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Sea Stories
From
Vern Smith
7/19/05
Semper Fi,
Keep Your Powder Dry, But Don't Play With It!
Quite
often as communicators, we had time on our hands. When you are young
and impetuous, the freshness and nervous energy of youth can be
dangerous.
As
members of the Radio Relay Platoon, Communications Company,
Headquarters Battalion, First Marine Division, when we weren't standing
one kind of inspection or another, we did have time on our hands. When
we went into the field, we broke up into teams of five or six. We then
proceeded to establish communications with our remote counterparts,
either using our eight channel UHF or Microwave Transceivers. Once
communication was solid, we would turn our channels over to telephones,
teletypes or facsimile. Then the only thing remaining to be done was
preventative maintenance on our alternate power generators. We would
change oil, clean air filters, refuel and after a recommended interval
of time (several hours), switch over and perform similar duties on the
previously running generator. In between time, boredom would set in.
Our transmitters and receivers were very reliable and seldom failed, so
our "up time" was nearly 100 percent. Occasionally we would be ordered
to conceal our position by putting up camouflage netting, and the color
combination required was always different from the last time, so we'd
have to restring the nets. But after the grumbling and moaning, we set
to the task at hand and then again, quickly became bored.
When
I was a Lance Corporal and leader of one of the UHF communications
teams, the members of my team and I, were bored to tears on a
particular field problem (exercise). We were set up in an area that
must have been previously used for war games, as we found live blank
cartridges everywhere. You can probably guess where this story is
going. I don't know where it came from, but someone found a piece of
pipe that was capped off on one end, so we got the bright idea of
filling the pipe with the powder we poured out of the blanks. I took an
oily rag used in servicing the generators, poured a trail of powder in
the middle of it and rolled it into a long fuse. I was convinced that
the net effect of this device was that it would spew out a huge amount
of fiery spray out the open end of the pipe, but agreed with one of my
subordinates that we would put a log (about one foot in diameter and
four feet long) about 18 inches away from the pipe, between the pipe
and us to act as a shield, just in case the thing did explode. I
further made an agreement with those in attendance, that once we lit
the fuse, if the charge didn't go off, we would wait at least 30
minutes before anyone would go near it. I had everyone stay behind
cover, about 200 feet away and I went to light the fuse. I was nervous
as hell and yet I was dying to see how much flame was going to shoot
out of that pipe. I pulled out my Zippo and it took several attempts to
get the damned thing lit. I bent down and eased the flame up to the
wick and as soon as the gun powder ignited I ran like hell. In high
school I ran the mile, but that day I was a sprinter and approached the
speed of greased-lightening.
I
jumped over a fallen tree, hit the deck and peered back over the tree
in the direction of "the sparkler." I waited and I waited, but nothing
happened. Others were anxious to go see why it had failed to ignite,
but I reminded them of our agreement. After a very long 45 minutes,
just to be sure, I stated that I would go see why it didn't work and
that the others should stay back until I gave the all clear. I
cautiously approached the pipe, going behind every piece of cover that
I could find along the way. When I got to within 25 feet of it, I
positioned myself behind a tree and looked long and hard to see if I
could detect any smoke coming from it. I could see about six inches of
rag still sticking out of the pipe, so I ran up to it full-tilt, held
the pipe down with one hand and jerked the fuse out with the other.
Upon closer inspection, it appeared that the fuse simply extinguished
itself when the powder reached a very oily area on the rag. Now that
the fuse was out I called to the others to let them know it was now
unarmed. They approached one by one. We decided to make another fuse
using a fresh dry rag that ended up being over a foot longer than the
first. We rolled the powder in the rag very tightly and I decided to
give myself even more time by pouring about a ten foot trail of gun
powder up to the end of the fuse.
Without
repeating in words here, the above steps in lighting the fuse the first
time, I lit the trail of gun powder and split! I had barely cleared the
same dead tree when the God-awful explosion went off. We heard the
sound of shrapnel hitting trees and bushes all around us, then the
splinters from the shield showered down all over us. Man this was like
a war zone, and I was responsible for the creation of it. With my ears
ringing I screamed out, "is anybody hit?" One by one each man shouted
out his last name and responded, "OK!" At that very moment I decided to
give up any aspirations I had about going into Explosives Ordnance
Disposal. Someone could get killed playing with this sh**!
I
broke out into a cold sweat at the thought of the shorter first fuse
and no trail of gun powder leading to it. Had our first attempt been a
success, it would have been disastrous for me. Sometimes we are blessed
with dumb luck! All those in my team including yours truly agreed that
we were lucky and would not play that game again. Above all, we agreed
not to tell anyone else of our experience and our stupidity. Thereafter
we ignored the presence of blank cartridges lying around. We even began
to bring field manuals (the kind with cheesecake photos) and chess
games to the field to while away the idle moments.
Now
flash ahead two years. I'm now a Corporal and in charge of all
microwave communications teams. I'm stuck back at platoon headquarters
listening in on what's going on in the field, when I hear a report that
a L/Cpl on one of our UHF teams is seriously injured and requires an
ambulance. I get on the phone and call the base hospital and give the
location to the person on the other end. I also state that the
situation is very bad and that speed is of the utmost importance. I
knew the terrain where the L/Cpl's team was supposed to be set up, so I
further informed the hospital  that a four wheel drive
ambulance had a better chance of getting to him. The hospital, as it
turned out, was in radio contact with such an ambulance already in the
field at the problem CP (Command Post), so they called the CP and
relayed the information. At this point I was informed by our Lt. in the
field that I should stay by the landline (local telephone) just in case
any further assistance was required. Then the first indication of what
actually happened came back to me over the radio like a nightmare.
The
L/Cpl was part of a group that had fashioned a two foot piece of pipe
into a bomb, made a fuse out of some unknown material, ignited it and
it failed to go off. They had only waited a couple of minutes and then
curiosity got the best of them. He and the others were converging on it
to see why it had not gone off and then it blew up. The L/Cpl was
probably the closest one to it when it exploded and a piece of shrapnel
sliced his abdomen open. When others responding to the sound of the
blast arrived on the scene, he was in total shock and standing up
trying to hold his intestines in which were falling out of the cradle
he had made with both of his arms. Those around him remembered their
battlefield first aid, soaked some utilities with water and tried to
bind him up. When the corpsman arrived in the ambulance, he took one
look at the intestines hanging out from under and over the makeshift
bandages, and he promptly passed out. The Marine ambulance driver with
the help of others at the scene, loaded the victim onto a stretcher,
put him in the back and transported him. Several of the others around
attempted to revive the corpsman and I was informed to get another
ambulance rolling from the hospital as others were also injured. In
all, three more Marines required hospitalization. A Corporal received
less serious abdominal wounds. Another L/Cpl suffered from chest
wounds. A PFC had wounds on his hands and legs. The Corpsman suffered a
bad bump on his head when he fainted.
At
this point the thought once again hit home as to how fortunate we were
when we had previously experimented with gun powder. And then guilt set
in. Had I shared my experience with others, I may have spared these
guys a lot of pain. I should have informed them ahead of time that the
areas they were going into had a lot of blank ammo laying around on the
ground. That regardless of how tempting it was to play with gun powder
I knew from prior experience just how dangerous it could be and it
wasn't worth the risk. If I would have told them would it have made a
difference? In this regard I did not properly serve my subordinates and
I will always remember that.
It
was a great embarrassment the next day when several newspaper headlines
read: "Four Marines Wounded in Pendleton Blast." One of the
accompanying stories reported inaccurately that, "Four Marines playing
with gunpowder were wounded by exploding metal yesterday while packing
a metal container with gun powder removed from blank rifle ammunition."
The story also quoted a spokesman for the base as saying, "The Marines
involved were not authorized to experiment with gun powder."
"To
become old and wise, you must first survive being young and ignorant!"
Semper
Fi,
Vern
Smith
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