Heller and Shannon: Judo and Matching the Tool to the Job

“So whattya gonna do about it?” Heller asked. It was not quite a challenge.

Shannon had poured out her tale of woe about the connection between Ce’Diff and the DEI director in her own company’s Human Resources department.

“What does DEI stand for?” Heller asked.

“Diversity, Equality and Inclusion” Shannon said.

“They should have called it DIE” Heller joked. “We have two kinds of people where I work. Those who can get the job done and those who won’t be working there much longer.”

“Life is not so simple in most places” Shannon lamented.

“There is no point in complaining about Shelquia because she is the one I would have to report it to. There is nobody higher in the food-chain than she is” Shannon said.

“I kinda agree with you that it is not worth going after this Squealer chick but I disagree about the food-chain. There is ALWAYS somebody above you on the food -chain. You just haven’t figured out who is above her” Heller said.

“What about Ce’Diff. Are you going to let her get away with what she did to us?” Heller asked.

Shannon looked at Heller. “Us?” she asked.

“Us!” Heller said with certainty. “It wasn’t anything you did. She kicked you in the teeth as a way to hurt me.”

“I don’t know. Yet.” Shannon said slowly and thoughtfully.

“Nothin’ wrong with that” Heller said, agreeably. “It is good to have options and it doesn’t look like we have any good ones right now.”

After considering for a few seconds, Heller added “I don’t think I ever shared this with a girl before, but my Mom enrolled me Judo classes. She thought I was getting bullied at school.”

“Were you?” Shannon asked, surprised.

“No, but Mom was worried because I got my growth late in life” Heller reassured her.

Shannon looked at Heller’s 5’-6”, wiry frame and said “Do tell.’

“Yeah, Mom thought that if I wasn’t as big as the other kids then I should have a few tricks up my sleeve” Heller said.

“Did you learn any tricks?” Shannon asked.

“Sure enough. I learned that the two easiest way to trip somebody up is to use their own momentum and to sweep their legs out from beneath them” Heller said.

"Somebody is pulling their wagon. Ce'Diff and that Squealer chick are symptoms, not causes. Thing to do is to find out who making people like them possible and dealing with him" Heller said.

“That is something to keep in mind” Shannon said, gravely.

***

“Hey, I gotta couple of things for you to try” Heller said.

“Yeah, like what?” Shannon asked.

With great fanfare, Heller pulled a box and handed it to her.

“Electronic, noise-cancelling ear-muffs” Heller said. “Best that money can buy.”

“I didn’t know they were a ‘thing’” Shannon admitted.

“Oh, you are going to like them. I guaran-damn-tee it” Heller said.

“And…..” Heller pulled out a plastic box with a flip-top “...some new ammo for your 9mm.”

Shannon could not see what the big deal was about the ammo but she was willing to play along. She had gone on-line and about fainted when she saw the price of ammo. If Heller was willing to buy it, she was willing to shoot it.

A short while later, out at the dump, Heller spent an inordinate amount of time setting up the reactive targets. Unlike the other times, they had only brought their 9mm handguns.

“So, tell me, what is so special about this ammo?” Shannon asked.

“I gotta admit I was braggin’ you up at work. Most guys don’t have girlfriends or wives who want to go shooting with them” Heller said.

“I may have also mentioned that you really liked reactive targets like when we were shooting potatoes and water-bottles”

“Well, one of the guys I work with, Jeremy, hand-loads ammuntion. You want to go hunting elk out west or prairie dogs or shooting hogs down-South, Jeremy is the guy to talk to.”

“Well, Jeremy offered me this box of bullets. He wanted to know how you liked them” Heller said, handing the box of bullet over to her.

Unsure, Shannon opened the flip-top and looked at them. To her, they looked like any other box of the hollow-point bullets that Heller had her shoot.

She shook her head. “I can’t see what is so special about them” she admitted.

“You gotta see what they do to the targets” Heller said.

Shannon was game. What the heck.

She lined up on one of the water bottles at five yards and ran through her mental-checklist for her thumbs-forward grip...and then she told the “go” button to do its thing.

Even with the noise cancelling headgear, she could tell this was a more energetic round. She could FEEL the muzzle-blast. It was sharper than what she usually shot.

The other thing she noticed was that the water bottle was not there. It was not cartwheeling through the air. It had simply disappeared, replaced by a rapidly expanding ball of mist where the bottle had been.

“Shoot the next one” Heller said.

She did, with the same result.

“What are they?” Shannon asked.

“Jeremy said he had been asked to load some 90 grain, .380 bullets in 9mm cases. The guy who paid him to do it didn’t want them all” Heller said.

“Ok, now tell me the same thing but in English” Shannon told him.

Heller patiently explained “Bullets have to be matched to the velocity they hit targets with. The .380 is not very powerful and so it shoots a very lightweight bullet. It might be going 800 feet-per-second when it hits the target.”

“To make sure that bullet expands at those slow speeds, it has to be made from very soft lead and have a very thin jacket.”

“OK, I understood that” Shannon said.

“When Jeremy loaded them into the 9mm it might be going 1400, maybe even 1500 feet per second. It explodes on contact. Jeremy thought you might like it because it really demolishes reactive targets” Heller said.

Shannon thought for a few seconds before asking “If they are so awesome, then why aren’t you using them in your daily carry?”

“Damned good question” Heller said. “It is easier to show you than to tell you.”

Heller set up a water bottle about four inches in front of a gallon jug that used to hold antifreeze.

“Hit the water bottle as close to the center as you can” he told Shannon.

Against her better judgment, Shannon got with about eight feet of the target and lined it up to ensure the big jug was centered behind the water bottle. Then she touched it off.

Again, a ball of mist which knocked over the antifreeze jug.

After holstering her pistol, Heller retrieved the jug and said “Look.”

The jug had a few tiny, jagged cuts in it from the bits of jacket but there was no hole in it, per se.

“You could shoot a 300 pound man and blow off his man-boob...but not stop him. That is why nobody uses these for self defence” Heller said.

Then Heller lined up four of the antifreeze jugs, all filled with water.

Shannon shot the first jug.

Heller showed her the holes in the first THREE jugs and, rattling the fourth jug, showed her that the bullet was still mostly in one piece.

“That is what a bullet is supposed to do” Heller said. “You might have to shoot through an attackers forearm if his is pointing a gun at you, or through his shoulder or through a big beer-belly.”

Heller and Shannon shot another fifteen of the fifty rounds before Shannon said “You know, these just aren’t as much fun, even with the ear-muffs.”

So Heller put the box of bullets into the tool box on the quad and they went back to shooting Heller’s every-day hollow-points.

Oh, and Shannon REALLY liked the noise cancelling ear-muffs.