He Held a Live Grenade the Entire Time 😳
A Vietnam War veteran recounts a harrowing three-man ambush mission where his team encountered over 200 NVA soldiers while laying in concealment. During the tense encounter, one team member held the spoon on a live grenade the entire time to prevent detonation, only releasing it after the enemy forces passed.
Summary
The speaker describes U.S. military operations in Vietnam, explaining that the NBA would conduct killer squad missions to force villages to stop supplying the Viet Cong with rice. The strategy involved brutal intimidation tactics, including executing village chiefs' children and displaying their heads on bamboo stakes as warnings. The speaker then transitions to a specific combat mission where he was part of a three-man killer team set up in an ambush position waiting for enemy fighters. While expecting to engage two or three combatants, over 200 NVA soldiers emerged from the jungle and passed near their position. The team had to remain completely still despite extreme environmental discomfort—dealing with snakes crawling over them, ants and mosquitoes, and the smell of garlic from the passing soldiers. During this entire ordeal, one team member maintained his grip on a live grenade's spoon (safety mechanism) to prevent accidental detonation that would have killed the entire team. Only after the enemy forces disappeared into the jungle did the soldier release the spoon in relief, at which point the grenade became actively dangerous.
Key Insights
- The speaker claims the U.S. military employed brutal intimidation tactics against villages, including executing children and displaying their heads on stakes to coerce civilian cooperation in cutting off Viet Cong rice supplies.
- A three-man ambush team encountered unexpectedly overwhelming enemy force, with over 200 NVA soldiers passing near their concealed position, requiring complete immobility despite physical discomfort.
- The speaker describes extreme environmental hardship during the ambush—soldiers endured snakes crawling on them, insects, and inability to move without risking the entire team's safety.
- One soldier held a live grenade by maintaining pressure on the spoon (safety mechanism) for the entire duration of the enemy force's proximity, releasing it only when danger passed.
- The soldier's relief at the enemy's departure caused him to involuntarily release the grenade's spoon, immediately creating an active explosive danger for the three-man team.
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] The NBA would send out [music] killer squads if the ville wasn't supplying the communist with rice. They'd find out who the village chief was, they'd get one of his kids, cut off their head, put it on a bamboo stake, right in the center of the ville until that village started supplying them. So I would go out on these three-man killer teams. You'd ambush these guys, try to pick them off when they came into a ville. One of these three-man killer teams I was on, we were laying in wait and we see some guys come out of the jungle, two or three of them. We're going to blow these guys away. Across this open area,…
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