What's All This Talk Of Rifles?

hobbit · Post by **hobbit** » December 9th, 2004, 6:00 am

If you can't hit your enemy in the head with a split-finger knuckler, you're too damn far away.

hobbit · Post by **hobbit** » December 9th, 2004, 7:35 am

Yes. "Mini-frags" they called them. They started showing up in Vietnam early in 1971. I never carried any in the bush when I was with the Ranger Company, but during my second tour, when I worked in Psyops, I carried a box of them on the chopper we used for propaganda broadcasts. We flew out over the A Shau, into Laos, and up over the Khe Sahn and Ho Chi Mihn Trail every day making propaganda broadcasts while tossing Chu Hoi leaflets. When we took ground fire, I'd toss about a dozen of those little kiddy frags in the general direction of the muzzle flash.

BTW everyone, that's Billy Nix in the picture, a fellow Ranger and now Southeastern Director for Disabled American Veterans (regional office in Atlanta). He's a good man to talk too if you have VA entitlement concerns.

hobbit · Post by **hobbit** » December 9th, 2004, 7:51 am

We had two 1000 watt speakers on that chopper. Sometimes when we got bored, we'd play Led Zeppelin instead of propaganda broadcasts.

Silverback · Post by **Silverback** » December 9th, 2004, 7:57 am

I love Frags! Although a quickly fired burst to the chest is fun too.

hobbit · Post by **hobbit** » December 9th, 2004, 8:05 am

Yep. Frags were really THE weapon of choice for Rangers in Vietnam.

Vee · Post by **Vee** » December 9th, 2004, 8:26 am

hobbit wrote:We had two 1000 watt speakers on that chopper. Sometimes when we got bored, we'd play Led Zeppelin instead of propaganda broadcasts.

Which songs? "You're Time is Gonna Come?"

hobbit · Post by **hobbit** » December 9th, 2004, 9:09 am

Which songs? "You're Time is Gonna Come?"

Actually, if we really wanted to irritate the NVA, we'd hire whores in Phu Bai to make cassette tapes, moaning and crooning and reminding the dinks that it had probably been 7 years since any of them had gotten laid.