Quote:
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Originally Posted by MtnGoat
When can you destruction of a UXO munitions?
Combat? Peacetime?
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I don't know what the reg says now, but when I used to get all my 18C (12Bs then) together for improvised demo training my basic rule was if you made it and it doesn't go, you blow it. Of course I accompanied them downrange which I think was more embarrassing for them than the razzing that they got from their peers.
AM: The day I took over Ben Het I grabbed my team sergeant and we started to walk the perimeter and went down to check out the Corps 8" and 175mm batteries that were inside outr perimeter for cross border support for you all. As we headed down the grade we saw someone running a firing wire back from this large crater left by 122 rocket fire and before we could find out what was happening they detonated it. Come to find out it was a variety of small arms, 8" and 175mm rounds, and associated UXO which shot a fire ball at least 100 feet high, a smoke column three or four times higher than that and sent a concussion wave strong enought to make an incoming chopper damn near fall out of the sky. UXO, now supersensitized, went everywhere. The only good thing about all of this was that the chopper belonged to the feckless fourth division brigade commander who was ripped. Of course he thought we had done it and wanted us to find every UXO and destroy it-to which I replied in my normal tactful and respectful manner that he could get his own troops to do it. I did volunteer to have my demo guys give his weenies a class on proper disposal of duds-both metallic and two legged.