For whatever reason, that's what stuck out in the mind of 1st Lt. Jared Cox when an investigating officer asked him about the night of April 8 - the night he and another soldier nearly died.
Dozens of pages of interviews and written testimony reveal a night that was, in many respects, a routine shift at the Utah Test and Training Range - before things went dangerously wrong.
As such, the report sheds light on a world little appreciated outside military circles, where even in the relative safety of a training exercise, the difference between life and death is measured in inches, in seconds, and in trust.
Calling it a night. Cox and Sgt. 1st Class James Walker - visiting from Ft. Lewis, Wash., to train with the Air Force to prevent friendly fire mishaps in combat - had been out past midnight for several nights in a row.
Even those well outside of designated bombing areas must stay in place when attack aircraft are in the air over Utah's west desert practice range. So the pair was getting used to being stuck on the range, waiting for other training missions to end.
But on that overcast Tuesday night, a pause in live-fire operations had opened a window to get off the range. Cox and Walker stripped off their body armor and took the opportunity to call it a night.
They were sidetracked, however, when Cox first forgot his camera in another vehicle, and then for a few minutes more as he gave last-minute instructions to others remaining behind. By the time he got back to his vehicle - a Chevrolet Suburban rented from from Avis - a convoy of other vehicles had already left the range.
Meanwhile, a group of F-16 fighter jets from Hill Air Force Base were en route to their practice targets.
A call came over the radio - "really loud," Cox recalled thinking. He reached down to turn down the volume...
Aiming for 'the coffin.' In skies above the Utah desert, Maj. John Erickson had just taken on 2,000 pounds of fuel from an aerial refueling tanker. In the cannons under the wing of his aircraft were 220 high explosive incendiary rounds - exploding bullets as big around as a 50-cent piece.
Erickson's intended target was an old armored personnel carrier, parked in an area known as "the coffin" for the distinct pattern formed by surrounding roads.
Flying with night vision goggles at 575 mph, the veteran pilot made a first run over the target area, accurately picking out the personnel carrier with an infrared lighting beam for his wingman, Col. Kevin Schneider. Soon, the two fighter jets were coming around for another pass. Now Schneider was illuminating the target. Erickson could see it as he approached the coffin.
Glancing at his altimeter, Erickson saw that he was lower than he'd intended. Later, Erickson would tell an investigator that he'd already broken the range regulations once that night, coming over the target at about 1,100 feet above ground level when he should have been closer to 1,500.
He wasn't going to make that mistake again. "Don't press the range reg's on this one," he recalled thinking. "So I'm shallow. I'm going fast I've got to recover higher."
It only took a second or two to adjust. But at 575 miles per hour, the ground below was flying by at a rate of more than one Salt Lake City block every second.
Erickson looked up and announced his shot.
"Tally target," he said.
He pulled the trigger . . .
'Abort! abort!' Inside the SUV, there was a brilliant flash of light. Glass shattered everywhere. Explosions. Screaming. Terror.
And then, a sudden realization: That was the first jet. There could be another behind it.
"Turn off the lights!" Walker screamed at Cox, who was behind the steering wheel. Stunned, glass embedded in his face and arm, Cox struggled with the rental's unfamiliar controls.
Walker could hear a second fighter jet roaring in from overhead. "Get out!" he screamed.
The soldiers ran from the vehicle, diving under an embankment
"Abort!" Walker screamed. "Abort! Abort!"
'Were there any injuries?' Erickson's jet was still climbing from the target run when he heard the call.
"Abort! Abort! Abort!" someone on the radio screamed.
It didn't make sense. He'd spent more than 800 hours in an F-16 cockpit. He'd made a number of successful runs over that same target. If something had gone wrong, surely he would have felt it.
"I mean, I didn't even have a little hair on the back of my neck stand up," the pilot told the investigator. "In my mind, I was like, 'That was a weird abort - I wonder what that was about.' "
The voice on the radio - an air controller on the range - returned. "That was high on the terrain, west of my position!"
That wasn't right. It was hundreds of yards wrong.
"No f---ing way Were there any injuries?" Erickson asked.
"Standby "
"Damn it."
Ninety-two seconds passed. The voice on the radio returned.
"We do have injuries."
'We train as we fight.' Inches, not feet.
Seconds, nothing more.
That's what separated life from death on April 8.
At least five 20 mm rounds hit the driver's side of the Suburban, including one that entered the car just inches behind where Cox was seated.
Cox suffered shrapnel wounds. Walker took some light shrapnel and dislocated his shoulder, apparently from the percussion of the explosions. Both were treated and released from a Tooele hospital. Within days, they were back with their families and friends in Washington.
Erickson was grounded pending the results of the investigation, which found him at fault. He's since been recertified to fly and is awaiting permission to begin using live ammunition again.
Commanders at Hill Air Force Base have offered circumspect military maxims to explain what happened - and what it all means.
"One incident like this is too many," one Hill commander offered following the incident.
"Precision matters," another added on Tuesday. "The stakes are high."
But the adage offered by a representative from the injured mens' base in Washington may best epitomize the accident - and the kind of hazards faced by service members every day.
"We train as we fight," said Ft. Lewis spokesman Joe Piek. "And fighting is dangerous work."
