Anyone see the video of a PLA recruit “trying” to throw a grenade? It’s a sight to see, this idiot and how he almost kills him and his instructor. There was no audio, and I would have loved to hear the choice words that the instructor must’ve directed at the recruit in question. I guess it just happened to be their lucky day.
I haven’t seen the video. But i recall my Basic (Combat) Training being made eminently more stressful due to a couple of incidents that had happened to previous, recent cycles (classes) that year. One incident involved a kid putting his M-16A1 under his chin during a live fire practice on the range and blowing his brains out (I had his Drill Sergeant while in “Holdover” awaiting my clearance). The other was when a trainee pulled the pin out of his M-67 grenade and pulled the bomb back to throwing position and holding it as instructed by his TAC Sergeant. The problem was that he nervously jostled his fingers while holding the grenade and the spoon moved triggering the fuse. The resulting explosion, just prior to his qualification throw, decapitated him and “hollowed out” the chest of his TAC Sergeant, despite his wearing of a flak vest.
I just remember our range training TAC Sergeants and Drill Sergeants always being a bit nervous and jittery when we were on ranges that late Summer…
Oh yeah, the instructor did a great job of pulling the recruit down into the ditch on the other side, he was thinking quickly that’s for sure. They need to get the recruit on tape telling his side of what happened and show the video to other recruits at the same time, that would make it a great safety/training aid.
Yikes! I bet that they made sure to bring all that up when you guys went through. I was in the air force and recall a few things we were told about with aircraft safety on the flight line. Never park and sit in a maintenance truck in front of an F-4. That came about after some numbnuts parked in front of one, and the weapons guy never disconnected the firing circuit to the 20mm gun slung underneath. He then went into the aircraft, and you guessed it, hit the trigger and off she went, killing a couple of dudes sitting in the truck. That’ll mess up your day for sure!
I saw the vid a few days ago and some ex US squaddie was saying they had not followed their safety drills which would have prevented this accident. What safety drills can prevent someone mis throwing freezing or panicking. Good pit design and an on the ball instructor was needed and thats what they had.
Ref the F4 incident, after the conflict in the Falklands a Harrier pilot managed to fire a sidewinder from a Harrier GR3 while it was on the ground. It was scooted along hitting the ground near a load of British troops, can’t remember about any injuries or deaths from it though.
I think probably one of the greatest military/naval accidents of all time was the “Zunie” rocket launching off the rails of an A-4 Skyhawk on the USS Forestall. You can actually see members of the deck crew being enveloped in fiery death:
During basic training my first grenade throw (and my entirely unpromising future military career :D) nearly went badly due to my nervous instructor (who I’d never seen before) in the throwing bay panicking when I followed the correct drill and pulled the pin on the relevant command and reached back waiting for the command to throw. The instructor screamed at me, with panic evident in his shrill voice, along the usual gentle military lines of “WTF do you think you’re fcuking doing, you fcuking stupid cnut?” etc as he thought I’d jumped a step and shouldn’t have the grenade primed and ready to throw. Fortunately I retained my composure better than my instructor, so neither of us got hurt.
I gather from discussions in later years with seasoned soldiers that it was probably partly a case of the instructor being trained on trainees, so he wasn’t as experienced and composed as more seasoned instructors in a situation that makes most of them nervous anyway.
As for why he decided that me following the long-establised correct drill was wrong, maybe that’s down to nervousness as well. Or maybe he was just a fcuking stupid cnut.
Well, that was a great idea with inexperienced instructors coupled with inexperienced recruits, right? What happed to the experienced instructor being with the inexperienced one? Sounds like something militaries might do the world over. By the way, I had some fine Australian lamb on Christmas Day, it was excellent. You Aussies keep sending them here and I’ll keep eating them!
Yeah, that was something and ole John McCain was right there in the midst of it all. What brave men those sailors were, fighting that balze and the heroics that went on as they worked to save their shipmates. My hat is off to them for all that they did.
Maybe the experienced instructor was in the next bay, avoiding my idiot inexperienced instructor. And pissing himself laughing at the terse conversation between the inexperienced instructor and me about why I did exactly what I’d been trained to do and if the fukcwit instructor didn’t like it he could take it up with my trainers instead of trying to introduce me to a new drill at a psychologically inopportune moment.
I had roast lamb tonight too, it being a cool spell before some seriously hot weather puts roasts off limits for a while, but I’ll guarantee it wasn’t as good as yours as we have a, from my viewpoint, stupid practice of exporting most of our best lamb and beef so that we locals get second rate stuff, unless we want to pay through the nose in a select range of restaurants which also get the export quality stuff. Not that second rate is bad, but I’d like to get my chompers into some of the first quality stuff we export.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5e6_1324971575
Another one for you, second video is showing the recruits how to prepare and throw the grenade.
No-one wanted our export quality beef a few years ago, nowt wrong with it.
Guess what?
That stuff is dangerous.
Note how the pit is dug out in various ways-just to counter such events.
Stuff happens and you got to be ready.
Ours were concrete and better defined.
I recall the walls being a bit lower too…
It’s tragic when this happens and most often due to drills not being followed - in this case due to nerves.
Perhaps his Instr should have recognised the nerves and calmed him down first, but then 20/20 hindsight is an easy thing to have.
It is for precisely this reason that most Commonwealth forces teach the sldr to hold thegren with the fly-off lever (spoon) held back in the palm rather than using the fingers.
I suspect part of it is the American sport of baseball, in which a players often jostle their fingers and stroke the ball out of habit mimicking footage of pros and films, or in the case of pitchers–to apply something (illegally) to make the ball fly in a favored trajectory…
I have seen training incidents involving well preparedAmericans as well as primitive tribesman.
The bottom line is that final instant when things go as planned or inexplicably totally wrong.
Guys you think are doing just fine can, for some unknown reason, freeze up, screw up, or do just fine.
Instructors-as the one shown are ready and quick to counter act the event.
Grip on the grenade and throwing technique is proscribed and practiced-right up to the last.
Remember-when the pin is pulled, Mr Grenade is no longer your friend.
Releasing the lever before throwing is an advanced technique not commonly taught or practised.
Agreed…good thing the instructors reacted instantly. They obviously have had more training.
We had no bags or bunkers, just dugouts to take cover.