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Look, I still have the scars on my hand and face from an "incident" on the grenade range at Quantico in 1968. Somebody a few pits over just froze, and several of us were very lucky..but it was an accident.

To take the points you both make, let's say that range had been in sue for many years, configured exactly the same way, and what, tens of thousands of Marines had gone through the course, with exactly the same training standards and specifications, with nary ONE fatality..and now..all of a sudden, it's a command failure due to improper training and leadership? It may be, but we don't know..if we create a culture of zero-tolerance for training incidents..in which the price for such an event is your career, then it's gonna end up costing many more lives in combat..you train like you fight, you fight like you trained..

I'm sorry ken5050 it doesn't wash. That's the point they made I think. It's a culture from command down. If you were in the service, and I assume you were since a grenade is in your history, you know that you are taught to do things over and over and over and over.

One step follows the other, especially when it comes to weapons systems. No deviation from prepping to aiming to loading etc... if they thought the mortar went off but weren't sure the tube was clear then somebody wasn't paying attention. That someone was trained that after every round goes out a check is done.. something made him think that he didn't have to check or wasn't rote memorized enough to become part of his muscle memory.

... just think about every time you open a bolt and look down into the chamber. you don't even think about it, because you've done it 1000's of times. That just means that somehow they reviewed this unit and maybe found out that they took short cuts or occasionally were lax in discipline....just enough to let it become dangerous.

I don't know but all I know is that the man in command is probably feeling like he let those 7 men down. At least the senior NCOs do.

I had a liner from my helmet "twang" and my helmet spun around from somebody "accidentally" drawing across me with his g#@damn finger on the trigger in a live fire exercise. Joking around grab assing and only 1 person would have died. Me.

I almost smashed his skull in when I quit shaking but his fire team and squad leader paid the price..... then he paid the price.

Those brave men lost their lives and now that I'm older realize that they gave their lives so that future Marines can be saved by being reminded of their deaths and as that vivid memory of a bill of a DI's cover hammering into my forehead, "Pay attention to detail all the time, not just once in awhile, not just most of the time, not when your belly's full or when your ugly girlfriend was nice to you... all the time.....you miserable turd."