Think paintball hurts? Try a Simunition SAW at thigh level. A funny look at what happens when Air Force "Fobbits" play Infantry and learn a painful lesson.
My training was so long ago that I can’t even remember the acronyms, but a couple of the experiences are still loud and clear.
We used BB guns in a couple of training exercises, including “quickfire” reactions for situations with no time to aim. Not sure how many dead or maimed drill sergeants and trainees we would have had should those have been done with live stuff.
Initial jungle training (not called that, but at Fort Polk, it was a jungle) included BB gun ambushes. No padding, but we did have sort of a mosquito net thing over our faces to protect the eyes…which with the steam of a Southwestern Louisiana July meant we might as well have been blindfolded. Had those little bee stings been real bullets, my platoon would have fared much like Custer’s.
But the most vivid “attitude adjuster” of early training was throwing hand grenades.
Everybody had seen a movie in which somebody casually rolls one of these things around a corner then sort of flinches when it makes a popping sound and some smoke comes out. In the comic books and John Wayne movies they were firecrackers.
The real deal was a little more intense.
First off, we had to qualify by throwing a hand-grenade shaped and sized thing over a wire. This had to be done several times to ensure that the trainee had sufficient arm and was sufficiently aware of the intention. It seemed silly and there was considerable “grab assing” and joking around with the dummies.
When it came time for a “live fire exercise” we were given two grenades each, delivered in small cylindrical containers, which, to our amazement we were instructed to hold to our chests — sort of like a bizarre bra. The drill sergeants were not taking any shit off anybody at this point, because, as I was to learn shortly, they were earning their pay that day.
Moving to the grenade-throwing area we found concrete open-ended “pens,” not unlike office cubicles except for having walls a few feet thick and about chest high. I believe these were called “sumps.” The trainee gave the grenades to the trainer and was told to kneel and wait.
Is still seemed like much ado about very little until the first grenade was thrown. For a horrifying moment, I thought the son-of-a-bitch had thrown it at me. This was no pop-and-puff-of-smoke, this was a freakin’ explosion — as attention-getting as a nearby lightning strike.
Through the ringing of your ears, you could almost hear gasps along the line.
Now, if you have done this, you know the technique as taught is a little unnerving, too. Both hands meet at midchest, left index finger is inserted in the pin. Right hand grips the grenade, curled around the safety mechanism that keeps it from going off before it is thrown. You don’t just yank the pin out with the left finger, it is a two-handed process. The pin is pulled leftward and dropped while the left hand continues out to point toward your target (this is much like that archer pose football players strike when they think they are hot shit).
Meanwhile the grenade is pulled back to the right and upward to a ready-to-throw position. Now, put yourself in the boots of the young trainee for a moment — a 19- or 20-year-old who was just a handful of weeks earlier hanging out at the malt shop and asking daddy if he can use the car. You are not used to blowing things up and have just heard an explosion that lets you know what one of these little steel baseballs can do.
AND NOW YOU ARE HOLDING ONE UP AGAINST YOUR EAR!
It is one of those moments that you tend to remember while also not being totally sure it actually happened.
As for the attitude adjusting, I heard of some pretty loudmouthed, gung-ho types whimpering, “I can’t do this.”
And that’s when those drill sergeants earned their pay… and my respect.
PERSONAL POSTSCRIPT: Like many others, I was a scrawny post-adolescent who wasn’t in nearly as good a shape as he thought he was, and while I didn’t have any real difficulty clearing the wire with my practice throws, I was no Roberto Clemente. A couple were just barely far enough and one might have been short. When I threw the real thing, I think it would have cleared the Chrysler Building.
I enjoyed your telling of the hand grenade experience so much more than my own personal recollections of that same training.
Although as I'm picturing your descriptions in my mind, it really wasn't at all dissimilar. Definitely the most terrifying part of the training, for the students and the instructors.
BTW, If anybody else enjoyed Jake's comment, you definitely should go check out his site for more great storytelling about "war" in the classroom.
Chair Force? Are you f*cking kidding me? I thought you were a badass! ONLY KIDDING. I'm just jealous because the USAF and USN looked at my ASVAB scores and said not interested. For real. But I grew up in the Rambo and Red Dawn era - WOLVERINES! - so the Army was it.
Anyhow.
I love these stories and photos! I, too, have some fond memories of boot camp and training. Like camouflaging myself with poison ivy, setting an ambush while lying in a fire ant nest, getting punched by Drill Sergeant, and almost getting court-martialed for pissing off the brass.
MOUT training was cool, but we had the blanks and an adapter, never simulation ammo. That shit would have been fun. All the ambushes I set and had to go bang bang on could've been better with that.
Agreed that some of the Army training is stupid and not real. It has changed a lot since the days I was at Fort Benning (even got interviewed by Stars and Stripes about our current milquetoast training), but even then it wasn't good enough for real combat ... which I never experienced.
You've got to do some really cool stuff. I wish I had been deployed, but I was destined to be in the rear with the gear. Thanks for sharing these memories.
Dude, I had the best of both worlds. I was in the Air Force, but for the last decade of active duty, I was Army Support. We did lots of fun training, deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the best part was PT every day. I often wasn’t even in my uniform (after taking a shower in my office … the perks of being a SNCO) until 0930 or even 1000. Every once in a while I’d have to go up to Dyess AFB for some admin stuff, and I felt so bad for everyone already walking around in their uniforms at 0730.
My training was so long ago that I can’t even remember the acronyms, but a couple of the experiences are still loud and clear.
We used BB guns in a couple of training exercises, including “quickfire” reactions for situations with no time to aim. Not sure how many dead or maimed drill sergeants and trainees we would have had should those have been done with live stuff.
Initial jungle training (not called that, but at Fort Polk, it was a jungle) included BB gun ambushes. No padding, but we did have sort of a mosquito net thing over our faces to protect the eyes…which with the steam of a Southwestern Louisiana July meant we might as well have been blindfolded. Had those little bee stings been real bullets, my platoon would have fared much like Custer’s.
But the most vivid “attitude adjuster” of early training was throwing hand grenades.
Everybody had seen a movie in which somebody casually rolls one of these things around a corner then sort of flinches when it makes a popping sound and some smoke comes out. In the comic books and John Wayne movies they were firecrackers.
The real deal was a little more intense.
First off, we had to qualify by throwing a hand-grenade shaped and sized thing over a wire. This had to be done several times to ensure that the trainee had sufficient arm and was sufficiently aware of the intention. It seemed silly and there was considerable “grab assing” and joking around with the dummies.
When it came time for a “live fire exercise” we were given two grenades each, delivered in small cylindrical containers, which, to our amazement we were instructed to hold to our chests — sort of like a bizarre bra. The drill sergeants were not taking any shit off anybody at this point, because, as I was to learn shortly, they were earning their pay that day.
Moving to the grenade-throwing area we found concrete open-ended “pens,” not unlike office cubicles except for having walls a few feet thick and about chest high. I believe these were called “sumps.” The trainee gave the grenades to the trainer and was told to kneel and wait.
Is still seemed like much ado about very little until the first grenade was thrown. For a horrifying moment, I thought the son-of-a-bitch had thrown it at me. This was no pop-and-puff-of-smoke, this was a freakin’ explosion — as attention-getting as a nearby lightning strike.
Through the ringing of your ears, you could almost hear gasps along the line.
Now, if you have done this, you know the technique as taught is a little unnerving, too. Both hands meet at midchest, left index finger is inserted in the pin. Right hand grips the grenade, curled around the safety mechanism that keeps it from going off before it is thrown. You don’t just yank the pin out with the left finger, it is a two-handed process. The pin is pulled leftward and dropped while the left hand continues out to point toward your target (this is much like that archer pose football players strike when they think they are hot shit).
Meanwhile the grenade is pulled back to the right and upward to a ready-to-throw position. Now, put yourself in the boots of the young trainee for a moment — a 19- or 20-year-old who was just a handful of weeks earlier hanging out at the malt shop and asking daddy if he can use the car. You are not used to blowing things up and have just heard an explosion that lets you know what one of these little steel baseballs can do.
AND NOW YOU ARE HOLDING ONE UP AGAINST YOUR EAR!
It is one of those moments that you tend to remember while also not being totally sure it actually happened.
As for the attitude adjusting, I heard of some pretty loudmouthed, gung-ho types whimpering, “I can’t do this.”
And that’s when those drill sergeants earned their pay… and my respect.
PERSONAL POSTSCRIPT: Like many others, I was a scrawny post-adolescent who wasn’t in nearly as good a shape as he thought he was, and while I didn’t have any real difficulty clearing the wire with my practice throws, I was no Roberto Clemente. A couple were just barely far enough and one might have been short. When I threw the real thing, I think it would have cleared the Chrysler Building.
Thank you so much Jake!
I enjoyed your telling of the hand grenade experience so much more than my own personal recollections of that same training.
Although as I'm picturing your descriptions in my mind, it really wasn't at all dissimilar. Definitely the most terrifying part of the training, for the students and the instructors.
BTW, If anybody else enjoyed Jake's comment, you definitely should go check out his site for more great storytelling about "war" in the classroom.
Chair Force? Are you f*cking kidding me? I thought you were a badass! ONLY KIDDING. I'm just jealous because the USAF and USN looked at my ASVAB scores and said not interested. For real. But I grew up in the Rambo and Red Dawn era - WOLVERINES! - so the Army was it.
Anyhow.
I love these stories and photos! I, too, have some fond memories of boot camp and training. Like camouflaging myself with poison ivy, setting an ambush while lying in a fire ant nest, getting punched by Drill Sergeant, and almost getting court-martialed for pissing off the brass.
MOUT training was cool, but we had the blanks and an adapter, never simulation ammo. That shit would have been fun. All the ambushes I set and had to go bang bang on could've been better with that.
Agreed that some of the Army training is stupid and not real. It has changed a lot since the days I was at Fort Benning (even got interviewed by Stars and Stripes about our current milquetoast training), but even then it wasn't good enough for real combat ... which I never experienced.
You've got to do some really cool stuff. I wish I had been deployed, but I was destined to be in the rear with the gear. Thanks for sharing these memories.
Dude, I had the best of both worlds. I was in the Air Force, but for the last decade of active duty, I was Army Support. We did lots of fun training, deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the best part was PT every day. I often wasn’t even in my uniform (after taking a shower in my office … the perks of being a SNCO) until 0930 or even 1000. Every once in a while I’d have to go up to Dyess AFB for some admin stuff, and I felt so bad for everyone already walking around in their uniforms at 0730.
That's impressive! You're probably the kind of NCO that pissed me off because I didn't have that kinda training, freedom, and deployments. JK. Maybe.
I can't wait to hear more!