Those where the days

Boy its hard to believe how long ago it was !when i was in the Marine Corps, i remember being a young boot, training on Greens Beach in Subic Bay Phillipines, working on the 81mm mortar pumping out round

thats me at middle bottom

s. At that time i was new to the unit. assigned as ammo man for wpns platton 3/9. I was so motivated to do the best job neccesary to impress as many as i could with my skills as an mortarman, i was ,i think by the time we got to p.i. a young lance coolie( the work horse of the marine corps.) well this one day we were out there just pumping those rounds out, i kept shoveing the increment bags in my cargo pockets, every time i set a fuse and took them off for the correct charge.I had a whole pocket full all the way to the top! So i started filling up the other side , runnin back and forth from ammo pit to the gun, man it was hot that day! It was early December if i remember, 110 that day i do believe ? Well durning that whole time nobody told me that those little bags of powder from the 81mm shell would heat up! They never said a word ,so i pumped ammo for probably 2 hours it seemed in the heat of the phillipine sun, well i started feeling extra hot for some reason the nexted thing i knew i was engulfed in flames up both sides of my cammies !Oh man i though!! What the f....ck How did this happen ?So i ran in a huge circle, i totally forgot about drop and roll thing .The more i ran more the flames got bigger so. i ran faster everyone around me was whaleing with laughter! I started screaming for help! the more i screamed the lounder they go,t i thought i was going to die! Burn right up. which is a fear of mine, that would just be aweful to have happen !But finnally and sgt for s.t.a platoon ran over tackled me and patted me off ! You know i didnt even get burned at all ,just burned the hell out of my cammies i learn that day to never put increment bags in your cammies, you dumb jarhead ! youll burn your ass up ,i had a hard time liveing that one up ,everybody haranged me about it ! you only can imagine now i think back a think about how funny it must of been for them !To witness, i just thought i share a little grunt stuff that was on my mind this evening.