Good leaders don't get fragged...................
Capitalism at work...
And how many chickens died to provide blood for the VC flags that came back home?
“...he had many issues....”
Chainmail... you owe me a coffee for that one... I just gaffawed my caffeine all over the keyboard... :^)
Great story, brother!!!
Thanks for sharing this story!
By the time the word spread around the ship, who knows how many of the enemy you took out, single-handedly!
Cold war incident, some where in Germany.
Me - Batallion RTO manning the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) for the night radio shift while we were out in the field.
Call comes in over the radio (call signs changed to protect the guilty)
TOC this is S1 (Battalion S1/Intelligence officer),
I need a location check (short hand for I’m lost and need help finding my location)
S1, TOC (me) - please read the nearest sign, highway or road marker
TOC, S1 - I read Colburg (not the real town)
... several min of looking for Colburg on the map
S1, TOC - are you SURE the sign says Colburg?
TOC, S1 - Affirmative
S1, TOC - please head West on any road and travel approximately 20 km. If you see a sign that says Rand or Grenze (German for border) please proceed past that sign and initiate contact with TOC again. DO NOT contact any locals and especially POLIZI (German Police)
TOC, S1 - West, why west?
S1, TOC - Because sir, you are INSIDE East Germany.
You’ve stumbled on an iron law of human nature about rumors and tall tales.
Exactly the same process used by the CIA, FBI and DOJ to convince Washington DC that Trump was “colluding” with the Russians.
LOL - reminds me of the children’s game ‘telephone’
Where you start with one message and each person whispers it to the next... After 20 people it was rarely the same message.
These days, to millenials, VC stands for Venture Capitalist.
I still have a couple pins somewhere.
125? That’s a lot of lobbing.
IDF, and a pilot, so my grenade throwing was limited to the three live grenades we threw in our equivalent of basic training. We did not take it terribly seriously, in that, as pilots, we knew that if we were throwing a grenade, we had screwed up rather badly and were probably going to die. (Also, they did not give us grenades, as ejection seats and grenades are a bad combination.)
During said training, a young idiot (not me, but it could have been) screwed around with a practice grenade by attempting to pull out the pin Hollywood style with his teeth.
Pulled his canine tooth clear out.
Usually, it wasn't too bad except when the WM's came through, and the worst of those was when the Reserve Warrant Officers came through. Picture some 50+ year old frail lady, wearing all the gear, and trying to throw a grenade. Had absolutely no idea where those things would go -- backwards, forwards, sideways...or straight up and straight down. Saw it all from up close.
I was quite happy when I was moved to teach the Artillery package instead.
Had a BNE aboard my LST that was assigned as Communications Officer.
His main duties were Comm & Crypto and he ‘allowed’ me (the Senior RM) to do most of the Crypto duties.
He once told me that standing a Bridge watch at sea was like his father telling him to stand on the porch and if the headlights from the road got ‘close’ to wake him and tell him.
This was back in 61 and he was a good officer but when I see the travails of the ‘collisions at sea’, I often wondered if the Bridge Watchstanders had the same thought of a night watch at sea.
As to the ‘grenades dispatching’ VC, reminds me of a friend of mine that was of Jewish descent and also a ‘butterball’ during WWII....they had just finished interrogating a few German ‘POWs’ and he told his Irish Sgt to ‘take care of them’....he meant take them to the rear so Intelligence could ‘talk’ to them.
Sgt left camp and shortly there were a few shots ringing out and the Sgt returned .....
“I meant take them to the rear.....”
That story got a little more embellished each time he related it but insisted it was true....
TTIUWP
We liked to unscrew the fuze and toss them in the weeds for a nice bang. We did not try and remove the fuze from the later baseball grenades. We had heard they has some sort of anti-removal feature to them. We were not trained EOD after all.
Good story!
Hah! It’s amazing how fast the story changes.
When I was in Basic the grenade range officer told us stories of recruits dropping grenades and other things. When it was my turn to throw, I will swear that thing was still in the air when it exploded. I have never thrown anything as hard in my life.
Once you pull the pin Mr. Handgrenade is not your friend.
Your commander may have been a little uptight about grenades, certainly fragging was a serious issue in Vietnam, particularly among leaders who were not viewed by the troops as competent.
But, I think that something else may have been going on. Ammunition, especially explosives has always been carefully accounted for and certainly so in the training environment. A gift of 125 hand grenades from a friendly Army unit smells. Transferring that ammo would involve some serious paperwork, especially if it was between services. If that paperwork wasn’t done, then it was likely stolen. Since every grenade is marked with a lot number, everyone of these could have been traced. If your commander chosen not to notify the CID or NCIS, then he would have probably been motivated to get rid of the evidence.
Another point. Packing materials, brass, grenade pins, etc together is call residue. Depending on what it is, residue can also be accountable. Hand grenades pins fit into that category, at least in the Army. If you draw 125 grenades, then a unit would have to turn in unexpended grenades and the grenade pins from all expended grenade and those two would have to add up to 125. These grenades were hotter than a pancake griddle.