CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
Super duper triple bonus round if you were getting back at the man.
Here's mine, grenade training in the army unscripted moment.
In basic training or advanced infantry training which came after, the drill sergeant was n o t your friend. His purpose was to correct you if you were wrong, insult you, run you until you finished or fell, intimidate you, march you until your feet oozed goo, and wake you up before the sun even rolled over and farted to do it all again. That's not the worst bit, they a l m o s t never relented, and they loved their jobs.
So, I didn't like em.
To be under their command was a daily trial, and they either broke your spirit or you just let the deeply buried animosity fester. I was the latter.
So one day we got up really early, marched off for food, ate in an ordered fashion with yelling, all scripted, got back into line and marched off to the grenade range.
Twenty miles orderly marching later the summer Louisiana sun was up and exacting its own pound of flesh. We had arrived and split into squads to go through the course. There are real grenades and we got to toss a couple of those in a very orderly fashion. Then there are practice grenades which are round like a baseball, all steel, and have a hole in the bottom for the explosion to exit without causing shrapnel flying everywhere killing and maiming. That and I suspect the charge might have been less though by no means small. Everything else was the same. You hold in your throwing hand, pull the pin with the other hand, release the little metal piece and now its active. You count 3 and toss where its scripted that you will toss. It goes BOOM! and you move on to the next position. Toss a bunch of practice grenades and everyone gets to clean up. Walk along and pick up the thrown practice grenades and toss em in containers. Bring the containers over to the place where they are sorted and placed in boxes. Its mostly placing because there are only 2 types, those that were exploded and those that weren't. There were people who went through all sorts of internal drama with a grenade in their hand and would just toss the thing to get rid of it, and forget to pull the pin. Not many, but as few.
The bthing about the sorting process was that it was not scripted which was unusual. Everyone was casually sitting around on the ground and guys would dump boxes of used grenades in front and we would sort and put. The drill sergeants were leaning on a fence having a chat about God knows what. Kicking dogs or something fun like that. Clubbing seals maybe, I just don't know.
That's when I found an unexploded practice grenade.
I shuffled it off under my pant leg and tried to look innocent and invisible. Continued to put in boxes the exploded ones. Took a leisurely look around, drill sergeants were okay, a few people were walking about, really an odd unscripted moment, an opportunity to express ones freedom and living spirit, a big metal dumpster close to the group.
So I leisurely got up and picked up the practice grenade in one calm fluid motion, strolled over to the dumpster, pulled the pin and just let it drop on top of some soft garbage. I then calmly strolled back and sat down.
Now you take a count of 3 before you throw. That's 1001, 1002, 1003. Then you throw so that's 1004. Then it flies, 1005, bounces, 1006, and goes BOOM. 1007. Something like that anyway. Seven seconds is a lot of time.
So the metal dumpster amplified the sound. If everyone were not having such a quiet moment it would not have been such a shock. For the drill sergeants the explosion of that grenade was a wake up call, an affront, a reverberating blast that showed their dereliction of duty. On a day to day basis these were not happy people, but I didn;t know just how unhappy they could get.
Of course every second from the explosion on became rather scripted, regimented if you will. The drill sergeants were running around yelling and everyone had to get in formation. They went man to man yelling, trying to find out who had dared to do something...different...individualistic...unmilitary. I certainly wasn't going to tell them, then they would have stopped being unhappy with everyone and focused all that unhappyness on me.
So we had to run the 20 miles back to barracks and after that things were bad. Push ups, yelling, middle of the night formations, all sort of stuff. It was okay. I knew I'd got em.
Here's mine, grenade training in the army unscripted moment.
In basic training or advanced infantry training which came after, the drill sergeant was n o t your friend. His purpose was to correct you if you were wrong, insult you, run you until you finished or fell, intimidate you, march you until your feet oozed goo, and wake you up before the sun even rolled over and farted to do it all again. That's not the worst bit, they a l m o s t never relented, and they loved their jobs.
So, I didn't like em.
To be under their command was a daily trial, and they either broke your spirit or you just let the deeply buried animosity fester. I was the latter.
So one day we got up really early, marched off for food, ate in an ordered fashion with yelling, all scripted, got back into line and marched off to the grenade range.
Twenty miles orderly marching later the summer Louisiana sun was up and exacting its own pound of flesh. We had arrived and split into squads to go through the course. There are real grenades and we got to toss a couple of those in a very orderly fashion. Then there are practice grenades which are round like a baseball, all steel, and have a hole in the bottom for the explosion to exit without causing shrapnel flying everywhere killing and maiming. That and I suspect the charge might have been less though by no means small. Everything else was the same. You hold in your throwing hand, pull the pin with the other hand, release the little metal piece and now its active. You count 3 and toss where its scripted that you will toss. It goes BOOM! and you move on to the next position. Toss a bunch of practice grenades and everyone gets to clean up. Walk along and pick up the thrown practice grenades and toss em in containers. Bring the containers over to the place where they are sorted and placed in boxes. Its mostly placing because there are only 2 types, those that were exploded and those that weren't. There were people who went through all sorts of internal drama with a grenade in their hand and would just toss the thing to get rid of it, and forget to pull the pin. Not many, but as few.
The bthing about the sorting process was that it was not scripted which was unusual. Everyone was casually sitting around on the ground and guys would dump boxes of used grenades in front and we would sort and put. The drill sergeants were leaning on a fence having a chat about God knows what. Kicking dogs or something fun like that. Clubbing seals maybe, I just don't know.
That's when I found an unexploded practice grenade.
I shuffled it off under my pant leg and tried to look innocent and invisible. Continued to put in boxes the exploded ones. Took a leisurely look around, drill sergeants were okay, a few people were walking about, really an odd unscripted moment, an opportunity to express ones freedom and living spirit, a big metal dumpster close to the group.
So I leisurely got up and picked up the practice grenade in one calm fluid motion, strolled over to the dumpster, pulled the pin and just let it drop on top of some soft garbage. I then calmly strolled back and sat down.
Now you take a count of 3 before you throw. That's 1001, 1002, 1003. Then you throw so that's 1004. Then it flies, 1005, bounces, 1006, and goes BOOM. 1007. Something like that anyway. Seven seconds is a lot of time.
So the metal dumpster amplified the sound. If everyone were not having such a quiet moment it would not have been such a shock. For the drill sergeants the explosion of that grenade was a wake up call, an affront, a reverberating blast that showed their dereliction of duty. On a day to day basis these were not happy people, but I didn;t know just how unhappy they could get.
Of course every second from the explosion on became rather scripted, regimented if you will. The drill sergeants were running around yelling and everyone had to get in formation. They went man to man yelling, trying to find out who had dared to do something...different...individualistic...unmilitary. I certainly wasn't going to tell them, then they would have stopped being unhappy with everyone and focused all that unhappyness on me.
So we had to run the 20 miles back to barracks and after that things were bad. Push ups, yelling, middle of the night formations, all sort of stuff. It was okay. I knew I'd got em.
Clay heads and flaming pigs! Doesn't get any better than that.
