At Ft. Hood , just before FECOM , I had a pet gila monster type animal I kept in my locker at night & under the barracks steps during the day. Would catch flies in the messhall to suplement his diet.
Just made cpl. & was happy as a clam ! If I was put on any detail, I'd be the NCOIC. Great ? Wrong !
Took a large detail to the firing range to flag duds. Heavily wooded in places & keeping the troops at interval & on line was like herding cats but it was vital that we missed nothing .
The men I had just finished basic & the draft did not pick any Einsteins in this bunch. Passing out marker flags,they were told to put the flags in the most obvious places, if the dud was hidden,the disposal unit would search it out with a detector.I stressed not to bump,touch or even walk near one,just lean way out & shove the flag in.Artillery rounds all over.
Sure enough, I was running back & forth trying to hold the line to a slow pace to miss nothing, I had warned those that entered any clearing to wait & get in line when the others came through the woods.
I was in the heavy brush when I heard some a$$hole playing horseshoes. WTF ! Who would be so stupid ? Oh, oh .OH !
Some men had run out of flags & ran into about a dozen 81 MM mortar rounds & having just one flag,they stuck in in the ground & were pitching the duds in a pile around it. I saw one's pin fly out when it hit & a breath of air would have detonated it then! Shudder,shudder,laundry problem time !
A rapidly assembled column of 2's cleared the area.
Demo man said those 81's were old WW II stuff & were unstable. That's why some pins didn't fly out when it left the tube.
Seeing that 81 from the locker triggered this rambling tale. It IS funny now but fraught with danger then. Imagine if one had detonated & the whole stack went along,particularry in a clearing with 2 squads standing around .
Uncle [ danger even stateside ] Alan
:thumbup: 
