Quoted: I thought it was just blanks that the Army didn't want turned in. In Panama ('87-'89) they'd bring out crate after crate of blanks and expend a few of them on the field outside my antenna farm, and then chuck the unused stuff into the jungle line. Interestingly enough, the "dry season" in Panama, roughly December through April is when just about all the vegetation dies off and this time of year is prone to grass fires. EVERY STINKING YEAR. So needless to say, we had a few occasions when we couldn't leave our site because of the grass fires cooking off thousands and thousands of rounds of blanks. Some of those grass fires were actually caused by the same soldiers who tossed those blanks out of sight too-grenade simulators and smoke grenades tend to be pretty hot and cause some nasty fires. I wish they'd had some sort of rules about turning the stuff in for safety reasons at least... |
I know all too well about blank rounds cooking off..
We used to camp out on base when I was in Boy Scouts..
We would hike 5 miles to camp Devil Dog on MCAS New River..
We found boxes, upon boxes, of 5.56mm blanks..
7.62mm blanks in Links, smoke grenades, Pop flares... the works...
one kid thought it would be cool to throw a box of the 5.56 blanks in the fire...
was pretty cool listening to em cook off, till we started to notice that the primers were becoming projectiles...
went through my tent and actually hit my scoutmaster in the back..
Had more fun with MRE bombs than the blanks....
CXS