THE ARMY YEARS 5

SMITH- The Legend  (Not his name).
I met a lot of great guys in the army.  One that stands out is Smith.  He was from Tennessee and had a EE degree when he was drafted.  He was a sharp guy, intelligence wise, but, I'm sorry to say, he was very uncoordinated.  He was a nice guy and tried hard but you could always see his head bobbing up over the formation as he tried to get in and stay in step with the rest of the company.  

They had what they called "Memory School" every evening after chow.  It was actually extra drilling for the guys who screwed up that day and Smith was usually present for something.

Our first marksmanship (shooting) training was with the M1 rifle.  Smith had a reputation by the time we fired live rounds with the M1 but he didn't shoot anybody.  Firing the carbine came next and it felt like a toy compared to the M1.  The carbine weighed 5.5 pounds and the M1 weighed in at 9.5 pounds. You could easily shoot it like a pistol.

After firing the carbine we were supposed to open the breech and prop it on our hip to be inspected for being empty before laying it on the post.  As Smith was standing there with the carbine on his hip and the barrel pointed just above the horizon, he began to turn one way and another.  The CO was in the tower behind the firing line and he yelled "SMITH, KEEP KEEP THAT WEAPON POINTED DOWNRANGE!  Smith turned and the muzzle of the carbine sort of swept the area behind the firing line and he said "SIR?"  The CO jumped out of the tower as the muzzle pointed in his direction and the range officer, not knowing what was going on, also jumped to the ground.  The tower was only about 6 feet above the ground but the CO fell in the dirt.  Yep, back to memory school!

Grenade training.  We threw dummy grenades to practice and then we threw the real thing.  Yep, the kind that kills you.  We were all lined up behind a wall and one guy at a time would go around the wall and into the "pit" that was a bunch of sand bags in a "U" shape with the thrower and range officer inside the U.  You were handed a concussion (flash-bang) grenade and a fragmentation grenade and told to put down the fragmentation grenade in a box and throw the flash-bang grenade first.  Being the army, it was all on command.

First "prepare to pull pin". (Getting ready to throw.)  "Pull pin".  (You pull the safety pin and the grenade was armed.)  "Throw".  You throw the grenade and try to hit inside a tank turret that they had for a target.  When you throw it you were suppose to watch and see where you hit and trust that the fuse was long enough before you duck down behind the wall.  Smith's first throw went okay with the flash-bang grenade.

On Smith's next throw with the fragmentation grade as he put his arm back for the throw he dropped the grenade in the pit.  The range officer told him to pick it up and throw it.  Smith instead jumped over the wall and left the range officer in the pit with the grenade ready to blow.  The range officer picked it up, threw it, and it hit in the tank turret before it went off.  Smith and the range officer were both lucky that day.  The rest of the grenade training went off well. 

In bayonet training we learned how to disarm a guy who is trying to stick a knife in you and how to stick a knife in him with it in your hand or on the end of a rifle.  As the recruiting poster said, "Join the army and learn a trade".  Thrust and parry, whack him with the rifle butt etc.  We got to try it on each other with the scabbard still on the bayonet, thank goodness.  The last part was to run down this course with a bayonet on our M1 and fight these dummies along a path in the woods.  They had wooden heads padded and mounted on big springs and holding wooden rifles with bayonets on the end of sticks.  We were to run through through the woods screaming at the top of our lungs, parry the bayonets, whack the dummy in the head with the butt of the rifle, and slash them across the chest or stab them with the bayonet.  I think I could kill the enemy every time if he just stood there like that and didn't fight back.

I was all through with the course and standing around as the rest of the guys ran down a hill with the last dummy at the end of the course.  Smith ran down the hill with a half hearted scream and bopped the head of the last dummy.  The CO was standing there watching and he yelled "SMITH, THAT MAN IS TRYING TO KILL YOU", "GO BACK UP THE HILL AND KNOCK HIS HEAD OFF THIS TIME".  Smith ran back up the hill and ran back down screaming "AAAAAAAAAAAAA" and hit the dummies head as hard as any of us had but the CO still wasn't happy and sent him back to do it again and said "Smith, break the rifle stock on that guy's head".  That was just what happened.  Smith ran back down the hill again and slammed the rifle but into the dummies head and the rifle stock broke at the small of the stock.  What could the CO say?  I think Smith was already in Memory School for something else anyway but he had done exactly what he was ordered to do.

I don't know where the army put Smith but he didn't go to signal school with us.  That would have been in his already chosen field where he would have been useful.

(Smith was not his real name)

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
Thomas Sowell Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_sowell.html#3l0PuM6wFU5lXDLp.99