Overcome...Adapt

Today’s lesson on Ingenuity

Here is your lesson on how to adapt, overcome and improvise─the Marine Way. During Korea, there was a young Marine who was given the task of escorting eight Chinese prisoners to the rear for interrogation by our Intel bubbas. Now this young Devil Dog looked at these eight Chinese prisoners who all had murder in their eyes, and turned to his Sergeant, “You know Sarge, I could probably use a couple more guys to go with me to the C.P.”

It was one of those days; lots of wounded, low on bullets and on top of that, a bunch of prisoners. The Sergeant, short-handed after this latest battle, replied, “Hey Marine, if they try to do anything, shoot them.” This normally would be the solution to the obvious problem, but he only had two rounds left in his M-1, and there was no way he could beg his buddies for bullets when the next attack might arrive any minute. Looking around, he noticed an unconscious wounded Marine lying on the side of the road awaiting transport to the rear. This particular Marine was in the Engineer Platoon and had a rucksack full of “Det” Cord, used by Engineers to blow up multiple things simultaneously. This stuff is highly explosive and fast acting. Pulling the cord out, he proceeded to make loops, spacing them about two feet apart. He then went up to each Chinese soldier, slipped a loop over their head, and pulling it to a nice snug fit around each guy’s neck. They all stood there wondering what the hell he was doing. I’m sure they were all thinking they’d jump him at the first chance they got.

After securing all eight Chinese Soldiers, he then took some extra cord and wrapped it around a broken tree trunk. Looking at the prisoners, he made the following hand signs to them. “Eight of you to one of me. I understand what you are thinking, pointing to their head and then to his head. If you try anything…I will do this.” He hit the switch, blowing the blasting cap and igniting the Det Cord. It blew the two-foot tree trunk in half. This little demo on “demolition 101” was all that was required to ensure he wouldn’t be attacked by these eight. His three-mile hike back to the rear was uneventful as he walked about fifteen feet behind them, guiding them with his long, deadly leash. News of this spread and soon Det Cord leashes were pretty much the standard way to transport prisoners if you were low on bullets and guards.

That’s using your head and figuring out how to solve a problem…Marine Style Ingenuity.
Semper Fi,
Taco
ps forgot to include this video link to show you what Det cord could do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU64SLmn60s