I'm not a Max Cleland fan but that's not what happened. He was getting off a helicopter and looked down to see the grenade lying at his feet. He thought it had fallen off his own harness. Somebody else dropped it. It didn't occur to him that it was armed and he went to pick it up. Just an unfortunate dumb-ass moment.
He was an officer, a communications section head, and he and some of his guys were escorted out to a remote site to do some antenna maintenance. Not expected to be a contact mission. And, there may have been some beer in the back for a post antenna erection party. Doesn't make it a boondoggle.
Not a fan of this site but it contains what looks like some facts about Cleland.
http://crookedtimber.org/2004/02/19/mark-steyn
All grenades are assumed, "ARMED" and he had no business picking it up! PERIOD
And it was the dumbest thing he could have done was to pick it up. PERIOD
Now you can make all the excuses you like but anyone who has been in the Marines and/or Army knows you don't pick up grenades off the ground. PERIOD
The guy WAS NO HERO! PERIOD.
People throw that word "hero" around like everyone who was ever in Nam was Audie Murphy! THEY WEREN'T!
The posters on that blog ripped apart that blog entry. It's certainly inaccurate to say that Cleland was going on a beer run and Coulter phrases it in a way to be least flattering to Cleland, but, although Cleland himself downplays his heroics, he did commit some heroic acts -- which are wholly independent of how he lost his limbs.