What Not To Do When You Find An Old Grenade

Possible that someone in that family had no clue it was a grenade? Possibly a suicide by grenade attempt and either the father intervened or the kids tried to? Who knows.

My childhood best friend and I were VERY good at getting in and out of places we shouldn't be. There were a few of those place out west. One of those adventures involved a vacant firing range where someone had left one of these-

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We were smart enough to be upwind when discharging it and waited for it to cool off before picking it up. I was dumb enough to get a lot of residue on my hands and eventually wiped an eye. [laugh]
 
It isn't like he covered for him. . . . well, I mean after the fact. Hard to obfuscate the truth when you're unconscious then dead.

But hte fact that Dad is dead and the kids just have shrapnel injuries indicates more the dad had hte grenade instead of dad jumping on grenade after 14yo pulls the pin.

Those pins aren't easy to pull.
Kid could have pulled the pin and Dad grabbed it away from him.
I was very eager to get rid of those MFers.

It never really failed to amaze me how hard those pins are to pull, unless you bend them first.
I only threw two. Both in Basic. Before walking around a little hill to where the pit was, I heard "BOOM!" "BOOM!" and felt the ground shake. I asked the Drill Sergeant if that was artillery. "No, Private. Those are grenades." I immediately began thinking "F' that shit!". And then, upon being handed one and it was much heavier than the practice ones (which threw easily) it was double-F "No". I threw them as quickly as possible and ducked behind the barrier. The D/S wasn't happy that I wasn't able to throw it that far.
 
Kid could have pulled the pin and Dad grabbed it away from him.

I only threw two. Both in Basic. Before walking around a little hill to where the pit was, I heard "BOOM!" "BOOM!" and felt the ground shake. I asked the Drill Sergeant if that was artillery. "No, Private. Those are grenades." I immediately began thinking "F' that shit!". And then, upon being handed one and it was much heavier than the practice ones (which threw easily) it was double-F "No". I threw them as quickly as possible and ducked behind the barrier. The D/S wasn't happy that I wasn't able to throw it that far.

The thing I remember is the rattle of the shrapnel on the outside of the bunker. It made an impression.
 
The thing I remember is the rattle of the shrapnel on the outside of the bunker. It made an impression.
I've only chucked a few in training. I played outfield in high school, I could chuck those things to the very far end of the of the training pit. I wanted it as far away from me as possible, wall or no wall. [smile]
 
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