Retired Green Beret get "Court Martial"

[Tater]

Retired Green Beret shoots intruder, gets court
martial

BREVARD, Jan. 19, 2008 - Retired Army Green
Beret Smokey Taylor got his
court martial this weekend and came away feeling
good about it. Taylor,
at age 80 the oldest member of Chapter XXXIII of
the Special Forces
Association, was on trial by his peers under the
charge of "failing to
use a weapon of sufficient caliber" in the
shooting of an intruder at
his home in Knoxville, TN, in December. The
entire affair, of course,
was very much tongue in cheek. Taylor had been
awakened in the early
morning hours of Dec.
17, 2007, when an intruder broke into his home.
He investigated the
noises with one of his many weapons in hand.
When the intruder
threatened him with a knife, Taylor warned him,
then brought his 22
caliber pistol to bear and shot him right
between the eyes. "That boy
had the hardest head I've ever seen," Taylor
said after his trial. "The
bullet bounce d righ t off." The i mpact knocked
the would-be thief down
momentarily. He crawled out of the room then got
up and ran out the door
and down the street. Knoxville police
apprehended him a few blocks away
and he now awaits trial in the Knox County jail.
The charges against
Taylor were considered to be serious. He is a
retired Special Forces
Weapons Sergeant with extensive combat
experience during the wars in
Korea and Vietnam. "Charges were brought against
him under the premise
that he should have saved the county and
taxpayers the expense of a
trial," said Chapter XXXIII President Bill Long
of Asheville.
"He could have used a .45 or .38. The
.22 just wasn't big enough to get the job done."
Taylor's defense
attorney, another retired Weapons Sergeant,
disagreed. He said Taylor
had done the right thing in choosing to arm
himself with a .22. "If he'd
used a .45 or something l ike that the round
would have gone right
through the perp, the wall, t he neig hbor's
wall an d possibly injured
some innocent child asleep in its bed," he said.
"I believe the evidence
shows that Smokey Taylor exercised excellent
judgment in his choice of
weapons. He did nothing wrong, and clearly
remains to this day an
excellent weapons man." Counsel for the defense
then floated a theory as
to why the bullet bounced off the perp's
forehead. "He was victimized by
old ammunition," he said, "just as he was in
Korea and again in Vietnam,
when his units were issued ammo left over from
World War II." Taylor
said nothing in his own defense, choosing
instead to allow his peers to
debate the matter. After the trial he said the
ammunition was indeed old
and adde d the new information that the perp had
soiled his pants as he
crawled out of the house. "I would have had an
even worse mess to clean
up if it had gone through his forehead," Taylor
said. "It was good for
both of us that it didn't." Following testimony
from both sides, T aylor
was ac quitted of the charges and was given a
round of applause.
Meanwhile, back in Knox County, the word is out:
Don't go messing with
Smokey Taylor.
He just bought a whole bunch of fresh ammo.

## Tribune Editor Bill Fishburne is a member of
the Larry Thorne Chapter
XXXIII of the Special Forces Association.