• Life as a grenade is not glamorous. The only thing keeping me from setting myself off is an urge to be useful. I want to give my owner the joy of killing the enemy. The only problem is that my owner has changed three times!
    My life began in an explosives factory in France. The first thought I had was exploding. When I was put into my shipping crate I found it was the main topic of conversation between the other grenades. The crate was dark! It wasn’t that bad though because there were other grenades to talk to.
    My crate was sent to the frontlines in France. I was given to a scrawny private that was assigned to the trenches. The trenches were a horrible place for soldiers and their weapons (me)! I hated being on his belt because it put me closer to the muddy and putrid bottom of the trench. There were rats everywhere!
    On our first attack run my owner was frightened. When we left the trench he panicked. He threw me without pulling the pin! I landed in a wounded soldiers lap. He freaked and started shouting something in German until he realized I was unarmed. A medic ran over worked on the soldier and sent him to a medical tent. The medic picked me up and handed me to a private in the trenches (my second owner).
    Now I thought the French trenches were bad, but the German trenches were worse. My owner smelled just as bad, if not worse, than the other soldiers. The trench had a horrible smell in the air of death and weapon fire that assaulted my senses. It was just as muddy on this side and it was hard to imagine, but the rats were bigger!
    My second owner didn’t last long however. After a week or so he lost his helmet during an attack. One day we were going through the trench and he heard a noise. The idiot climbed up to look. He got himself shot in the head! When he fell back he landed right on top of me; I hated being attached to a dead body.
    A clean-up crew came to take his body with me attached to a morgue-like tent. The place reeked of the dead and the bodies didn’t look to good either. One of the clean up guys walked up to a major and said, “What do we do with the weapons?” The major replied, “Give them to a soldier on the line.” This is how I got to where I am now with my third owner.
    This owner is the most interesting because he seems to know what he is doing.While in his possession we have been on many attack runs. We actually took over the French trench once but got pushed back. We are now headed out on another attack run.
    This run through no man’s land is horrifying! People are being cut down by machine gun fire on both sides. Grenades, possibly ones I talked to at the factory even, are exploding all around us. I really want to be one of them. I’m really disappointed when my owner picks up another grenade. He gets hurled at the enemy and I watch him happily explode, taking a French machine gun crew with him.
    We are almost to the trench now. My owners picks me up and I’m am so happy! He pulls my pin and throws me. I fly through the air and land in the trench, but I’m picked up by a soldier and thrown back out. I land at the feet of my third owner and explode.