Gurkha uses kukri to single-handedly repel Taliban attackers

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Steve Tall

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Outnumbered, knocked over by a bullet hitting his helmet, then narrowly avoiding an exploding grenade, the gurkha reached for his kukri...

...Rifleman Tuljung Gurung of the Royal Gurkha Rifles was coming to the end of his watch in a sangar – a fortified sentry post – a little before 4am on 22 March this year when he noticed two men running towards him. When they responded to his challenge with a volley of shots, he returned fire. A moment later, a bullet hit the left side of his helmet, knocking him over.

"It felt like someone had hit me on the helmet with a big hammer," said Gurung, who is now an acting lance corporal. "I managed to stand up and then I realised that a grenade was bouncing off the ceiling of my sangar and had landed an arm's length in front of me."

He swiped the grenade away just before it exploded, covering him in dust and stones. When the dust cleared, he saw that one of the insurgents had climbed up the sangar and was peering in. Unable to swing his rifle round, Gurung drew his long, curved kukri knife and began to hack at him.

"I knew that I had to do something before he did something, so I just did what I could like a madman," said the Gurkha. After a fight lasting five or six minutes, Gurung saw off the two insurgents, who turned and fled. The 28-year-old soldier's actions won him the Military Cross. According to the citation, Gurung's "speed of action and utter disregard for his own safety prevented two armed insurgents from gaining access to the patrol base and prevented loss of life"...

--quoted from "Military honours for bravery and sacrifice in Helmand" by Sam Jones, The Guardian, 3 October 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/04/military-honours-helmand

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Brave Gorkha rifleman, thank you Steve for the post.
 
I understand how a sentry post (house or trench) can be so small that he cant turn his rifle around. But it was so big that there was enough room for the grenade to be swiped away into a safe distance?
What I don't get is that the armed (they shot at him from a distance already) Taliban couldn't shoot him from outside and yet were so close that he could hack at them? Were they out of Ammo before they started "peering in"? Or were they just plain stupid and thought the grenade took care of the Gurkha soldier and therefore had rested their weapons somewhere on a tree and not ready to fire in their hands?
btw. Give them Gurkhas some pistols and Uzis and the Taliban can not run away anymore.

edit: I actually don't get how you cant turn a rifle around. If your body can turn around the rifle can too. If its pointed forward it might be too long. So bring it to your body with the opening pointed up and the butt down, turn around and then point it forward again. If you have it in your hand already its much faster then to put it down and getting a huge knife unsheathed.

Like hero stories but am also a skeptic. Maybe there are some more detailed version of this story which could shed some light?

edit 2: Turns out the Taliban had probably no weapon since he had to climb 3 meters up to reach the Gurkhas position. Or he was in the process of climbing while the soldier already hacked at him so he couldn't fire a weapon even if he would have had one. In the following struggle they both fell down from there :o More details and a picture of the Kukri here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...uljung-Gurung-Armed-Forces-given-honours.html
Still, give them some pistols in addition to rifles.
 
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