Characters

  • SPC Williams
  • PV2 Brad Patterson

Locations

  • Battalion Sick Call, Taji, Iraq

Oh, those crazy medics and their Motrin!
Did you know –this is the real thing– that while Composition 4 (C-4 or “plastic explosive”) is indeed moldable like clay, there is also a chemical in it that absorbs through your skin and gives you a splitting headache? Well, now you do! I did not find this out personally, but I knew someone who did. A young NCO I knew way, waaayyy back, was a bit of a joker, and while we were out in the field preparing for the next day’s demolitions training, he managed to get a block of C-4 and mold it into the shape of a bunny.
He regretted his life decisions the next morning. “Always, always remember,” he told me later, “wear gloves when molding C-4.” The lesson I learned was to simply not mold C-4. In this case, Patterson’s C-4 sculptures will come back later.
But usually in the desert, a headache is seen as a sign of dehydration. Normally for dehydration you’d just have the troopie drink water, but why waste an opportunity to hook up a chute of Motrin too? So poor ol’ Patterson gets the Motrin, water, and “walk it off” treatment.
Oh, and the C-4 bunny? Blew up well enough, but in kind of a weird blast pattern. Not really usable for any real damage, but kind of cute. And yes, the blasting cap was “keestered”.

Characters

  • SPC Williams
  • PV2 Brad Patterson

Locations

  • Battalion Sick Call, Taji, Iraq

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