med leave – Which he couldn’t do, technically – To which I replied that I’d rather be on med leave than lose my girlfriend for calling the cops on her “brother”. It was made clear to me, under no uncertain terms, that I am a particularly stupid kind of asshole, and that that would come back to bite me in my ass someday.
Well he was right.
Basically, “brother” gave an ultimatum, that either I leave and she dumps me, or he leaves and walks out of her and her daughter’s life, which to be fair to my ex, that loser had been the only constant male figure in her kid’s life since she was born, so that would’ve been devastating for the gremlin and she wanted to spare her that kind of pain.
Which meant I got the axe. Honestly, I’d have rather taken an actual axe to the heart because what I actually felt was way worse. It’s one thing when you’re saying goodbye to the woman you love. But to have to also say goodbye to a sobbing little kid you wanted so much in your heart to adopt and make your own? I don’t want to meet the man who can hold back the tears from that shit. That man scares me.
I went back to my apartment, I put together a little box with the toys and keepsakes and clothing items they’d left behind, and waited for the right time to bring it by her work.
I was a broken man. But that little fucker… He wanted to kick me while I was down.
Remember those “friends” he mentioned? Well, he wasn’t lying, he did have some friends with rap sheets and bad intentions, and in the months that followed her and I breaking up he put them to work.
I woke up one morning to discover my car had been blocked up, the wheels taken off, my cat cut out, and they had spray painted slurs and swastikas on my car after busting out my windows. I wasn’t Jewish, and I had been dicking his “sister” for the last six months, but somehow I was both a “k!ke” and a “f!g”. What my insurance didn’t cover, cost me $2500 in repairs. Police were called, a report was made, surveillance footage was useless though. Faces covered, they wore gloves so no prints, and it’s not like they’re rolling out the CSI to collect hair follicles off the deck for auto vandalism.
Two weeks later, an attempted arson attack on my front door. Someone wearing a mask and a hoodie lit a Molotov cocktail and threw it at my front door’s welcome mat, and if it weren’t for the apartment’s fire sprinklers ACTUALLY WORKING, my apartment would’ve burnt down with me in it because I wasn’t jumping from the 3rd floor balcony. That was a more serious crime, cops were very interested in solving it, but again. No useable prints, face covered for the camera, etc.
Then it was quiet for a month, my ex had reached out to me when she heard about the fire and I told her I fucking knew it was her “brother”, but I didn’t have any proof. She said she’d say something to him, and coincidentally, nothing happened again for a while, until I guess cops came around asking to talk to him because obviously I gave them his name as a person of interest. In the month and some change since our spat, she basically forced him to find some kind of work or she was going to kick him out, so, he had gotten a part-time gig at an auto shop in town that had a rep for being “the one you don’t go to, but fine to recommend to someone you hate”. They cut corners everywhere they could, so it was a perfect job for the fuckweasel, at least until the cops came looking for him one day asking about that fire. The owners didn’t like having cops asking about their employees so since he’d only been there a week or two, he got the boot. He deeply appreciated that.
So, one night I am getting home from work. I had stopped at the gym on the way, worked up a good sweat, and got a bite to eat from the grocery store. I pulled into my spot in my Enterprise rental – My car was still in the shop – and walked into my apartment.
Real quick: While I was over 21, and legally owned guns, and had a concealed carry permit, on days where I was on base I did not carry my pistol. It’s incredibly rare for anyone whose explicit job description doesn’t include “carries a pistol at all times” to be allowed to carry a weapon on base. Since I’m not leaving a pistol on my car, and there weren’t any places to securely store a weapon while I was working, I just opted to not take my gun with me. It’s also why I did not have a pistol on me the morning Shitdick jumped me.
I was unarmed.
I lived on the third floor, there was a fourth floor above me and stairs leading to it. I heard footsteps coming down the stairs fast, and I turned to see four guys in hoods, masks and wearing gloves coming towards me. My door was open, so I dropped my groceries and tried to slam the door behind me. They got a foot in and managed to wedge through into my apartment.
What followed took place during a period of about fourteen seconds. The neighbor across the way – After the fire – got a security cam installed outside their door as well, so we know the actual time stamps down to the second.
I kept a loaded pistol tucked in a closet near my front door – Irresponsible, I know, but I was younger and more naive than I am now.
In the scuffle with the first guy who came through the door, I managed to reach my hand into the closet, find the gun, and push myself back and away to give us several feet of space. I remember very vividly seeing all four men in my doorway and hallway, the first guy I had just pushed having been body-blocked from falling backward and was starting to come toward me a second time. I raised my pistol, this one was a Sig P226 chambered in .40 Smith & Wesson, and just as I heard one of them shout “GUN”, I started lining up shots and pulling the trigger.
There were no limb shots, no “shooting to scare them”, I didn’t try to wing them. Body. Body. Head. As I had trained, as I had been taught.
The first guy went down, the second guy caught two of the through-and-throughs from the first guy before I plugged him in the forehead. The third guy stopped dead in his tracks before catching four center-of-mass, and the fourth guy was halfway out the door before I emptied the rest of my magazine into him through friend #3 and whatever I could see and aim at.
You might be thinking, “OOPS! That fourth guy was running away, that’s murder! You’re a murderer!”
Well, the cops didn’t see it that way, and the investigators didn’t charge it that way.
Because he lived.
Now the first three recipients of my high velocity sleeping pills didn’t. The first guy’s brains were all over the second guy, the second guy’s brains were all over my wall. The third guy’s heart and both of his lungs were demolished by my .40 S&W, he was pronounced dead on the scene.
The fourth guy was my ex’s “brother”.
Of the three bullets that hit him, one grazed his ass, the other thoroughly lodged itself in his right asscheek, and the third one hit him square in the spinal cord, right around the kidney area. Shattered his spine and completely destroyed his lucrative career in competitive breakdance and bicycling. He was paralyzed from the navel down. Had to have a permanent catheter to catch his piss and a diaper for what was now the most useful byproduct he was capable of producing. He’d never walk again. He’d never fuck again. And when he was healthy enough to be discharged from the hospital, he was locked up in prison, given three manslaughter charges since he caught the rap for his three buddies getting killed. He was also charged with conspiracy to commit murder, assault, battery, and he even caught the reckless endangerment charges for me discharging MY firearm in an apartment complex with another apartment across the hall from the open door I was shooting towards.
He was never going to breathe free air again.
I would like to say that this ended up happily ever after, that she took me back, that we got married and I adopted her little one and we had a couple spares of our own.
But she didn’t. Within twenty-four hours, she declared that she was scared of me, that she did not want me anywhere near her or her child, that she’d call the police on me if she ever saw me near her home or her place of work – Which sucked, I liked that Target.
She called me a murderer. She accused me of “siccing the cops on him” to instigate a response, just so I could shoot him. She ignored the arson, the vandalism, the various threats he’d thrown at me in the previous months we were together.
I never saw her again. She blocked me on everything. Her family blocked me. She changed her number, she transferred to a different Target, and after a couple of months she moved to a different apartment in a different part of town. It has been eight years since the shooting and I still haven’t heard from her. I know she’s alive – Friends of friends informed me she got married in 2020, had a second kid, and is happy, so, more power to her.
I never got my happy ending. My white picket fence. Believe it or not, killing three guys, even for a person trained for war and conditioned for the possibility that one day he might have to do it, fucks with your head, especially when you consider it happened in your home and not in Baghdad or Abottobad. There’s a huge mental and emotional disconnect and difference between killing someone “for work” and killing someone because your life was in danger.
I had PTSD, I couldn’t touch any of my guns – Once I got them back – For a full year without having panic attacks. The Navy was great about it all, they aided with the investigation including that CO who called me the Apex Dumbass giving his statement of that morning I got jumped. I was offered the chance to live on base with protective detail until things cooled down, I declined.
Eight years, since then I’ve retired, I’m now working in the private sector, I have my own LLC making great money doing cybersecurity and site security consulting. Occasionally I go out boating. My partner of three years is the most love, supportive person I’ve ever been with. I know they have my back no matter who tries to kill me. We’re talking about having kids before we get too much older. Life’s good.
But you know what really warmed my heart?
Just the other day a Google alert I set up eight years ago triggered.
It was Skidmark McDipshit’s first and last name, followed by the word “obituary”.
It turns out someone in prison got sick and tired of the annoying whiteboy in a wheelchair talking so much shit and flexing on people, believing nobody would hit someone in a wheelchair.
They used the wheelchair to cave his skull in, and used their shoes to finish him off with a few good stomps.
Of course, it doesn’t say that in the obituary, it says he was a bright and loveable lad when he was young, who fell into hard times in his early adulthood and landed in prison. The real surprise is apparently he is survived by a daughter none of us knew he had back then, so, sucks for her but I doubt she ever got a chance to know her spermdonor anyway. Honestly, that’s for the best.
So yeah, sorry for the fucking novel, but I just didn’t feel like leaving out any of the details that mattered.
