How I Trained at Age 7 for the Military

How I Trained at Age 7 for the Military


I count myself, on all ten fingers, very lucky to have survived the Halloween of my youth. In the years of cold war diplomacy it was, I guess, important for young boys to know the ins and outs of light explosives. And every year around the time of Halloween we were allowed to expand our knowledge on this very topic with the detonation of firecrackers.
I was a 7 yr. old boy in October of 1962 eager to learn the effects of contained gun powder when put to a lit fuse. And the western governments of the known world, thanks to the Bay of Pigs and Russian tensions, were eager to let me.
I believe young kids experimenting and detonating firecrackers were a black-ops program set down by this country's military. Who, were building a fighting force of young children expertly trained in the use of explosives in an urban settings. A force far greater in number and expanding a much larger area than the Hitler youth programs some 20 yrs. before. A mass army of kids stretching from coast to coast to coast. An army with no central command post that could be brought down to destabilize its effectiveness.
We started training every October till about mid November or till your buddy's supply of firecrackers ran out. We would meet every day after school and collectively join ranks with all the other kids. And it was with great imagination we would include fireworks into our after school playtime. We would strike fear into unsuspecting citizens, neighbors, siblings, nosey girls and the occasional household pet. There were no clean precise missions with laser guided smart firecrackers with few casualties. It was total carnage!
The explosive force of your biggest firecracker (Cherry Bomb) or several tied together created a thunderous clap of expanding gasses capable of rendering panic and destruction to anything a young kid puts his mind to.
Firecrackers were glued to paper airplanes where extra distance was achieved in delivering the ordinance. They were blown through drinking straws to practice in tight urban environments. Set in the trunk of a model car, my brother built, with a small bag of gasoline. The resulting explosion looked like a mob hit we saw on the news. We stuck them in tree knot holes, buried them in dirt under my plastic farm animals then went directly to Old MacDonald himself and blew off his left leg.
The possibilities and procedures for explosive detonations were endless. But not the munitions.
Everything we had gotten for Christmas and birthdays were all subject to an explosive destruction. Sometimes we would ask for stuff at Christmas not because we wanted it but thought it would make a great explosion. Dad was so happy when he found out the Barbie House and Yard Play-set he got for me at Christmas exploded into little pieces in late October. Thing was I loved that set! My G.I. Joe used it when he was on furlough.
"Don't play with them in the house!" Was the only rule my parents had when it came to firecrackers. No my parents weren't alcoholics! They were farm people. Accidents of a disfiguring natured were common when they were growing up. Farm machinery is very dangerous, so a firecracker was nothing to them. Why my Dad was hunting with a 22. caliber rifle when he was six (maybe my grandparents drank).
Yes whoever it was in the military who thought of the black-ops training of young kids in light explosives was a genius when it came to military thinking. A nation of trained children in the use of explosives at no cost to the government. But now with the cold war a distant memory firecrackers, and also in many areas fireworks are now banned. "You might hurt yourself." They say. Well DAH! Tell that to my friend Lefty. I told him the fuse was too short.

Bob Niles