MBDiagMan
Final Approach
Here's a grenade story. A buddy of mine who is an Army officer wanted to throw a grenade, never having done it before. He set up a time on the range with the instructor to try his hand at it. They got into the throw pit and the instructor told him what to do:
"Cock your arm back, pull the pin out, count to five, and throw over the berm."
My buddy cocks his arm, pulls the pin, waits the five and throws. BOOM! The grenade goes off in mid-air about two feet past the berm. Both men are deafened and the instructor is really shaken.
"What happened," he yelled, "did you hold down the spoon?!?"
My buddy: "Oh, the handle thing? No, it popped off when I pulled the pin."
They had been sitting in that pit for five seconds with the grenade fuse cooking off. The fuze time on the grenade is approximately five seconds.
The instructor took the rest of the day off to go home, kiss his wife, and throw up. My buddy was over wanting to throw a grenade.
I think that grenade instructor needed some instruction.
When I was in training they went through the entire procedure in detail with the group. THEN when in the bunker, they went over it again, having the recruit go through the motions, describing clearly what he was going to do. THEN the recruit was allowed to throw.
With the grenades I threw, if you pulled the pin, released the spoon and counted to five before throwing it, you would have been a dead man.
