Nearly midnight on April 23, Orange County local Henry Vap heard his dog barking incessantly at a suspected fox—he just had piglets, a new addition to his homestead—so he chased it away.

While chasing the fox, he kicked a hard, bottle-shaped item, hurting his foot because he was in flip-flops—clearly, he wasn’t expecting to kick something.

“I thought it was an old coke bottle initially,” he said.

Dark outside, he picked it up and cleaned it off but soon noticed the fins at the bottom of the bottle.

“I realized it was obviously not a coke bottle.”

It was actually a 50mm French Mortar dating back to WWII.

So, Henry explained he took the mortar to his shed, keeping it away from anything that could mess with the ordnance, specifically, “so our pigs don’t touch the plunger and turn into bacon,” and he called the Orange County Sherrif’s Department the next day.

Larry Griffith, the investigator on the scene, and a captain from the department, identified the mortar, and claimed it could be a live piece of ordnance of military connection, so he notified the explosive ordnance disposal team from MCB Quantico.

Orange County is located south of Culpepper and about a 50-minute drive west of Fredericksburg, making the drive from Quantico a tad lengthy; however, the EOD team responded promptly to the scene to secure the mortar and safely transport it back to base, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s office.

The EOD team examined it visually and by X-rays but could not definitively determine if it was a live mortar, so they scheduled it to render it inert. On May 1, the EOD team disassembled the ordnance, rendering it safe.

“Finding [unexploded ordnance] in the Quantico area, or even the Northern Virginia area, can happen consistently,” said Staff Sgt. Tyler Blattler, the EOD Team Leader with Security Battalion and the one who responded to Griffiths call. “Many times, this can occur when land is being cleared for developments, or in Mr. Vap’s situation, clearing brush vegetation from a certain area of land for personal uses.

If you or another person identify or suspect there is ordnance in your area or property, contact your local sheriff’s department. Do not move or touch the suspected ordnance.

Henry, in this case, accidentally kicked the device, and because it was dark, he couldn’t immediately identify the potential danger.

He admitted that he was given “a lot of grief” for how he handled the ordnance, because he served active duty as a Marine officer until he got out as a captain.

If there is discovered ordnance on base, please contact the EOD team at 703-784-5314.