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)

[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)

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.