Thursday, February 18, 2010

And A Leopard Was Spotted at the Zoo...

Live grenade found in vehicle at Fort Hood

(CNN) -- An access point to Fort Hood in Texas was briefly shut down Wednesday after guards discovered a live grenade during a random vehicle search, officials said.

At about 9:15 a.m., guards alerted Fort Hood Emergency Services after finding the live munition and closed Clarke Gate for about 30 minutes, according to a Fort Hood news release.
I understand the issue; in the wake of the tragic shooting emotions are running high and there's a lot of pressure to "do something" in the general sense. You could make a case that it's not over-reacting to call Emergency Services over an explosive device; from my limited understanding, though, this round is inert unless fired from a launcher, meaning it's akin to finding a shotgun shell in someone's trunk. In any case, it kicked over my giggle box to see a borderline PSH headline about finding grenades on an Army base...

I do have to admit, this made me chuckle:

There is an investigation under way to determine what, if anything should happen to the serviceman, Broadway said.

I'm thinking about 75,000 pushups or so...

That is all.

3 comments:

Geodkyt said...

Well, it's SUPPOSED to be relatively inert unless it's fired.

Unless it's been abused, tinkered with, or gets caught in a fire.

They have no way of knowing what condition this round is in.

There's no excuse for a soldier to have a 40mm grenade in his POV, unless he happens to own a legally registered grenade launcher for it. None.

You're not even supposed to leave teh range with fired small arms brass or MG links.

And a 40mm HVGL round didn't just "fall out of a pocket".

Heck, unless it's an inert training round, it's an NFA violation all by itself.

Bill said...

If it's a real round, this guy is going to be lucky to escape a court martial. You do NOT screw around with or take home with you any weapon issued you by the military. It's one of the biggest nons I can think of.

Anonymous said...

IT DEPENDS ON WETHER OR NOT IT IS A ROCKET PROPELLED GRENADE OR A FRAG GRENADE... THE FRAG IS USELESS UNTIL PIN AND SPOON ARE SEPARATE FROM THE GRENADE AND THE RPG'S ARE LESS LIKELY TO BE EXPLOSIVE WITHOUT BEING FIRED LIKE GEODKYT SAID