What Do You Mean, Live Grenade?

I was orginally in the army from 1966 to 1970. Then, I went back to college and got my degree in accounting. After working five years as an accountant, I went back in the Army in 1978.

I was sent to Fort Leonard Woods, MO for what they called "Minute Man" training. This was a two week course for prior service people from all military services who were coming into the Army. It was during this time I learned why people who had been there referred to it as Fort Lost-in-the-Woods.

Most of us in my training company were ex-Army, but we had a few who had been Navy, Air Force, or Marines. One fellow who had previously been in the Air Force had been a little worried at first. According to him, he had been born with a silver spoon in his moutn and had never really done anything physical or adventuresome, and this accelerated version of Basic Training was almost too much for him.

However, he held up pretty well, and, as the end of the course drew near, he was beginning to feel quite the soldier. One night, he was wondering what was going to happen the next day, so he wandered down to the end of the barracks to read the training schedule posted on the bulletin board.

As he read, he asked, "Hey! What does this mean? 'Live Grenade Throw'!"

Most of us did not realize at first that he was totally serious. Finally, as he stood there expectantly, one of us said, "You throw a live grenade."

Silence on his part. Then, "What do you mean, 'live' grenade?"

Then, he asked again, "Do you mean a REAL LIVE grenade? One that actually explodes?"

Getting several yep's, yeah's, uh-hu's, and nods his face crumbled. I think his last words before the barracks lights went out were, "Oh my God!"

When I fell asleep, he was pacing up and down the center of the squad bay.

He did okay, by the way. Only one guy fumbled his grenade but one of the guys in the pit with him kicked it through the hole into the sump and nobody was hurt.

My personal hand grenade story occured when I was going through Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson, SC in 1966.

One fellow in our unit had never thrown so much as a rock in his life. During practice, I actually saw a dummy grenade backwards out of his hand as he tried to throw it.

When he threw his live grenade, he threw it straight up in the air. Fortunately, it fell just on the other side of the barricade and no one was hurt. Unfortunately, his position was directly in front of a viewing platform occupied by several officers and senior NCO's (Noncommissioned Officers). They were treated to the sight of a live grenade rising in the air directly in front of them.

We who were waiting our turns down below were treated to the sight of all those dignitaries, most of whom were highly decorated combat veterans, scurrying towards the exit at the back of the platform. The guys in the pit with the poor guy who had thrown the grenade did their jobs. They threw him to the ground and fell on top of him.

When he came out of the pits, he was bruised and shaken, but at least he was alive.

Fort Ord: Clancy and the Bowling Alley House

I don't think it was a common term, but I have heard a couple of people call them "bowling alley" houses.

When I was attending the Defense Language Institute, West Coast (DLIWC), in Monterey, California in 1983-84, studying Polish, my family and I were given quarters on Fort Ord. Because of the size of our family, three kids, two cats, and a dog...okay, the animals didn't count...we were given a four-bedroom home.

Originally there were not any of these on Fort Ord, and a lot of the housing was duplexes with only a couple of bedrooms. Each duplex had a carport on each end. However, over the years, the Army had the dividing walls knocked out of some of the duplexes and converted one of the carports into a master bedroom.

Since the original duplexes had a single hallway running the entire length of the house, when they took out the dividing wall, you wound up with one awfully long home with a verrrry long hallway running from the living room to the master bedroom. Hence the nickname, "bowling alley house".

It was nice on Fort Ord. Quiet, pretty, just minutes from Monterey Bay and downtown Monterey itself. One of the great things is that we did not have...or need...an air conditioner.

The kids liked the house, especially the pink-blooming ice plant in the back yard, which was long and narrow, like the house. However, Clancy liked it even better.

Clancy was our crazy cat. Lean to the point of scrawny and slightly mad, Clancy loved to run full-tilt down the hall, hit the living room floor, and slam on brakes. Trouble was, the living room floor was a very slick wood parquet. Although Clancy would go through the normal stopping process, on that floor it wouldn't work. Scrabbling madly, Clancy would slide at high speed across the living room floor and smash into the far wall.

Then, the mad Irish-cat Clancy would shake his head for a second almost like Tom in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, and then he would run back down to the bedroom for another shot.

We had given him the name "Clancy" because he had that lean appearance and slightly mad look which reminded us of a man named Clancy with whom we had once worked.

Sadly, one morning I got up and walked into the living room and found Clancy dead on the living room floor. We had no idea what he died from, but I have often wondered if he took one trip too many down the hallway at the bowling alley house.

New Blog on Senior Health

Since Google did not like the idea of me trying to help seniors stay healthy and maybe make a few dollars to supplement my military retirement and social security and therefore deleted my previous blog on senior health and fitness, I have bought my own domain and built my own blog on Senior Health and Fitness at http://fitness-after-40.ws.

Please just take a moment to take a look at it, and, if you think it of value, please bookmark it, link to it, and/or recommend it to others. I had the other blog up for about five years, and just now Google decided it was not worth keeping around.

Thank you.

Don Baldwin