Pvt. Hunsaker loses an arm  − 17 January, 1992

I've thought of writing this story but wanted to do it justice. I've been running thoughts through my head and I think I have it.

It was a pretty cold day at Ft. Knox. We had just spent the day zeroing our weapons at the range and I was one of 7 guys that was finished first so they sent us to "police the bivouac area from the night before." What this means in civilian terms is we were sent to clean up and make sure we left nothing behind at our camp spot.

We had been told to never pick up duds just about everyday. For some reason though we never really thought we'd ever see one. For those that don't know; Duds are unexploded rounds. Being that Fort Knox is over 150 years old and has been a huge training center for about the same amount of time, there are tons of tank ranges. What they do over time though is turn the ranges around. What this meant is that our camp site was, at one time, down range for Sherman tanks during gunnery. It's scary, but they do do a good job cleaning up old rounds.

Anyway, Hunsaker found an old rusty shell, not sure what the millimeter was because it was something none of us had seen before. It was definitely from before 1960 though. I and everyone else checked it out and we all said, "Put it down and get the Drill Sergeant" in one way or another. I even remember holding it and trying to see if it had been fired recently. It was a little bigger than my palm. I put it down and told Hunsaker to get the Drill Sergeant. He said, "I'm going to clean it up and take it to him." We all shook our heads and walked away. I was again looking for cigarette butts and paper on the ground.

I heard, "Thump, Thump, Crack, ahhhh!" I turned around and saw a puff of white smoke and Hunsaker was falling backwards along with another soldier. They both began screaming, I ran up to Hunsaker, knelt down and said, "It's alright man, calm down." he was screaming, "My hand's gone, my hand's fucking gone!" I told him to calm down and said, "It's okay dude, it's fine." He screamed at me and said, "It's the other one, Zimmerman!" In the confusion, I forgot which one I was to look at.

I looked at it and it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. As I said earlier, it was cold so we were wearing gloves with the green liners and the inside of both outer and inner shell of his one glove was gone and nothing remained but red, white and blue meat and tendons. Half of his fingers were gone and the two tendons (you can see them if you turn your hand around and look at your wrist and make a fist) were arched over his hand.

I told him it was okay, and to calm down. It seemed everyone else ran to get the Drill Sergeants. I stayed with Hunsaker and the other guy that was close enough to damage his ears with the blast. I knew enough about combat first aid by that time to enable to stop Hunsaker from going into shock. I covered him with my poncho and gathered up his mangled fingers, or what was left of them, and put them in his palm to keep them warm. I used Hunsaker's bandage, that all soldiers are required to wear, and covered his hand.

About this time, one of the Drills was screaming and running over. We used to call this Drill Sergeant Paul Bunyan, he was huge and had a mustauche that made him look exactly like the fictional woodsman. He got to me and pushed me about 6 feet away with one swipe. At the time, I thought he would be happy that I was performing first aid but I found out later, by serving my time, that I was just a dumb idiot recruit and he was afraid I'd make it worse.

He told all of us to leave the area and in about 5 minutes a medivac chopper showed up. Hunsaker was in the air in about another 5 minutes. The chopper turned around and came back though. Turns out someone forgot a digit (finger) "Yikes I thought, I tried to get them all."

The day continued but the 6 of us that were left from the initial group that was there were in a haze. People were asking us what happened. We all said, "It was dud, we told him to put it down, but he began banging it against a tree and..."
Everyone, once finding out what happened, was pissed because they all knew it would be an extra 20 minutes for each, already boring, prefire briefing for the next 20 years at Fort Knox.

Little did I know at the time that the Drill Sergeants were in deep shit for putting us in that position with no supervision. We all felt bad because we all knew that they were great soldiers and we all felt that they didn't deserve it. We knew we were the ones to blame.

When we got back to the barracks I had trouble sleeping. I kept staring at my hand and seeing Hunsaker's hand and imagining how it could have been me.

A few days later, the Drill Sergeants drove us to a place on post that looked like a small little town. It's were the general officers live I found out later.

One by one we reported to a group of men seated at a large table. We had to report just like the Drill Sergeants taught us. Snapping to attention and sitting at attention and answering questions directly with, "yes Sir", or "No Sir." The Drill Sergeants explained that this needed to be done to perfection and that most of us, if not all, would be meeting people at a higher rank than we'd ever meet again.

They were right, 3 of the men at the table were General Colin Powell, Secretary of State Baker, and General Franks, the post commander. These men could make ours and our Drill Sergeants lives a living hell and we all knew it. We thought we were all in trouble at the time. What we didn't know is that when you are a recruit, you have no responsibilties, the Drill Sergeants take the heat for everything you do. Even the Drill Sergeants were scared and reported to the council as well.

Nothing happened to our Drill Sergeants though, but that day, the seven of us saw a side of our Drills that most people don't see. We saw scared young men in their 20s. Things changed after that, but the Drills let us visit Hunsaker once he was feeling a little better. He lost his lower arm from the elbow down and he was discharged with a full medical after a month.

There was always a story about some kid losing an arm or worse because of a dud during the pre-fire briefings. For anyone soldiering after 1992 at Ft. Knox, you now know exactly what happened to make the story you heard real.