I think a good tactic might have been to deploy the bedsheet rope in order to make it look as if he had climbed down to the floor below.
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Bed that saved me from the Taliban
71–80 of 148 posts
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#72Amazing read. (IMO there is a small mistake. They write "I could see the fire on my left hand side" but the fire from the tagged window is on "the right" from inside...)
Or once on the balcony, he turned back to face the facade in order to better watch it...
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder why they shot at the tidy bed but not the unkempt one. The narrator seems to imply he knew hiding under the unkempt one was the better option. Why is that ? Also, what's with "holding the bed with my toes and fists" ? I don't picture that really well.
> I wonder why they shot at the tidy bed but not the unkempt one. The narrator seems to imply he knew hiding under the unkempt one was the better option. Why is that ? I wondered this as well. He did say he has had significant training, but honestly, I think this was just pure luck.
Bad guys break Good things.
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#74I strongly recommend "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why" by Amanda Ripley [1]. It is a terrific look of the character traits and behavior of people who survive life-threatening circumstances and those who don't.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2706211-the-unthinkable
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#75I strongly recommend "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why" by Amanda Ripley [1]. It is a terrific look of the character traits and behavior of people who survive life-threatening circumstances and those who don't. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2706211-the-unthinkable
One thing that struck me about this story was that he made some good decisions and some bad ones, but as he points out he got really lucky a bunch of times. None of his habits would have mattered if he’d been in the restaurant, if he’d have been in the wrong room, picked the wrong bed to hide under, or hadn’t moved just out of the way of a sniper’s bullet, and if a tank had fired on his room.
It’s easy to assume that a given set of habits correlate with survival, and even easier to write a book effectively engaging in survivorship bias. It’s a lot harder to get lucky many times in a row, to have the opportunity to not die. So read the book, keep your back to a wall and an eye on exists, but recognize that none of that would have helped this guy. The two big tings that seemed to have saved this guy is temperament (look at his job for indication she that job followed temperament and and not the other way around) which allowed him to remain calm, and sheer dumb luck.
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#76Incredible, to be hiding under one of two beds in his hotel room, and having the other bed being searched and shot at by the Taliban. > Don't concentrate only on work, stressful and bad things in your life. Concentrate instead on creating good moments and being around good people, because life is so beautiful.
I wonder why they shot at the tidy bed but not the unkempt one. The narrator seems to imply he knew hiding under the unkempt one was the better option. Why is that ? Also, what's with "holding the bed with my toes and fists" ? I don't picture that really well.
> Also, what's with "holding the bed with my toes and fists" ? I don't picture that really well.
The bed didn't have enough space for him to fit with its legs on the floor. I imagine he was lying face-up under the bed, with his arms outstretched, fists balled up supporting one end of the bed (under strut). At the other end, his heels would have been on the floor, with his toes bearing the weight of the bed
edit: uploaded my badly drawn interpretation https://imgur.com/a/Q3kBA1T
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#77At first I missed the fact that this was a year ago at the very start of the article and just read that it was January 20th. So I briefly thought that it happened yesterday and this badass was already writing articles and posing for photos with the bed. Still pretty badass though.
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder why they shot at the tidy bed but not the unkempt one. The narrator seems to imply he knew hiding under the unkempt one was the better option. Why is that ? Also, what's with "holding the bed with my toes and fists" ? I don't picture that really well.
> I wonder why they shot at the tidy bed but not the unkempt one. The narrator seems to imply he knew hiding under the unkempt one was the better option. Why is that ? I wondered this as well. He did say he has had significant training, but honestly, I think this was just pure luck.
There is the saying its better to be lucky than good.
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#79It's insane to me that a sniper opened fire on Vasileiou without any confirmation that he was a target. If he had been killed and word had gotten out, it would have been horrible PR.
It's also insane that Vasileiou went from being in immediate danger of burning alive to immediate danger of hypothermia. What a roller coaster. And his training was broad enough to cover the entire spectrum.
Re: Bed that saved me from the Taliban
#80Amazing read. (IMO there is a small mistake. They write "I could see the fire on my left hand side" but the fire from the tagged window is on "the right" from inside...)
I think that was from the tank blasting at the window.