U.S. Army base Fort Sill celebrated Halloween this year by loading up a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) with candy and launching it at eager children.
The HIMARS is an artillery launcher on wheels that has helped Ukraine fight off the Russian invasion. It’s been celebrated in song and praised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At Fort Sill, the U.S. Army’s 1-78 Field Artillery Battalion loaded a HIMARS up with candy and launched it at a group of costumed children.
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“How else would you expect us to give children candy on Halloween?”, the official Twitter account of Fort Sill said in a tweet above a video of the kids running to collect their candy. “FIRE MISSION!!!”
Fort Sill, an Oklahoma base with a population of around 10,000, is home to the U.S. Army Field Artillery School where soldiers go to train to use weapons like the HIMARS. Military bases across the country tend to have their own culture. Soldiers live there with their families and celebrate holidays together with other military families. To a lot of the country, the HIMARS launching candy video will look very strange, but to military families, it’s just another day on base.
Ukraine has 16 HIMARS systems and the Pentagon announced at the end of September that it’s sending Kyiv 18 more. Like the Javelin, the HIMARS has become an iconic weapon on the battlefield of Ukraine. It has allowed the country to launch strikes against Russian lines and move away before the Russian military has a chance to strike back. It’s blown up tanks and fuel depots, and outranges the best artillery that Moscow can put on the field.
