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It is very peaceful on the beach. One can be alone with thoughts and there is almost a reverence that infuses the salt air on these shores. A small sign here and there accompanied by a faded photograph hidden in the tall razor grass might tell of what transpired on a certain spot on that day and it all seems so surreal. There are bunkers all about and all of them look right down the throat of the beach daring anyone to assail them and yet the young soldiers did just that. It must have been sheer terror to have covered all that distance under waterlogged gear and seek refuge within a small band of pebbles or behind a sagging sand wall that could be cut through with one burst of machine gun fire and yet they still came. Their names are as varied as where they hail from. There are 9,387 buried at the Normandy American Cemetery. The white crosses are carved from white marble and they follow the camber of the earth perfectly. You can stand in any direction and face nothing more than symmetrical rows flowing out in all directions. Most of the men died on that single day and most of them were kids. The museum displays the gear from that time and there are letters that are stained with saltwater and blood. They are simple letters written to mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters and to girlfriends and their words belie none of the terror that was to befall them on that fateful day. They spoke of simple things such as food and their fellow soldiers and of the people whose land they had come to liberate. It is heart wrenching. The museum and the cemetery directly overlook the beaches. The cliffs are right there. The bunkers are right there. And the soldiers are right there. They are eternally embraced in a united peace in a single place from the result of one day in 1944. They were remarkable young men.

INSIDE THE LAPD- CIRCA 1976 –High Tech Speed Loaders
by Scott Reitz

We were in our Academy class one day when all classes were stopped and we were summarily sent out into the hills of Northeast Division to search for a pistol that had been used against an LAPD Officer in the early morning hours of the day. Back then we wore khaki trousers, shirts and hats. We searched through the mountains and the rough dry grass of the hills that was littered with beer bottles, discarded oil cans and car parts and the spent needles of hypes. Earl Paysinger now a Deputy Chief, found the weapon and that acquitted our class as real crime fighters right then and there. Our picture was printed in the newspaper and yup…I saw myself! There I was, middle of the search line with my head down shoulder to shoulder with my other erstwhile soon-to-be crime fighters probing the grass with our batons for the gun. Our instructors had some choice words for us and none of them too encouraging. The one thing you didn’t want to do back then was to try to prove any of them wrong on anything. If they saw us as a bunch of nimrods in all things police then so be it…you’d better be a nimrod until they felt otherwise. Somewhere during our training they issued us spring steel ‘speed clips’ for reloading the revolver. These fit into the flat rectangular ammunition pouches on the front of the duty belt. You had twelve spare rounds so you’d better hit as we were told. These speed reloader’s were comprised of six small spring steel clips that grasped the .38 caliber casing and were each fastened to a straight piece of steel that held all six in a straight row. The whole thing was high tech as it was chromed and that was pretty much it as high tech goes. The way it worked was as follows. You dumped the empty cases with one hand and retrieved the speed strip with the other. Then you fed each round into a chamber and turned the speed strip outward using a little bent wire handle that folded into the whole affair and this pried the live round from the spring clip and the round fell into the chamber if and only if you had the pistol straight down in the vertical. If you tired to go really high tech and load two rounds at a time it didn’t go well. Invariably one of the rounds refused to cooperate and would fly away from the open cylinder never to be found again. A lot of swearing always accompanied this process during timed stages of fire. Essentially you were down to one round at a time. Feed the round, prang the little handle, turn the cylinder, feed the round, prang the handle, turn the cylinder …for all six rounds! This of course was to be done in the midst of a gunfight when things were not going well at all. Rhhiiight! This then was high-tech LAPD circa 1977 as it applied to the revolver. These little items have turned into true collectors pieces and I don’t recall having seen them anywhere else ever! I could not believe this but as I wrote this piece I searched some old file drawers and found the whole affair. So the attached photo is the very genuine entire high-speed rig that I wore during my Academy days and for my probation on the rough streets of LA. Not too comforting when I look back on it. I could not however find any of the old 158 grain lead round nosed bullets that we were issued. Contrast this to high capacity magazines, engineered bullets, night sights, double retention holsters, exotic composite materials and you can see how far we’ve come. How’s that for looking back?

Scott,
Is it worth it to have an attorney on retainer should I become involved in a shooting?
Anonymous

Dear A.,
An attorney that you know and trust might not be a bad thing, if he is qualified in these type of cases, but there are few that understand deadly force issues. You might be better served by contacting us for references if the need arises. The attorneys that we have worked with are true experts in their field and this is precisely what you will need.

Uncle Scotty,
What are your thoughts on shoulder holsters?
George H.

Dear George, I wear these when I’m wearing a suit or on special functions but I am well aware of the following; I can’t draw as fast as with other holsters, it is less concealable than other rigs, it is not as secure as other rigs and it is harder to reload from the magazine carriers on the opposing side. It is not really a gunfighting rig in the pure sense of the term but rather a holster that accommodates to certain situations where other holsters may not be as practicable.