The link shows a large DANGER sign, and this was his third - and final - visit to the impact area.

http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2009/11/02/948610

Bragg explosion death: Men ignored warnings, entered danger zone

By Greg Barnes
Staff writer
Published: 07:13 AM, Tue Nov 03, 2009

For some reason, Fort Bragg officials say, Ronnie Blue and another man ignored the large warning signs and drove onto an impact zone Friday to scavenge scrap metal.

Shortly after noon that day, the officials said, the base received a call that an explosion at Coleman Impact Zone - also known as Observation Point 5 - might have killed Blue.

Base officials used a helicopter to locate Blue's body in the vast and largely barren impact zone. For the next several hours, soldiers walked gingerly through the area - marking unexploded ordnance as they went - and pulled the body out about dusk, said Bill Edwards, an installation range officer.

Edwards said Blue's body was found about a mile from the boundary at Observation Point 5, near Longstreet and Preacher roads. Blue, who was 47, was from Hamlet.

Edwards said the man who was with Blue told investigators that he and Blue had scavenged at the impact zone twice before the fatal trip. Both were civilians and did not work for the Department of the Army, Fort Bragg officials said.

Fort Bragg officials declined to identify the second man because the investigation continues. The man has not been charged.

Officials say he drove a truck out of the impact area after the accident and told Blue's brother about it hours later. The brother called Fort Bragg officials, Edwards said.

Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum said the base does everything it can to keep people out of the base's four impact zones, three of which encompass a total of about 35,000 acres.

"We can't control the access to our impact areas," McCollum said. "We've done just about everything we can."

Large signs mark the entry to Observation Point 5 warning people in English and Spanish that unexploded bombs and other ordnance litter the area. The impact zones are so dangerous that soldiers never go into them, Edwards said.

He said the Coleman Impact Zone has been used for about 50 years to drop or shoot everything from bullets to bombs and rockets.

"You are going to have death when somebody is stupid and walks into these areas," McCollum said.

Yet, scavengers have ignored the warnings and risked their lives to scrounge the metal for resale.

Last year, three men pleaded guilty to stealing anti-tank rifle rounds and projectiles from Fort Bragg and selling it to a Raleigh scrap metal company, where the ordnance exploded. Two workers suffered minor injuries, and homes and businesses around the company had to be evacuated.

Staff writer Greg Barnes can be reached at barnesg@fayobserver.com or 486-3525.

They should just leave his body in there, why risk more lives to get his stupid carcass out?

Geez - that brings back some memories.

As a young trooper at Ft Bragg in the late 70's, my buddy and I used to go there and shoot at 'things' with his scoped Model 700 in .257 Roberts, trying to get a secondary detonation.

I'm sometimes amazed that I survived those years...

It bothers me not one bit that idiots put themselves at risk, but I have seen people bring UXO out of Eglin ranges, and into homes as "souvenirs", exposing other's to their dumbassery...

I dressed down an assist Crew Chief for pulling a 20mm TPT round from an F-4E and sticking it in his pocket.
He was walking around the jets, taking it out of his pocket and showing it off to the guys on the line.

Had just enough brain cells to try and tell me it was "just a training round".

When I explained it was electrical primered and full load of propellant with an inert projectile, and that is what made it a "training round" with the potential to be set off by the static discharge if he handed it to someone, and about the same as a grenade, he blanched a bit, and took himself to the edge of the flightline to wait for EOD guys to come get it from him.

That was back when you could call on folks to come "take care of a problem" and not turn it into an international incident.

Guy "decided" he wanted to work in the tool crib.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

stupid is as stupid does

There are similar place all over. South Central Indiana has its very own mine field, the old Jefferson Proving Grounds. Back in the 1970s and 80s (and I assume earlier), you could hear the heavy shelling. Residents had lots of stories about folks who vanished.

They also had stories about explosions when there wasn't any shelling taking place. Just a boom, then silence. Actual testing was almost always a series, and usually during afternoon hours (the ones I heard, anyway.) The assumption was some critter stumbled upon something and disturbed it.

They still kill farmers in France and Germany (and I assume other european countries). Somebody's plowing along and hits something in just the right/wrong way. It goes kaboom.

East central Utah has a missle range near Green River. In the past it wasn't unusual for somebody to come into town sporting a very dented or fired rocket, I assume a sounding rocket of some kind.

A few years ago, OP5 was the target of a lot of CBU's, cluster munitions, both anti-personell and anti-armour. There is up to a ten percent dud rate from CBU's and each bomb holds up to 800 of the little baseball size bomblets, which are very sensitive! No way would I go into that impact area!

Afew years ago, a similarly mentally challenged person was four-wheeling in an impact area when he got his truck stuck there. He walked out and asked the MP's for help getting his truck back! They laughed at him.. before they charged him! When he asked if they couldn't lift his truck out by helo they told him they wouldn't even hover over that area!
When he finally signed abandonment papers on his truck it was turned into a target by several eager artillery crews, eager for the first shot on a "real" target!

quote:

Base officials used a helicopter to locate Blue's body in the vast and largely barren impact zone. For the next several hours, soldiers walked gingerly through the area - marking unexploded ordnance as they went - and pulled the body out about dusk, said Bill Edwards, an installation range officer.

Not ONLY did he end his own life but he caused several others to risk their simply to remove his carcass.

Complete and utter fuckwad asshat.

Wait, this was an NCIS episode...

The guy's actually an FBI agent who infiltrated the mob who then dumped him there as the latest of their long line of victims. Any second now we'll have a tough-guy NCIS agent followed by his party-boy collegue, his hottie ex-secret service partner and computer geek probie on the case. The whole thing will end with the death of another FBI agent who was trying to frame a third FBI agent who's a friend (sorta) of our tough-guy NCIS agent and a mob leiutenant in prison for manslaughter.

...

Why are you all looking at me like that?...

Pft. I've wandered DEEP into an impact area at Lejeune. With two platoons. Of course, the moral of my story is never let an officer have the map.

What an idiot.

Well that blows

quote:

Originally posted by honda:
Pft. I've wandered DEEP into an impact area at Lejeune. With two platoons. Of course, the moral of my story is never let an officer have the map.

Same thing happened to me at Lejeune. A Major got us good and lost, took us right into an impact area. Not a fun night.

Moron. The first thing they tell you at an explosives range is usually:

If you didn't drop it, don't pick it up.

"They should just leave his body in there, why risk more lives to get his stupid carcass out?" Lord Vaalic

My thoughts exactly.

Idiot.

I don't know how many times I told him it was safer to catch them BEFORE they hit the ground.

He got cured of tresspassing, stealing and being stupid all in the same day.

quote:

Originally posted by Texas Bob C.:
He got cured of tresspassing, stealing and being stupid all in the same day.

So you can fix stupid!

They really need to charge the survivor with manslaughter and trespass. A few years ago up here at Ft.Lewis a couple of metal hunters scaled a fence to get into the impact area. After the explosion one dead and one in ICU at the Madigan AMC the Ft.Lewis hospital. The survivor filed suit against the Army for his injuries and as I recall the 9th Circuit (those commie b..tards)gave him a payoff!!!!!

I work in the range sustainment arena as a DoD contractor.

While the consensus here is that this guy got what he had coming for being unwise in his means of earning money, you can bet there are going to be lots of ugly, ugly questions asked. Questions like how did this guy get onto the post and then onto the impact area when DoD policy (DODI 4715.11) states that the Components are to:

quote:

5.4.6 Restrict access to operational ranges, especially impact areas and other areas suspected of containing unexploded ordnance (UXO).
5.4.6.1. Take appropriate action to prevent unauthorized access to operational ranges. Such actions include establishing access controls (e.g., posting UXO hazard warning signs, fencing the area, establishing roving security patrols) and providing public notifications of potential explosive hazards.

That policy requirement dates back to 1999.

This sort of incident is the kind of fodder that the environmental interest groups have sought to use to push for greater outside regulation (i.e., by EPA and state environmental agencies) of the military's training and testing ranges. Yes, it does not make sense - this was a case of criminal trespass, but that does not stop those that want the military's ranges as highly regulated as hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities.

If you know ANY ONE who makes a habit of trespassing onto military ranges for any reason, STOP THEM.

Turn them in to the installation's Provost Marshal if you have to. The military does not need either the bad press from these sorts of incidents or the potential that the current administration will grant external parties greater control over the ranges. Plus, you might just save their life.