I got an e-mail yesterday with a safety gram / message. For those of you not in the military they publish these messages periodically when someone does something stupid and unsafe to bring it to the attention of others so it does not happen again. Well here’s the story…This guy is mounting an M2 .50 cal machine gun in an MATV, he experiences difficulty interting the locking pin in the gun mount, so he grabs a rock and attempts to force the pin in when that does not work after a few attempts he grabs a loose .50 cal LIVE ROUND and attemps to force the pin in. AFTER SEVERAL HITS with the round the primer activated and the round went off in his hand! The message came with a picture the hand looked like well disgusting. I mean it takes a special kind of stupid to grab a live round of any kind and use it as a hammer! I had to share this with you guys, just remember anytime you think you did something stupid there is someone out there that can one up you.
Sadly that fellow is not the first. A friend of mine witnessed an African pound a 12 ga. shotshell on the primer with a hammer and screwdriver b/c he was convinced a shell could not fire without the gun and was trying to illustrate that nothing would happen. Luckily the guy only got a big cut from the flying brass case head.
I have that same email. What gets me is that apparantly it never entered his mind that what he was doing was dangerous. Most importantly, where was his NCO to stop him? You might not be able to fix stupid, but some things can be done to help reduce the level of stupidity.
As a senior NCO I understand this question BUT the NCO has a whole team to work with doing PCIs and PCCs he cant be everywhere at once. Ultimately for someone who has been through basic training, and spent train up time in his/her permanant unit and deployed in combat has to know that is a stupid idea but if he did not then I blame his drill Sergeants, and instructors for failing to inform him. We get this in the Army at least if PVT Snuffy gets a DUI then they come down on the NCO, I have seen it all too many times an E-5 gets his Ass chewed by the SGM “where were you when he was driving drunk, why didnt you prevent this?” Meanwhile the Commander, 1ST Sergeant, Platoon Sergeant, and Squad leader all gave safety briefings saying dont drink and drive, call a cab or me and I’ll pick you up. I agree that some soldiers do get failed by shoddy leadership but we have to lay blame on the troops sometimes they are adults and we can’t supervise them every second of the day they have to accept some responsibility especially in a case like this where you would have to be a brain dead moron to think that was a good idea.
Yeah, I just got that notification yeterday. Fantastic picture of what a shredded hand looks like, if you’re into that sort of thing.
I have a hard time attributing this to some sort of leadership failure by any local NCO, officer, Alderman or Tooth Fairy, except in the abstract. Take it up the logic path far enough, it’s a colossal command failure at the top level for allowing the Army to accept the number of Category 4 recruits that they do. Flinging blame down to the local level is nothing more than some douche keeping their staff position safe. Blamestorming is pointless, doing nothing but further reinforcing the current PC risk-averse, zero-tolerance environment we see creeping forward more and more.
Sometimes, people are just stupid, and the only way to teach them is through pain. Thank Crom no others were hurt by this oxygen thief.
I’ve already had to lock some doofuses on regarding how a round acts differently when it’s not in a chamber, and that it wasn’t anyting to do with unstable explosives or bad batches of ammo. FYI, Supply Specialists with no military background should stick to kicking boxes and counting things, or at least learn some basic Newtonian physics, inertia, things like that.
First time using the “attachments” feature. Let’s see if this works…
I saw no indicators of anything resembling FOUO or some other level of classification, which makes sense for a safety document, but if this violates some arcane rule I don’t know about, those in the know please take appropriate action.
EDIT: Okay, THAT didn’t work. Instead, barring violent objection, I can upload the photo, but I think we need a GRAPHIC warning or similar in the title to alert the squeamish beforehand, lest they wring their hands and whine.
That’s considerably more mangling than I was expecting. Given the amount of powder in a .50 BMG round I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
I must also agree with Jim that sometimes stupid people do stupid things and it’s nobody else’s fault. The military is already ate up with regulations and rules and procedures because people do the equivalent of beating a .50 BMG round on a firing-pin shaped object on a regular basis. When you hand out stuff more dangerous than safety scissors to enough people sooner or later someone is going to invent a novel way to do something stupid with it and they or someone else will be hurt. When it happens all the adults in the room should be smart enough to realize that you can’t preempt every possible idiotic act beforehand with regulations or supervision.
+1… Im a sick phuck. I want to see it.
edit: photo sposted but blocked on my work computer! POOP! iPhone time.
I don’t see how this could posibly be the fault of his NCO… How can anyone in their right mind imagine that someone will be dumb enough to use a .50cal round as an impact tool? I know you have to reduce it to the least common denominator, but has the US military become so desperate for people that the least comming denominator includes this guy?
I guess everyone can be somewhat useful in that they can always be a “bad example” to illustrate how not to do it to others. I am sorry to see a young man loose the use of his hand and tie up resources by doing something incorrectly. I was Navy and have no idea about the weapon system or vehicle it was being mounted on, but I am sure of two things: 1) this was not the first time it was ever done, so the kid was not breaking new ground or had to think out of the box to get er done. 2) I am positive that nowhere in the free modern world do we teach anyone to use live ordnance as an impact tool. Waste of a perfectly good biscuit hook.
As far people who just want to look at gory pictures, …really?
