Blown up M-14 at Fort Sill, 1970

[Griff Murphey]

Some of you might remember the story I told about the guy in my squad at ROTC advanced camp who filled a 7.62 blank all the way up to the tip of the "bullet" extension with powder from other blanks. I saw the round with a twig in it and the guy said "I had to put that in to hold the powder." After he had told me this I did my best to try to talk him out of firing it but he pretty much dismissed my advice. Oh yeah the rifle had a BFA on it.

We were doing a night raid patrol and after we "attacked" the objective he came walking up holding the three main groups of the rifle and he had shrapnel wounds on his left forearm. The magazine was not found, the fiberglass stock was split. The lower third of the bolt had been blown out of the bottom of the receiver. The gun was totally frozen.

Just found the photo. Not perfect but it is what I have. I think I took it with a Minox 16mm.

He simply told the TACs that it blew up and he did not know why. Nobody ratted Mitch out but he sure took out a nice new M-14.

[joem]

Just shows you can't fix stupid.

[Griff Murphey]

I wonder about his military career.

[SPEEDGUNNER]

He is a general now...

[1563621]

assistant to our leader!

[Michaelp]

Never failed to be amazed at the myriads of things GIs were capable of resulting in injury, death, or simple mayhem.
Not just trainees, niether.
Stories from funny as hell thru too sad to repeat.
Springfield Armory museum used to have most of a Garand on display that some fool had fired a live round through a rifle grenade.

[Former Cav]

the LIVE grenade toss was ALWAYS exciting in Basic Combat Training!
Had one MORON set the grenade on the wall after he let the spoon fly.
The DI knocked it over the wall and then threw the guy down in the pit and jumped on top of him.
the grenade went off on the other side of the wall.
The trainee got up and took off running and the DI was after him screaming.
I never saw that guy again. (the trainee) :eek:

[stefor]

Would that have been at Fort Ord in 1972?

[captcrunch227]

the LIVE grenade toss was ALWAYS exciting in Basic Combat Training!
Had one MORON set the grenade on the wall after he let the spoon fly.
The DI knocked it over the wall and then threw the guy down in the pit and jumped on top of him.
the grenade went off on the other side of the wall.
The trainee got up and took off running and the DI was after him screaming.
I never saw that guy again. (the trainee) :eek:

This was a great read! I literally laughed out loud, thanks for sharing

[StockDoc]

there was something like that in a movie, don't remember which, but in the movie the DI got some fragments in his back, I'm am sure it happened a lot, or else they wouldn't have built those walls.

Watched "Thin Red Line" last night and one Character went to pull a grenade from his belt by the pin, and just the pin came out. The Grenade exploded in the belt.

[John Sukey]

I remember they made us throw it like a shot put rather than an over arm motion. Possibly worried that someone would drop it if they tried the overarm method like throwing a baseball

[fjruple]

One of the reasons the US went to the M67 Hand Grenade was most troops thought the shot putt type throw was too cumbersome in combat. The troops would end up throwing the grenade like a baseball anyway. The M67 Hand Grenade was developed to be about the size of a baseball. At the time most US troops had participate in little league baseball when they were youngesters and could throw a baseball pretty accurately. (Who knows what they do now.) I believe the M67 is still the standard frag for the US and Canada.

Cheers

--fjruple

[Griff Murphey]

At Fort Sill it was watchee lookee for us Rotsees. The guys who threw the cast iron trainers the longest threw them like footballs rolling them off of their fingertips and directing them accurately. I was one of the worst grenade throwers in the platoon because I built model airplanes and shot guns; never did team sports. Eventually I got where I could throw them kinda sorta ok. The day on the range we each got to chunk one M-26 hand frag. I threw, it went bang, then I wanted to see where I hit and my SFC coach nearly stuffed me into that grenade sump.

[case42so]

Griff When I was at advance camp in 75 I could not do the shot put throw worth a darn. After several attempts to throw the practice grenade the DI ordered me off the range and instructed me to never try to throw a live one.

Brian

[Griff Murphey]

I think the reason they put that E-7 SFC in the pit with me was a certain lack of confidence. But it was misplaced. I was not scared of the M-26 at all. We threw lots of smokes and simulators in high school ROTC. Our sergeant brought back cases of the stuff from advanced camp at Sill (that was the high schools' cadres' summer job!) and we had plenty.

Fort Lewis, right?

Don't take this the "wrong" way but my marriage to a woman from an "athletic" family has helped my catching and throwing a lot!