“See… Because of me, now they have a warning”
Michael Herr in Dispatches, his book about the Vietnam War, relates that a soldier would occasionally ingest C4 from a Claymore mine in order to cause temporary illness so that he would be sent on sick leave.
Also heard that since it burns, troops in Vietnam would break off small pieces as firestarter or cooking rations, hence the warning about how it burns and makes toxic gases.
Now I wonder what it tastes like… I bet it’s like a flavor explosion.
not good. somebody actually tried and lived to tell the tale:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombings#Ryazan_incident
Pinyaev guarded a storehouse with weapons and ammunition near the city of Ryazan. Together with a friend, he entered the storehouse to see the weapons. The friends were surprised to see that the storehouse contained sacks with the word “sugar” on them. Pinyaev and his friend were discouraged, but didn’t want to leave the storehouse empty-handed. The two paratroopers cut a hole in one of the bags and put some sugar in a plastic bag. They made tea with the sugar, but the taste of the tea was terrible. They became frightened because the substance might turn out to be saltpeter, and brought the plastic bag to a platoon commander. He consulted a sapper, who identified the substance as hexogen
that’s a mean looking molecule
a lot like TNT but with more nitrogenno, it’s sugar, can’t you see, it’s clearly labeled on the bag
Looks very very unhappy.
Dad?
That’s for the marines.
Literally btw
American troops would eat small amounts of C4 in the Vietnam war to get high. Apparently had some pretty severe side effects though.
Like, yeah, you’re high, but you also have the worst headache of your life and can’t stop vomiting and shitting.
Fun times?
Why did I read the title as ‘explosive if eaten raw’?
So I’ve figured if I just cook the dynamite, then it’s safe to eat.
Apparently C4 burns quite well and is still pretty stable while aflame. There are anekdotes of soldiers using it as emergency fuel to cook water for their rations
I’ve heard that dudes in 'Nam would eat bits of it to upset their stomach and get medical treatment.
It’s got electrolytes!
It’s really not that volatile a substance. You can burn it, even.
You need a special device to actually get it to explode.
Which is precisely why it’s such an amazing explosive, imagine how happy people must have been to go from explosives that might detonate if you cough near them, to something you can set aflame without worry.
I’m almost certain I’ve heard stories about soldiers eating or even burning c4^1 for shits and giggles. Not surprised they have to put a warning label on it, though I doubt it does any good.
^1 : iirc c4 by itself is very safe because it has to be exposed to a sudden increase in pressure and heat to detonate (e.g. a shock wave, or supposedly, stomping on it while it’s on fire). Just burning it or throwing it at a wall won’t make it explode.
Yes you can burn it. C4 needs a fairly deliberate effort to explode. There have been issues where improperly set large shots of C4 end up on fire all over the area rather than exploding. Which is a suboptimal situation.
For eating, the way I heard is that people would stick a piece inside their lip ala a tobacco dip. Supposedly the contact with the inner lip causes some kind of heightened feeling. I can’t prove that one though.
I mean, many many organic compounds, like solvents or plasticizers, get you high. Similar to ethanol.
It’s all poisoning you, we just have a good way to metabolize ethanol.
I have heard that, if just lit on fire with a match or whatever, C4 simply burns rather than exploding, and I have heard this has been used to heat at least one meal.
this is much better than some other older explosives that are toxic on skin contact
I’ve heard it causes explosive diarrhea
