Legal Lore: Anatomy of an Attempted Army Murder
Fred L. Borch
On November 30, 1972, Staff Sergeant Alan G. Cornett was living in a small outpost near Duc My, Vietnam. A medic assigned to an American Special Forces team, Cornett liked being where the action was, and he had almost completed an unprecedented six and a half years in Vietnam. But on that November day, Alan Cornett was not a happy trooper. After drinking a half case of Budweiser beer and a pint of rum, Cornett walked to the bunker where his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Donald F. Bongers, was on duty. Cornett then took an M-26 fragmentation grenade off his web belt, pulled the pin, and threw the grenade into the bunker.