Army investigates The Army is investigating a hand grenade training accident on Sunday that killed one soldier and injured three others, including a key 25th Division leader.
grenade accident that
killed Schofield soldier
3 others were injured during
How grenades work
Sunday night's training, including
a key battalion leaderBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comDead is Spec. David G. Rubic, 22, an infantryman from San Diego assigned to A Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry, 3rd Brigade, at Schofield Barracks. Plans for memorial services are pending.
Injured were three soldiers in the 25th Division's 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry, including its leader, Lt. Col. Thomas P. Guthrie, 39, from Annapolis, Md. Guthrie was discharged from Tripler last night and reported back to work.
Capt. Mark C. Houston, 29, who commands A Company and is from Delmar, N.Y., and Pvt. Adam Newton, 20, an infantryman assigned to A Company from Clayton, N.Y., suffered leg wounds and were listed in stable condition at Tripler.
All are members of the unit known as the Wolfhounds and were participating in night training exercises, preparing for a company-size live-fire exercise of 150 soldiers in May at the Makua Military Reservation.
The accident occurred at 11:35 p.m. Sunday at Kolekole Range 5 on Schofield Barracks in Wahiawa. Guthrie and Houston were serving as observers and controllers of the exercise and were not participants.
The cause of the accident is under investigation by Schofield Barracks authorities, with assistance of a team from the Army Safety Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., which arrived last night.
Col. John C. Woods, assistant division commander of operations for the 25th Infantry Division (Light) and U.S. Army Hawaii, said "our focus now is on ensuring that through a comprehensive investigation the lessons learned from this accident can prevent such tragedies from happening again."
The Army said the accident occurred when an M67 fragmentation grenade detonated during a platoon live-fire training exercise.
The training involved clearing a trench, which included the use of live hand grenades that are approximately 2.5 inches in diameter and contain about 6.5 ounces of high explosives.
The grenade has a killing radius of 5 to 10 yards, and fragments are dangerous up to 50 yards.
The time delay after the safety pin on the grenade is pulled is anywhere from 4 to 4.8 seconds.
BACK TO TOP |
Troy Griffin, Army spokesman, said 110 soldiers from A Company, along with 30 from another unit, were participating in the night exercise. The battalion, commanded by Guthrie, had been in the field for six days and was supposed to end its exercise Sunday night.Rubic was flown by helicopter to Queen's Medical Center, where he died.
Griffin said all training in the KR-5 training area has been temporarily suspended.
The Army did not release details of the accident. Capt. Stacy Bathrick, Army spokeswoman, today said that the unit had completed one cycle of running through the course during the day firing blank ammunition and then repeating it again using both live ammunition and live grenades during the day.
Bathrick said the soldiers also had done a cycle of attacking the trench course at night firing blanks. She did not know whether the soldiers were firing live bullets during the exercise Sunday night.
However, according to Army training manuals, during a platoon trench clearing exercise the platoon leader designates a squad of nine to 14 soldiers to enter a trench and secure a foothold. The assault element then is broken down into two-man or three-man clearing teams. When they reach the edge of the trench, two grenades are thrown in. After both grenades detonate, the soldiers roll into the trench and, with their backs to each other, fire down the trench line in opposite directions.
Once the area is cleared, the soldiers continue to move through the trench line, rotating soldiers and stopping only at corners or intersections to throw grenades.
"This tragic accident emphasizes that our soldiers train in realistic yet dangerous circumstances to prepare them for what our nation may call of them in time of war," said Woods. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families at this time."
Rubic is the eighth 25th Division soldier killed over the past two years in training exercises at night.
Last year, six soldiers died and four were injured when two Black Hawk helicopters collided during a night training exercise in the Kahuku Military Training Area.
Two years ago, one soldier was killed and four others injured when two bangalore torpedoes exploded during a practice session at night at the Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island.
The Army found no evidence of criminal negligence in the helicopter and bangalore accidents. However, Lt. Col. Paul Disney, commander of the 25th Division's aviation brigade, was given a letter of reprimand in the Feb. 12, 2001, Black Hawk accident -- considered to be the Army's worst training accident in Hawaii.
In 1996, the pilot and co-pilot of a Cobra gunship died when the helicopter crashed at Schofield en route to Wheeler Army Air Field and in 1990 a Hawaii Army National Guard soldier was accidentally shot by an M-60 machine gun at Pohakuloa.