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Trigger Finger
War is hell, for sure. Either you kill them, or they kill you. Some guys just weren't up for it.
If you were cannon-fodder, there was one bright spot: Almost any serious injury could get you taken out of the front lines and returned home.
Even fairly minor injuries that just made you unable to fight. Except for one minor injury that happened a lot: Many, many guys somehow got their trigger-finger shot off.
Worked for a while, but halfway through WW1, the top brass figured it out and changed the regulations. If there weren't two witnesses who could vouch for you, then instead of being shipped home in glory, you were lined up in front of a firing squad because of " cowardice in the face of the enemy."
I sometimes imagine what it must have been like in those stinking trenches. And I imagine what it would be like to press my trigger finger over the muzzle of my rifle, and reach for the trigger with my other hand.
Surely you'd have to be purty brave to do that..
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"Asking a bomb squad if an old bomb is still "real" is not the best thing to do if you want to save it." - denim
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