He Held a Live Grenade the Entire Time 😳

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.