Dummies

During my time with Uncle Sam, I was entrusted with a few things—now and again.

Another weekend rolled around and it was time for another military training with my fellow Marines. What I do not recall is exactly what the focus of the exercises were to be. What I do recall is what I and one other young, gung-ho fire team member were issued: Explosives.

See, for our unit, to stay in top form, our training could get pretty intense. We would spend what seemed like inordinate amounts of time on one topic, such as urban combat, helicopter embarking and deployment, or explosives. Now, what makes a reserve unit even more interesting is that—for the most part—we always loved it. We were almost overzealous about whatever it was we were doing. We were like this because we only did it once a month. Full-time active units did this stuff all day, every day. It would become redundant and monotonous. For us, usually, we couldn’t get enough of it—whatever ‘it’ was.

And, for a while ‘it’ was explosives.

I have mentioned in other posts about a good Corps buddy, Nielsen, who was part of my Fire Team for quite a while. In fact, he just recently retired after 20+ years with the U.S.M.C.. But, I digress. Still, when I knew him, he was the most competent, loose cannon on a leash that I have ever known. The guy could snipe like nobody’s business, was reckless enough to try anything, and still smart enough to not die because of it. I was always glad to know he was there when the stuff would hit the fan (‘cause it almost did one time…). My point is this, Nielsen and I had more than a few fun moments together during our enlistment. This is one of those that when I look back on it… Man… Okay, okay, I’ll start.

On more than one occasion Nielson and I had proven that we could get things done. And, we could do it with a smile. We loved what we did. Later, we would get a third little Leatherneck of calmer crazy, but for a while Nielson and I were the two reliable crazies that could be trusted. As I type this out and read it I do have to wonder if the ‘powers that be’ in our unit also found us to be flexibly expendable. We were often offered things that went boomy-boom when other, more senior Marines were just as capable… Huh…? Well, it doesn’t really matter now. I still have all my fingers and toes. Again, my point is this: We were reliable with the boomy-booms.

If it needed to be blown up, we could do it. We were competent. We were efficient. And, most importantly, we loved doing it. The two of us worked well together.

Friday night rolled around and it was time to head out into The Field for another weekend of training. It was during transport that our platoon was given the mission brief (in the other transport the other platoon was also given their mission brief. both briefs were the same): We were to be 100% tactical as soon as transport rolled to a stop and we disembarked. Okay. 100% tactical. Got it. (for more information regarding what it means to be ‘tactical’ in the military, see here) One of the things that this meant for us was red light filters for all flashlights. This last bit plays a key role in what had occurred.

As the gear was being silenced and weapons loaded Neilson and I were given specific orders for what our roles were to be during the early morning ‘rise and shine’ on Saturday. See, this weekend was an explosive weekend. There was to be training on breaching walls, doors, structures, and whatnots—those whatnots can be tricky devils. The two of us, specifically, were to be issued some C4, time fuse, det cord, and blasting caps. We were to be the breach team. Sometimes it really does pay to know your stuff and be reliable.

I reminded our Seargent that I had a blasting cap crimper on my Leatherman tool and that we had this whole situation under control. Nielsen just smiled his trademark ‘This is gonna’ be fun, and I get to do it’ ear-to-ear, wide-eyed grin. The last of the instructions were, “You’ll get the supplies as soon as we’re off the bus.”

“Aye, Sergeant,” the two of us acknowledged and headed back to our seats. This was going to be legendary. Even if it wasn’t, we would find a way to make so. We were pretty good at what we did. How much would we get? What were we going to get to do with it? What were we going to breach? How much fun were we going to have? These and many more were questions we had. The most important one was: Would there be enough for us to get to keep some for ourselves?

I know how terrible that reads. In this modern era, there are a lot of nutters out there running around and doing terrible things. We were—and still are—not like those people. We are Marines. We swore an oath to protect and defend, and we take it seriously. At the time, we just wanted to have some boomy-boom stuff to play around with in an open field somewhere and watch something disappear due to a rapid influx of compressed energy focused upon said item. That’s all. Boomy-boom. We’re Marines, not maniacs.

I know what I wrote.

Transport reached the destination. Everyone prepared to disembark. “Nielson. Bagnall. Find me out front,” our Seargent barked as he deployed. We knew the expectations placed upon us—both verbal and implied. This was going to be good.

Once located, our Seargent handed over several coils of det cord, time fuse, and some “…wooden blocks?!?”

“These are dummies. You’ll get the rest as needed, tomorrow.”

“Aye, Sergeant,” again, in unison, we acknowledged.

For those who don’t know, time fuse is a slow-burning fuse that is ignited on one end, and then burns toward a blasting cap that is inserted into another explosive (you use one little boom to ignite the bigger boom). The time fuse gives you time. It burns at a set rate—so many feet per second, sorta thing. Very handy.

Det cord is short for Detonating Cord. This is a cable—of the same diameter as time fuse (military. I don’t know about civilian)—that ignites, or explodes, at such a high rate of speed that if you laid a single length of det cord from one end of the United States to the other end (West to East), and ignited one end, the whole thing would complete its explosion in about 13 minutes. It is fun stuff. In the proper hands, it can be used to do all kinds of wonderfully helpful things.

With regards to the diameters of the cables being exactly the same, the U.S. Government has come up with a marking system. If you know the system, you know that you aren’t gonna blow your friggin arms off when you’re trying to ignite time fuse because you accidentally ignited det cord. This is an important detail to be aware of. Nielson and I knew the difference. We knew the code. We now had lengths of cable, one was slow burning, the other fast-acting, and there was plenty of both. With this in mind—and also now in hand—the two of us moved off to a spot, almost conspiratorially (well, not almost. completely conspiratorially) to bivouac for the night and to make preparations for the new dawn and the boomy-booms the two of us were to be executing.

Using our red-light-filtered flashlights—because we were tactical!—Nielson and I inspected our new-found treasures. “Okay, which one is this?” “Okay, okay, okay. Here’s the pattern on mine. What’s your pattern?” “Is this the same?” Wait, how many different cords do we have?” We had to inspect carefully. Very carefully. Fortunately, it didn’t take us long before we understood how many different lengths of what we had, and how much we felt we could safely remove—for personal use at another time. With the personal portions procured and packed away in our packs, we went to sleep.

Sometimes it really does pay to know your stuff and be reliable.

Morning reveille could not come soon enough. But it did anyway. It was with the excitement of a new day of explosivtivity (I know what I wrote), and the morning light, that mine and Nielson’s excitement was quickly blown into teeny-weenie bits and pieces. The cords were useless. They were only lengths of practice time fuse and practice det cord.

It may be at this point in the story that some of you receive confirmation of the fact that you had already guessed the outcome—others might not. Fine. Let me address the possible confusion as to the previously bragging about “knowing your stuff and all” arrogance.

Remember that red-light-filter? Yeah. If you know anything about light waves, you might know that certain light frequencies can negate other light frequencies. For example, on a topographical map. Red light cancels out the brown landlines almost entirely. Blue light filters out the blue lines (water). They can also change the appearance of some colors, such as yellow, green, and a specific blue used by the military to denote practice demolitions.

Under a red light filter, that practice blue color looks the same as the standard olive drab military green when it’s illuminated under a red light filter. Exactly the same. Exactly! the! same! The marks that identify det from time are illuminated in a slightly orangish-yellow coloring, in the same patterns—for realism (and it works!).

Now, you may recall something about wooden blocks being mentioned. That is also important. It is important because they were dummy blocks to represent real blocks of C4 (a detail that was clarified for us, on the next day). These were not the only dummies that weekend.

As a note, I still have my lengths of dummy cords in an old, wooden ammo crate in my basement—out of spite.

I know what I wrote.