“Last man!” I was told by the last assaulter to run by. My turn. I raced off to take a seat on the helo. I thanked the creator that we had a decently short flight, because even in a banshee-howling Black Hawk with both the doors removed, I could still smell that clown’s shit pants from where he lay strapped to the litter. I had to grin.
That was a good time. Everything went well—very well. To flip that coin, though, we all know that some of our best-laid plans may take a southern excursion of their own at times. Such was the case with Moses Bentley and the Bentley Blaster (BB) charge he had created on his own.
The BB charge was, in my opinion, more of what we called a “trash shot.” That is, it was just a wad of all of the explosive tailings, odds and ends, left over from making explosive charges. Pieces that wouldn’t really fit into another charge. We would typically take the trash shots downrange and blow them up once a month. I have used the term trash shot to describe a good number of people in my day, too. Perhaps some have used it to describe me?
The next mission called for explosive entry through an exterior door. Think of the front door to your house. It is probably the most no-nonsense, strongest door in your house. All interior doors are likely much lighter and weaker. Moses was the breacher for this target. He was hell-bent on using his BB charge, and use it he did.
We two, Moses and I, crept to the front door while the rest of the team stacked up just around the near corner. I had Moses’ back while he worked, just like my mate had my back at the Python. Moses fired the charge but did an odd thing: Rather than back away from the charge, he turned around quickly and ran around the corner.
The delay on the firing system was five seconds. I cleared the corner with the team as the charge detonated. MY GOD…it was so loud! I thought. I was stunned and flipped around 180 degrees. My ears rang like the Notre Dame Cathedral, and I wasn’t completely clear what I was even doing or even where I was.
As colors slowly returned to my sight I could see now that the front door had not blown up. We had blown up. When Moses turned after firing the charge, his holstered M1911 had hooked the charge, stripping it off the door, dragged it back to the assault team stack, and…BOOOOM!
Moses was upside down, with his body slumped against the wall and his head anchored into the ground, neck bent at an impossible angle. You simply could never have manually placed a human in such a bizarre and morbid pose. Well, maybe if you were Jeffrey Dahmer.
The man behind Moses lay face down with his uniform trousers completely shredded, his bare legs bleeding from a hundred tiny holes. He was getting up slowly. I ran to him and grabbed his shoulder. He looked up at me with a horrified expression.
“Cos!” I said his name. His face changed completely and he grinned and shook his head a bit, exclaiming, “Whew…I’d hate to see what that door looks like now. WHEW!”
Moses had just come-to from his upside-down unconscious state and immediately got into a pissing match with our team leader, Daddy-Mac. “Well, Mos is OK. That’s what he normally does: argue!” Mos would be fine, but he was certainly NOT fine. He was badly burned, with black and red on his pelvis and legs. Some flesh was blown away and he had holes in both legs. His sidearm was destroyed and likely saved his life.
I could see his junk—which was completely disgusting—where his kit and clothes were blown away, and I was vicariously glad for him that he was still intact. He was out of action for weeks but came in occasionally to argue because that’s what Mos did: argue.
An in-house investigation performed by The Unit’s master breacher gigged Mos for two faults: The first was the unauthorized use of a non-standard explosive charge, the Bentley Blaster; the second was his failure to follow egress procedure after firing the charge. Remember, he turned 180 degrees and hooked the charge with his pistol. If he had just backed away from the charge once he’d fired it, none of the carnage would have occurred.
The Unit could have let him go for that but didn’t. I’m thankful for that. Mos took his medicine from the master breacher like a man, but only after one hell of a long, drawn-out argument with the guy. Because that’s just what Master Sergeant Moses Bentley did. He argued.
By almighty God and with honor,
Geo sends
This article was originally published in August 2019. It has been edited for republication.
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