as a vet...i remember something from my HS days and AFTER I went to Basic Trng

[m1 lover]

When in HS...I was given an old ww1 Mortar Round..with old rotating fuse on end an little plunger at top of head..we were told it was inert. My mom used it for YEARS even after i went to the USAF..as a front door stop. Well several yrs later while stationed in Vegas..my mom called and said SOMEBODY saw it an asked to look at it an foumd out it was FREAKING LIVE MORTAR....holy ****. The city bomb squad came to secure it an transport it an verified it was DEFINITELY a live round from ww1. an the whole block was evacuated...Man that could have been very bad if i was able to push that plunger in as a teenager messin with it..but it was frozen in place from corrosion...THANK GOD. Lesson learned back then. My buddy from home just reminded me...haha

[Steve B.]

Yikes!

 

My fifth grade teacher had a Japanese cannon round of some kind on his desk. When he wanted our attention he would bang it on his desk - base first.

[m1 lover]

Well i am glad Steve..that he KNEW his...or i hope he did.....that it was inert...hahaha......i couldnt believe it when my mom sent me the newspaper article from our house...jeez....i and we...or my neighbors were sooooo lucky cause i used to TRY to make plunger move down and used to spin the fuse timer rings.....wonder what that was worth IF it wasnt live hejhe

[bellasilva]

Holy crap. My brother is a police officer a town over where there are very many senior citizens living. He's told me quite a few stories of WWII vets turning in LOADED Colt 1911's that they were issued because they no longer felt comfortable having them around, as well as a couple of live pineapple grenades. Yikes.

[m1 lover]

Hey BellaSilva.....thats how it WAS in my coal mining town back then.....lots...of many old timers that were miners an vets of all the wars previous. Man they were walking history books. In fact..an Iwo Jima vet is one whom let me see..hold and TRUST me to take his m1 by myself into the woods to shoot it. Now BACK HOME is not the same anymore...sooo much drugs...and crime i been told. Man its sad. Yea alot of old timers growing up had soooo many wonderful historic items from all the wars

[bellasilva]

Most definitely. Not to get too off topic but I had a substitute teacher in high school who was a 1st LT in the 29th infantry and landed in Normandy on D-day. He wouldn't talk about the war unless you asked him but even then I had such respect for vets that I asked him a few questions. This man had no reason to lie..he told me once that once they cleared the bluff on Omaha his carbine jammed and he ran into a German soldier who he promptly knocked out cold with his M1 helmet. My favorite memory of him was when he was imitating a drill sergeant and started yelling out "suck that gut in private! Shoulders square! Back straight!" And honest to God, one day in class a student asked him how many Nazis he killed during the war. Without skipping a beat he said "not enough" (He was jewish). Mr. Levine passed away a few years ago unfortunately. .

[m1 lover]

First...your story/msg is not off topic.

Second.....WOW....that is an amazing account he told you...thats how my old friend was...if he brought up stuff..then i asked....if not then i didnt. Its funny NOW...back then none of my KID FRIENDS...liked him and used to act like jerks to him. I stood up to my so called friends an they said forget it Ed..he is an old Coot ?? Well i met him first time in woods while trapping season was on...and we instantly connected. I was like 15 or 16 an ended up he coming to my house an talked to my dad about his time in Korean War an he about ww2 an then i would go to his house an hang out with him an his awesome wife....i have such fond memories of Mr Wagner. So anyway i know what you mean about your teacher. Thanks for sharing my friend

[m1 lover]

Well my oldeat brother just told me..he believes what i was talking about was an Artillery Shell...no case on it..just solid steel or iron about a foot tall an about 4" diameter....with MANY adjustment settings on nose fuse....sooo...its either motar or artillery?? Anyways i created a heck of a scare after leaving home. Hahaha. Later friends

[bellasilva]

Either way, glad you still have your fingers to type with! Hooah brother, fellow USAF here!

[m1 lover]

Hooahh BellaSiva...thats great. How long and when were you in. I served 1980-2001. Ohh...no doubt about your post or i would be typing with that Dragon speech thing haha.

[bellasilva]

You're a lifer! I'm quite a young'n, 2005-2009 security forces

[m1 lover]

Hooahh the same..i too was SF and ABGD

[gwb123]

Back in the 1970's, our scout troop had an older advisor who was also a National Guard officer (eventually retired as a colonel I believe).

 

Some of the inner city armories have multiple stories.

 

One of the NCO's was charged with giving a training session on firing the 81mm mortar. He was thinking how much more effective it would be if he had a training round to demonstrate proper technique. He then remembered that one of the officers had an inert round on his desk. He retrieved it, and then waited for his allotted class time to begin.

 

His troops gathered in a semi circle, and at the appropriate time he demonstrated how to drop the round down the tube.

 

FOOOMPH......

 

Dust, debris.... and a bunch of ears that were now ringing.

 

As things cleared, the sergeant and the class looked towards the roof and saw a hole in the ceiling. It was a foot race to get up the stairs to the next level.

There they found a corresponding hole in the floor, papers blown everywhere and the errant round lying on the floor.

 

Apparently while the explosive charge had been removed, the propellant charge was intact.

 

That night was dumped off a bridge into the local river.

[TRR]

Great story! It reminded me of my 7th grade science teacher. Instead of movie day usually right before finals, we had VN slideshow day. I think he took the worst ones out, but there was a few that they would people would right a news story if it was showed in school today. Small town and half our teachers were VN vets, so I don't believe anyone ever complained.

[hueytaxi]

My senior year science guy had served in Korea. He was brilliantly stupid. For some reason he was discussing the effects of sodium iodide and had made a paste he applied to some objects...don't recall what. I and a few classmates were in the end of the lab finishing another project when the explosion took place. Whatever Dr. Claus was doing blew out three sets of jalousy windows and ignited three propane taps creating panic. Not really, Dr. Claus was so predictsble, no one even ran. We used the soda acid extinguishers and waited for the bell. No cops or news.

[m1 lover]

Man I loved your stories everyone....sooo cool. Thanks sooo much..hahaha....our stories are living histories per-say. Peace

[Garandomatic]

Irony of ironies, I have a wwii mortar round welded fuze -opening down onto a large washer on my desk in the classroom. Was a soldier's craft project and came with a family uniform grouping I picked up. Totall hollow, has some pipe reducers threaded into the cartridge hole in the tail to adapt to lamp parts. I have a little flag sticking out of it!

[Dave]

I just got done visiting a family and in a shoebox, they had the vet's bullets from his issue sidearm (he was a Navy pilot) from WW2. Apparently, one of the siblings had made off with the gun long ago, but left the bullets behind, and they were now a mess of corrosion under the guys dye markers and a bunch of other random survival kit from the War. I told them to dispose of the bullets since they didn't look good...I certainly wouldn't keep them around. They did have a minty red star shell that was complete, and I figured it was probably okay to keep...but I told them they'd probably get some cool fireworks if their basement ever caught on fire!

[kmc1945]

This is a great thread and I have enjoyed reading all of your stories! Don't have anything to top many of these but I did have a chemistry teacher in HS who was the classic old-school, no nonsense teacher. Him and I never seemed to see eye to eye (I was the typical ignorant, class clown 'my-you-know-what-doesn't-stink' kid). The last week of my senior year, I happened to stay behind one day after lab to clean up and I guess he felt he had to make some conversation so he asked me about my post-school plans. As I had enlisted in the Army earlier in the school year, I told him that I had to report to basic training a week after graduation. His entire mood towards me changed dramatically. He quietly mentioned that he was also in the army and was very proud of me for making that choice (this was very recently after 9/11). Turns out he was a combat medic in Vietnam (draftee) and saw some serious and horrible things. You could just tell by talking to him that he was carrying some demons from that experience. We as a class had NO idea he had served. He had never ONCE mentioned it ever. But here, one on one, man to man he opened up to me about it. He shook my hand and I left for home. It was a very sobering moment for an 18 year old kid and I think about that conversation often. Just shows you that you never really know the full story about someone and that heroes often go unrecognized in daily life.

 

Kyle

[Brian Keith]

_{Back to the "Bomb Squad", they are trained that if it "looks" live it "is" live. Can you blame them? Just because they took it away, put a bunch of C-4 around it and blew it up and said, "WOW" look at that, it blew up, it was LIVE! Well, put a bunch of C-4 around a Kool-Aid pack, detonate it and see if it blows up. The bomb squad enjoys the opportunity to "BLOW S--T UP". If you have something in your collection that at one time was supposed to go "BOOM" (other than small arms ammo), it now should some how indicate that it is INERT. OR you risk the Bomb Squad taking it and blasting it. That is the reason some collectors "section" their fuzes and projectiles.}

_{I curated a "Trench-Art" exhibit at the art museum where I work and actually called the local police to tell them about it so they had a "heads-up" about it. Some of the things in the exhibit looked like they could still go "BOOM". The 50 didn't seem too interested, but I did what I thought I needed to do.}

_BKW

[zotig111]

I know that police departments hate inert grenades. There is an ever increasing trend for certain types to refill the old WWII grenade bosides with powder and rig up homemade fuses. One of the companies I worked for in a past life made a Kevlar bag to temporarily store these in until they could get them disposed of. If you are thinking that is ancient history, the company is still making them and selling them like hotcakes...

 

Cool post.