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Student brings 'big bullet' to class; school evacuated
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Posted on 03/30/2005 3:06:23 PM PST by Willie Green

Arlington Elementary School was evacuated Tuesday afternoon when a fifth-grader studying American history brought a 110-year-old artillery shell to class, Pittsburgh Public Schools police Chief Robert Fadzen said.

When the 11-year-old boy showed the shell to his teacher at 1:45 p.m., school officials evacuated the school and called the city police bomb squad, Fadzen said. The shell was taken for disposal.

(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: bang; oops; showandtell
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To: CobaltBlue
In practice, when was the last time you heard of one actually exploding?

The Département du Déminage in France is still very busy. Six hundred engineers have died in the line of duty, and farmers are killed every year.

With the annual ploughing up of old war junk goes the epithet "the iron harvest": Special army patrols still drive around the countryside picking up old grenades which the farmers put in piles beside the road. Even 80 years after the war, every year there are still accidental deaths caused by live ammunition exploding. Farm workers are at greatest risks, because their machines do not discriminate between buried grenades and sugar beets, potatoes or other root-crops, and, of course, because they work on the former battlefield each day. For example, in 1991 a total of 36 farm workers had died when their machines hit duds (today 39).

Old grenades, which penetrated deeply when they hit the ground without exploding, slowly make their way towards the surface, like those oft cursed stones in Irish and Swedish fields, which when the frost thaws, reach the surface making life miserable for the poor farmer. This happens not only to stones and duds, but to things like stone age axes and other archaeological artifacts. The stone, thus, rises a little bit each year, due to the frost heave. The same thing happens accordingly with duds, small or large.

The Swedish historian Dr Peter Englund writes in the magazine Vi, no 17/18 (1997), pp. 20-36., that (translated from Swedish) "in Belgium 126 have people died and over 400 been wounded in explosions during the last 50 years" (p. 27.).

-The Western Front Today

21 posted on 03/30/2005 3:21:52 PM PST by AnAmericanMother (. . . Ministrix of ye Chace (recess appointment), TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary . . .)
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To: CobaltBlue; ModelBreaker
In practice, when was the last time you heard of one actually exploding?

Oh, it happens. There's a good deal of unexploded ordnance still lying around places like France, left over from a century's worth of wars. Every so often you'll hear about some poor French farmer who accidentally finds one by hitting it with a plow or some such, and manages to blow himself straight to the moon.

22 posted on 03/30/2005 3:22:27 PM PST by general_re ("Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith, but in doubt." - Reinhold Niebuhr)
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To: AnAmericanMother

Beat me to it. GMTA :)


23 posted on 03/30/2005 3:22:58 PM PST by general_re ("Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith, but in doubt." - Reinhold Niebuhr)
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To: Willie Green

We have to shake My 12 year old Grandson upside down, to get all the .36 cal. balls for His muzzleloader out of His pockets. He built a trebuchet out of PVC pipe, for the science fair, and they wouldn't even let Him throw a tennis ball with it. Hey, school is out before long, and I've got all summer to remove the politically correct stuff He's been fed with.


24 posted on 03/30/2005 3:24:03 PM PST by SWAMPSNIPER (Let Me Die on My Feet in the Swamp, BUAIDH NO BAS)
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To: Willie Green

When I was at McClellan in the summer of 1983, it seemed like there were two or three instances of kids finding unexploded WWII era ordnance and getting killed playing with it.


25 posted on 03/30/2005 3:24:05 PM PST by Larry Lucido (We miss ya, Indie! Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - http://www.leap.cc)
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To: CobaltBlue; ModelBreaker
OK, Civil War era shells can be dangerous, in theory. In practice, when was the last time you heard of one actually exploding?

During World War Two, Fort Macon in North Carolina was reactivated and the U.S. Army actively manned the fort with Coast Artillery troops.

Just after arriving at Fort Macon and setting up quarters in the fort, a fire was built by some of the men in the fireplace of one of the rooms. However, someone found a couple of old Civil War cannonballs, which had been recovered around the fort, and unthinkingly placed them in the fireplace to serve as andirons. One of the cannonballs was a live shell, which quickly exploded in the fire In a room full of soldiers. Pvt. George Eastep remembered the blast went over him as he lay on his cot,but caught his bedding on fire. Shrapnel rattled against the opposite wall. One man was blown through a doorway into the adjoining room. By some miracle no one was killed. A couple of men had minor injuries but Pvt. Harry Chait had burns that required him to be hospitalized briefly. The entire incident, which was later mentioned in Ripley's "Believe It or Not" newspaper column has been remembered ever since as the "last shot of the Civil War," because the 244th Coast Artillery originally was the Ninth New York National Guard and its men were "Northerners." That included Pvt. Chait, injured by an old Confederate cannonball.

The Ripley's "Believe It or Not" cartoon headline was:

CONFEDERATE SHELL WOUNDS YANKEE SOLDIERS.......... 80 YEARS AFTER IT WAS FIRED

I have a Civil War Bormann shell, Parrott shell and a Hotchkiss shell myself as historical relics but they have all been deactivated.

26 posted on 03/30/2005 3:25:14 PM PST by Polybius
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To: Willie Green

I used to have one of those green pineapple type hand grenades when I was a kid, which my uncle gave me. I used to get a kick playing with it.

Also I assembled a large collection of hunting knives. Those were the days of innocence.


27 posted on 03/30/2005 3:25:41 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Willie Green
And the poor kid will probably be expelled, and then both he and his parents will be subjected to psychological evaluation before he can get back into school.

/hates the public school system, the administrators, and their lawyers with an almost blind fury

28 posted on 03/30/2005 3:27:15 PM PST by FierceDraka (The Democratic Party - Aiding and Abetting The Enemies of America Since 1968)
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To: Willie Green
Student brings 'big bullet' to class; school evacuated

it must have been one of those assault weapon bullets designed to kill

29 posted on 03/30/2005 3:27:36 PM PST by paul51 (11 September 2001 - Never forget)
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To: CobaltBlue
In practice, when was the last time you heard of one actually exploding?

By odd coincidence, I recently sat thru a talk that examined UXO (unexploded ordnance) and how frequently it kills people who handle them. In the US, more than 50 people have been killed by exploding fuzes, bombs, mortars etc. So they do kill folks. I don't know what portion of them were civil war era. I do know that the explosives experts approach ordnance from that era with even more caution than they do modern pieces because of the nature and instability of the explosive.

The really amazing thing about this talk was how many folks find UXO out in a field, pick it up and bring it home to put on the mantle or for the kids to play with. That's how most of the deaths have occurred.

30 posted on 03/30/2005 3:29:58 PM PST by ModelBreaker
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To: CobaltBlue


Black powder is very unstable compared to smokeless powder

I own a good sized collection from 1763 Charleville flintlock to 1846-1898 Colts (plus S&W, Allens, Remingtons, Sharps, etc.) and can tell you a still loaded Civil War percussion revolver is still very dangerous - much more so than a smokeless cartridge loaded weapon

All firearms are loaded and all deadly - until carefully proven otherwise

Learning safety with explosives, shells, cartridges, weapons comes before firing and accuracy.

Skipping safety may mean firing and accuracy is never learned.


OK - I'm finished on safety -


Now I need to go kill something outside....






31 posted on 03/30/2005 3:31:38 PM PST by devolve (WWII : http://pro.lookingat.us/RealHeros.html James Bond - 007 : http://pro.lookingat.us/007.5.html)
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To: Willie Green

IN A.D. 2005...
...CLASS WAS BEGINNING.


32 posted on 03/30/2005 3:32:46 PM PST by RichInOC (WHAT YOU SAY!!)
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To: general_re
Well, if I were a French farm worker, I would retrofit my tractor with some good hefty armor under my seat, that's for sure! (Or find a safer line of work.)

My dad was EOD in WWII. At least they gave them an armored bulldozer!

33 posted on 03/30/2005 3:32:48 PM PST by AnAmericanMother (. . . Ministrix of ye Chace (recess appointment), TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary . . .)
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To: Willie Green

34 posted on 03/30/2005 3:32:56 PM PST by Jackknife (No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.-MacArthur)
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To: LongElegantLegs

Precisely the image that came to my mind...stamping each shell with the word DUD.


35 posted on 03/30/2005 3:33:09 PM PST by gundog
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To: LongElegantLegs
Reminds me that on the flight back from the UK, the movie was something with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Brendon Fraiser. I was a comedy with the usual slap-stick stuff. . . .but. . .and I'm not kidding. . . .it had a Mature Audience warning and a warning for Violence.

And the movie was no more than what the usual cartoons were years ago. We are raising a bunch of whiner wimps.
36 posted on 03/30/2005 3:33:35 PM PST by Gunrunner2
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To: ModelBreaker

agreed


37 posted on 03/30/2005 3:33:43 PM PST by Frapster (Don't mind me - I'm distracted by the pretty lights.)
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To: Willie Green
How stupid is this school's administration?

About as smart as a sack of rocks.

This is almost as stupid as San Francisco's TSC personnel who said they'd have to evacuate SF Airport if returning Iraqi vets were allowed to deplane!

38 posted on 03/30/2005 3:35:12 PM PST by JesseHousman (Execute Mumia Abu-Jamal Today)
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To: Polybius

in general carbon (from charcoal), and sulphur are not soluable. Nitroglycerin and ammonium nitrate (saltpeter) are soluable. Nitrates are the unstable parts.

If it was really heavy, it was a solid. If it was light, then it was a hollow with charge, and could be explosive.

Course if they didn't have a fireplace in the classroom, there wasn't much reason to fear.


39 posted on 03/30/2005 3:35:19 PM PST by donmeaker (Burn the UN flag publicly.)
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To: Husker24
It was probably just an empty shell, not even a live one.

Possibly...
My grandfather had a WW-I artillery shell souvenier that he kept on a shelf above his workbench in the basement. I don't know exactly what it was, but it was about 2½" in diameter, and perhaps 8~10" in length. I have no idea whether it was loaded or not. And I don't know what happened to it when he passed away. But I can still clearly picture it sitting on that shelf where it sat for decades.

40 posted on 03/30/2005 3:36:33 PM PST by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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