A Terrorist Attack?

First Tour

I missed the truck to go back to my billets because I was finishing up some work. I knew that, if I walked out to the main road into town and stuck out my thumb, someone would stop and pick me up probably taking me right to my door.

I happened to have my camera with me so I was taking some photos of the area. Suddenly, through the lens, I saw a bicycle coming towards me. I put the camera down so that I could check out the rider. There were reports of people on motor scooters and bicycles staging small-scale attacks on GIs. The most common was to shoot at the GI with a pistol and then to escape on the bike. There were also reports of such people throwing hand grenades at Americans.

The man who was approaching me had something in his hand. It was about the size of one of the cylindrical type grenades I had seen in Basic Training. So, I watched him very closely as he got nearer and nearer. Just as he passed me, his hand came up and the grenade arched through the air, coming right at me. Without thinking, I leaped over the low concrete fence on my right. As I went over it, I was aware of my camera hitting the fence. Flattening myself on the ground, I waited for the explosion.

After about half a minute, nothing had happened so I got up and looked over the fence. There was nothing there, except an empty coke can, the hand grenade.

I was very glad that no one had seen this and I did not tell any of my coworkers about the incident. However, I did have some difficulty explaining why the filter mount on my camera had a big dent.