There are times when I think I couldn’t possibly be amazed anymore. And then I find something like this:

The lead rounds followed an arcing trajectory that brought them to the ground four miles away. Eight bullets punched through the roof of the school and at least one lodged in a child’s desk. AP, Accidental strafing divides N.J. region (November 27, 2004) via USAToday

Now, it’s not actually the strafing of a school that amazes me. Military training exercises with jets shooting at targets from over a mile away and within four miles of a school is probably de rigueur in militaristic expansionist countries without enough desert space in which to hone their skills. And, after all, most of our pilot’s can, no doubt, shoot straight.

No, what surprises me is the reaction of people after the strafing, in which at least one bullet was found lodged in a student’s desk.

“Let ’em alone; they’re over there putting their lives on the line for us,” [Army special forces veteran] Hickman said as he prepared to hunt deer in Bass River, near the edge of the range. “That guy (the pilot) probably feels so bad about this. He’s probably going to get sent overseas and he might not even come back. As long as no one got hurt, this whole thing should just be forgotten.”

Now I’m not for castigating the pilot, unless an investigation shows some kind of negligence as the cause. The fact of the matter is that you cannot have a military, even if ours was used only for legitimate purposes, without training its members.

But “fuggedaboutit”??? Ignore the fact that a military jet strafed a school with a weapon that fires six thousand bullets per second???