Paintball is a great asset for the military, you can read the interview with the world’s #1 ranked player we had here: Paintball In The Military (Ollie Lang).
I started this game of paintball like any other. I was wearing a camouflage shirt and yellow with stripes shorts (not exactly great for blending in, in woodsball). It was capture the flag, a group of defenders in a narrow corridor vs. us, the attackers.
I started out following a couple guys up the mountain to get sniper position on the enemy base, but after a few minutes up, the terrain was too steep for my shoes, and my nice shorts were starting to get dirty. I went back down and joined the main group, where two of my teammates had just been shot. I asked them where the enemies were, and they pointed an area of the forest where they think they were shot from.
After several minutes of waiting around to try and hear or see them, I spotted one of them crawling through some concrete tubing. Immediately I shot her, only moments later to find out she was on my team! After apologizing, I found out she was able to stay in the game, since friendly fire wasn’t counted in this match. A couple minutes later, my wait pays off (or so I thought) as I see an enemy emerging from a back-around woods spot that must have take a while to get to. I decide to make his journey fruitless and shoot him too. But guess what? He was on my team too.
I realize my intel was a little bad, and decide to head into deeper enemy territory with the ally I just shot. We jump over a giant mud area, and continue on our way. Suddenly a stream of paint is whistling by us as he is pelted by someone other then me this time. I immediately start heading back the way we came, only to step one foot too close to that giant mud area. My foot sinks in, it must be over 2 feet as my other foot goes next. I struggle to release myself in this big quicksand-like mud that I’ve never seen before. The next thing that happens, I fall over and half my body is covered. I struggle my way free, only to lose one of my shoes in the process.
After getting out, I decide to go back in and try and find my shoe, the mud is much too deep to find a shoe that is worth getting back, so I leave the area to start walking back and be done with the game.
On my way back, covered with mud, without one shoe, I think about how in every story, there is always this moment of adversity before victory, and how great a story it would be if I was to capture the flag despite all that had happened. I had to decide if I was going to be the guy that fell in the mud, missing a shoe, defeated…or the one that capture the flag despite it all.
The decision was an easy one, I turn to the two fellows from earlier who are standing by watching the action, I tell them I’m going to go capture the flag.
I head back, this time with nothing to lose, no worry about the shoe, or getting shot at. I run up and take cover behind a box and get eyes on the first defender near the flag. I run up shooting like a wild man at him, when he pops up to see me, he ducks down for cover as I run around his wooden shield and give him a clean shot on the behind. I take his wooden cover from the other side and look for the next poor soul to cross my path.
Thankfully the two teammates who I was originally following were up in the mountain, and ready to lay down some great cover fire. They yell down to me that they will cover me while I run up to the ‘Alamo’ base for one othe last 2 remaining enemies. He says on 3, but I start running on one (didn’t hear that part until I was mid-run). In a furious charge I get within a few feet of the next defender who is yelling “out out”, he says “i’m out of paint”, I tell him to hold his gun up and head back, no need to make him feel the pain too.
With just one defender left, covered somewhere in the brush area behind the flag, and having no visual on him. I dash with the fastest one-shoed sprint I can come up with. I reach the flag, and know that I am almost immediately home free, but that doesn’t stop me from sprinting for another 30 seconds. As I pass the two teammates who were standing around watching, I realize that I kept my word, and for the first time in my life had capture the flag in paintball.
The previous is a true story by one of our servicemen overseas. If you would like to know what kind of equipment he was using, it was a Tippman 98 Custom. You can see them below:
. You can also get either of the sequels to the movie or a collection of all three 
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is made up of a harness wrapped around the user’s body, and straps attached to the front and back of the gun, respectively. The sling can be attached to the user’s body in a number of different locations, including the hip and chest.
