Hickman's In The Army Now! (Thread moved from Chat)

[McClain]

Originally Posted by LordSappington

That is pretty ridiculous. Do they reuse them? Or maybe you're supposed to hold on to it in case you don't need to throw the 'nade after all, and you never released the spring so you can put the pin back in.

Yes, they do recycle them for training purposes. The dummy grenades simulates an explosion by using a flash. The housing stays in tact and they can reuse the grenade as often as they want. So they want the pins.

And I'm not exaggerating when I say there's absolutely no place for the word "why" in a boot-camp-like environment. They hate that word. It's insubordination.

Perfect example; we were doing live fire exercises on the range. They have a rule they call "up and down range." This means you keep your rifle pointing upward with the barrel facing down range - or toward the targets - no matter where you're standing. You could be sitting on a bench and if you're rifle isn't up and down you'll get jumped.

One day one of the recruits asked a drill sergeant why he had to keep his rifle "up and down" even though his rifle wasn't loaded and he was sitting in the bleachers.

I don't remember exactly what the drill sergeant said to him, but it was something along the lines of the DS shitting in a dixie cup, going back in time to abort the recruits fetus, and random expletives about him having bat shit between his ears. And he screamed all of this about 2" from his face. It was also at that point the drill sergeant noticed that the recruit didn't have his kevlar helmet fastened properly. More berating ensued.

Good times.