A wise person once said, "Experience is the best teacher. Unfortunately, the tuition is often very high." Sometimes, that which we deem a terrible experience is, in fact, a valuable lesson that, by the very nature of its awfulness, insures that we will remember the lesson and forever modify our behavior.

In April 1970, I was nearing the end of Marine Corps recruit training at legendary Parris Island, S.C. I had a friend, Mike, a high school buddy, who had enlisted in the Corps a year earlier and who tried to warn me about Parris Island. Uncle George, who had been a member of what was referred to as the "Old Corps," likewise tried to prepare me for the 11 weeks that would await me.

Nothing could have prepared me for the deliberate agony of the Island. My recruiter said, "They don't curse you and that don't touch you." He lied.

From the moment I stepped off the bus, I was introduced to swear words I never knew existed and, even today, I cannot recall them without feeling that I need to go to Confession.

Parris Island was a stark, challenging, brutal place preparing boys to fight and to kill, as well as to die, in a brutal world overrun with vicious and unmerciful enemies. Of the 120 young men in Platoon 223, Second Battalion, who reported for duty on the first day of training, only 40 of the original number would graduate 11 weeks later.

Those of us who made it to the rifle range about seven or eight weeks later, felt we had it made. The worst appeared behind us and, already, we dared to think to hope about the anticipated graduation day. We were a bit cocky, in fact, "salty," in Marine lingo, when we arrived for our two weeks at the range.

For a week, we attended classes and spent hours contorting our pain-wracked bodies into the various firing position. The whole process was called "snapping in."

The next week was spent in live-fire in preparation for the all-important Qualification Day on Friday. A recruit who fails to qualify with the rifle, the M-14 back then, will not graduate with his platoon, if at all. Most who qualify will earn a Marksman's badge. A smaller group will qualify to wear the badge of Sharpshooter. Only 10 percent of Marines would ever wear the Expert designation.

I had had a good week on the range, sighting in, learning the weapon, discovering how to fire a good, tight "group." Then Thursday came and everything became tense. This was Pre-Qualification Day and we would fire for score.

Pre-qual Day was a good indication of how we would do on Friday at the vital Qualification Day and gave us a final chance to correct potentially serious errors.

Recruits were nervous, drill instructors were stalking about with critical eyes, and the PMI's, the primary marksmanship instructors, who had trained us for the two weeks were tense.

I fired well on Pre-qual Day and was settling into my last relay. From the "prone position" at the 500-yard line, I would fire five rounds into what was known as a "dog target." Translated, that means that we were lying on our stomachs, shooting high-powered shells into a target the size of a trash can lid over five football fields away. It was a daunting task.

My five rounds were squeezed off and then the scores began to be called in. The first was dead in the center of the bull's eye. So was the second, the third, and the fourth. But something went awry on the fifth shot and the call came back that I had missed the entire target. The PMI was livid.

As I stood at attention on the firing line, he ranted and raved one inch from my face, showering me with spittle, and demanded to know how in the blank I fired four blankety-blanking blank blank rounds dead in the blankety-blank blank center of the blankety blanketing target and on the fifth blank shot missed the blanking blanking whole blank target on the blank blankety blank blanking fifth blank shot!

I found the whole scene amusing and, in my "saltiness," did the unthinkable. I grinned.

I never saw it coming. I had never been hit in the gut as hard as the PMI hit me in that moment. I could swear that he hit my stomach and bounced his knuckles off my backbone. I was lifted up slightly and then hit then ground in a gasping, wheezing heap. My face kissed the ground and I sucked in the dust as the universe exploded in my head.

Fighting to retain consciousness, I heard the PMI as he bent down to scream in my ear, "You think this is some kind of game!? You think this is something to laugh at? In six months, it won't be dog targets, it will be the Viet Cong or the North Vietnamese! There are five enemy soldier out there and you waxed four of 'em. The one you just grinned at just put an AK-47 round clear through your gut or your buddy's head! It's not so funny now is it, you little puke!?"

No, it wasn't funny at all. Suddenly, in a blinding flash, I realized that we were at war and that it was no game. No game at all.

Joe Meade, a Marine and a high school football teammate had already died in Vietnam. Jimmy Jones, a friendly guy with an engaging smile and a classmate, had been drafted and had lost his life there, as well. Lonnie Bailey, my longtime next-door neighbor, and another Army draftee, had received nine terrible wounds in a single prolonged battle and would face years of therapy. It was no game.

The next day, I was assigned to a new PMI and I took up the weapon with a deadly seriousness. These targets would not fire back. The next targets, if worse came to worst, would be trying to kill U. S. Marines.

With each relay, with each round fired, I would hear the taunt from the previous day, "You think this is some kind of game?" It was personal now. The war had come home. At the end of the day, I fired a score of 223 out of 250 Rifle Expert.

Some will recoil at the thought of a 19-year-old kid getting gut-punched to make a point. Some people only learn the hard way.

Twenty-two years later, I was a recruit at the Fulton County Police Academy. At the pistol range, I took my place on the firing line with my 9mm semiautomatic Smith and Wesson in my hand. As I sighted in the first target, I heard a voice screaming in my head, "You think this is some kind of game!?"

The last time I qualified at the pistol range, it was with a score of 249 out of 250 a master rating. The PMI was still doing his job, still imposing his presence, still demanding excellence over two decades later.

When the hard experiences of life come, rather than flee from them or complain or whine about them, embrace them. They come not as enemies to destroy but as teachers to impart a much needed wisdom to teach a lesson that will continue to train and influence for many years for those who would learn by the experience and who are willing to pay the high tuition.

Life is no game.