Hand Grenade Day

Grenades, nasty little bits, make a man’s hand clench tight the first time he holds a real one. Heavier than you’d guess, oddly shaped, not at all like throwing a baseball, and deadly. We'd seen the training films and knew they were lethal. You need to throw it far enough so you don’t get it from your own grenade.

The first time I held one all I could think about was getting it over the wall, down range as far away from me as possible. Leaving training that day I thought we really should be getting a little more time with grenades, one throw doesn’t seem enough if this is gonna be real.

Later, after medic training at Sam Houston base, I ended up at Fort Jackson driving ambulances out of the hospital emergency room. Signing out my big box field ambulance one morning at the motor pool I was ordered to Remagen because a medic was required for training. I drove till I found the sign and turned in. It was the grenade range.

When I pulled up the cadre had the troops lined up and ready to go. I hustled up the tower, reported to the range officer and took a seat with my ammo can of medical supplies by my side.

“What’s that?” said the Range Officer.

“My supplies, Sir.”

“That’s it?” he said.

“This is everything I’ve got, Sir.”

I didn’t give him the inventory of APCs, cough syrup, a few small bandages and assorted crap none, of which would be useful if someone managed to blow themselves up with a hand grenade. If it involved more than one person I’d be stripping off my whites to make bandages.

“Are you telling me that’s everything you brought to the fucking grenade range?” he said.

“Sir, I’m telling you no one told me where I was going till after I signed out and this is everything they gave me.”

“Shit,” was what he said to me.

The range was placid in the early morning. The earth churned brown and lifeless by innumerable explosions. Anything trying to poke its head out of the soil shredded by shrapnel at 2300 ft/second. Surrounded by towering loblolly pines, it had the serenity of a cathedral opening for services, troops like congregants, cadre like shepherds.

Training was in a concrete bay about 25 feet in front of the tower. The bay was three sided, with concrete walls a bit more than waist high. The floor was concrete, cut away where it would have met the walls. If a grenade got dropped they could kick it to the side where it would drop into the sump underneath exploding down there while everyone up above huddled in safety. That was the survival plan.

The range was run by E-5s, all black, all in starched pressed fatigues, yellow

chevrons the only taste of color. Sleek greyhounds, calm, observant, coiled energy, not an ounce of fat in the entire group. Pushing the troops was an intricate ballet of moving the next one into the bay, bringing a grenade from the storage pit, then facing each other. The troop would mimic the sergeant like he was looking in a mirror. The sergeant would hand him the bomb, and he’d hold it next to his beating heart, then the sergeant would mimic pulling the pin from his imaginary grenade and the troop would mirror him. With the bomb live now, he’d cock his arm and upon the order, throw that little bastard over the wall in front of him, into the range to land and explode in the empty dirt while the troop and the sergeant crouched

behind the wall. That was the plan and that was how that beautiful morning went.

Until, a troop in perfect form, following the instructions like the excellent trainee he was, cocked his arm, and when told to throw, he did just that. He threw the little bastard about four feet, straight into the concrete wall directly in front of him. The grenade hit the wall and bounced back through the bay coming out the back where it sat in the dirt. The Captain and I sat up in the tower in our front row seats staring at the disaster happening right in front of us.

The Sergeant jumped on the trainee, threw him to the ground and covered him with his body prepared to take the blast to protect his charge. His partner standing off to the side calmly walked over, picked up the grenade, carried it into the bay and dropped it down the side where it fell into the sump. He covered whatever parts of the trainee were still showing, meanwhile the rest of us waited till the grenade exploded with a ferocious roar. Smoke, and dust,  and dirt came up from the sump obscuring the three of them for a moment and as it cleared the range officer and I in our front row seats watched the two NCOs whack the crap out of the trainee in violation of all standing orders.

Suddenly,  it was over. They helped him to his feet and straightened him out. The kid couldn’t stop apologizing. They said not to worry, it happens, next time you’ll get it right. They walked him out to his Drill Sergeant and came back with the next guy to take his turn at learning how to throw hand grenades. The Captain and I looked at each other grateful to the excellent range cadre and the capricious god of war that we dodged a bullet and didn’t say another word as we sat side by side, observing hand grenade training.

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