Post your funny stories from the military

[Chantry]

March 1993, Ft. McClellan, AL Military Police OSUT (One Station Unit Training, it combines Basic with AIT). We were about 6-7 weeks into Basic, just before rifle qualifications. I was on fire watch and the power went out, my shift ended, I waked my relief and went back to bed. At this point in Basic I had fallen into the habit of waking about 5 minutes before reveille and when the morning came I woke up accordingly and waited for the Drill Sgt to play reveille over the loud speakers. At that point I realized there was still no power and one of the other recruits looked out one of the windows and saw the foot of snow that had fallen overnight. Being as it was Alabama, we hadn't been issued liners for our filed jackets. Anyway, the only Drill Sgt in the barracks came around, told us to get dressed and to stay where we were. The morning of the 1st day we were taken over to the mess hall and ate any of the perishable food that did not need to be prepared. Later the Drill Sgt took the company over to a hall and tried to do some gas mask training until one of the recruits suffered a claustrophobia attack after having the mask on for a while. Aside from trying to shovel a path with our entrenching tools to the main road for the minivan the company used for errands, we were told to remain in our barracks the rest of the weekend. As an aside, shoveling powdery snow with an entrenching tool kind of sucks. Anyway we spent the remainder of the weekend writing letters and sitting next to the windows trying to get warm from the sun until the power came back on Sunday evening. It was the best part of OSUT.

 

Some related thoughts: Alabama loses it's collective mind when it get's a foot of snow. Being from the Northeast, I've never seen any place shut down so completely. Most of the Southern recruits had never seen snow first hand.

 

[The O'Meara Himself]

I joined the army in the early 60s. I was trained as a field medic and then as a preventive medicine specialist. That's like the army public health service. I was assigned to a preventive medicine unit at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX. just after I got there the unit (I'll call it 912th} went on a maneuver in the desert near Needles California. It was called Operation Desert Strike. I don't like to think about the implications. We were camped on the desert in squad tents. The officers met for coffee and donuts every morning at Denny's In Needles and hung out there for the rest of the day. The 912th was a relaxed outfit like a lot of medical units. (Our job was to practice medicine, not to look good.)

 

One of the guys in the unit was a huge man, who must have started pumping iron while still in the womb, called "Tex". The army didn't have a cap that fit him, he had to open the seam on it to get it on his head, and as far as I could tell he never could get the neck button closed on a shirt no matter the size. It was the second day I was there, still trying to figure out how every thing worked. We were issued the standard army sleeping bags ( instead of down I think they were full of steel wool) and slept on the standard wooden "Army Cots". The tent was heavy canvas with that distinctive waterproofing aroma that will stay with me forever, held up by 2x2 poles. Tex slept on his back with the bag pulled up around his head, just his face showing. Across from him slept a guy I'll call Brown who was the jumpiest man I ever knew, afraid of everything, including his own shadow. A quiet cool desert night. (IT took a few days to figure out had happened that night).

 

In his sleep Tex rolled over onto his stomach. But his sleeping bag was caught in one of his cots metal hinges and didn't roll with him. His face hole was now behind his head. This woke him up and he rolled back over, and this time the sleeping bag rolled with him. He was facing up, but the face hole was still behind his head. Tex must have presumed he was smothering to death and he let out an earth shattering roar and stood up. Tex had been scrunched up in his bag, and when he stood he tore the bag roughly in half at waist height. Now half the bag was around his feet and half over his head.(Till then , i didn't think this was humanly possible) and he was thrashing around trying to get it off, spilling steel wool and buzzard feathers all over. His yell had awakened everyone in the tent, including Brown. There was just enough ambient light for Brown to see a huge blob-like thing across from him roaring. Brown naturally headed for the door, screaming along with Tex. Brown had the right idea but his aim was off and instead of the doorway he hit the corner of the tent, taking out the 2x2 pole. He bounced back and tried it again and this time he hit the doorway, taking that 2x2 tent pole with him. The tent collapsed to the right

 

Those of us sleeping on the left were suddenly looking up at the at the clear star studded night sky while those on the right were covered in a couple layers of heavy waterproof canvas and trying to get out. Looked like a bunch of pigs fighting in a gunny sack. I sat up and the First Sergeant suddenly appeared behind me with a flashlight, playing the light over the heaving, yelling canvas covered pile of GIs in front of him. "O'Meara," he shouted at me, "What happened? Is anybody hurt?" With my Irish background, I have a gift for words. "The ... ah ,I think...umm...tent...er..." I explained clearly.

[Utah Bob #35998]

The Army commissioned me.

The end.

[Preacher Ben Pray'n]

Late 70's. Navy dive school. Pool training. The instructors played hell with you and your equipment. Could pretty much do anything they wanted as long as they didn't kill you. After having mask ripped off, regulator ripped out of mouth, air shut off, regulator hose tied in several knots, tanked pulled apart from backpack, fins plucked off, weight belt dropped. Everything ripped off except bathing suit! Made the mistake of breaking for the surface. Only to be met by Master Chief Thompson, whacking a long pole inches from my head screaming. WHY ARE YOU BREATHING MY AIR! YOUR AIR IS DOWN THERE! Another whack.

[Tex Jones, SASS 2263]

Okay. To illustrate the leadership and judgment abilities I possessed in my meteoric, but short-lived, military career, I offer you this...

 

Late winter 1967: The picturesque town of Garmisch, Federal Republic of Germany.

 

The sky was clear and the weather mild as a group of near 100 men from the 10th Special Forces Group slithered along like a green snake. Our hideous M1942 Army-issued skis were supposed to be suitable for cross-country and downhill skiing.

They were suitable for neither.

7 feet long, wide, solid wood, heavy and painted white, the troops jokingly called them "White Stars" after the popular high-tech top of the line Kneissl White Star.

 

Historical note: Initially intended to invade Norway with the 1st Special Service Force, the mission was scrapped and the skis went into warehouses until, in a stroke of military genius in the 50's and '60s, someone said, "Hey, let's issue these things out!"

 

But you dance with who you brung so off we slid on numerous forays through the Alps in our Winter Warfare training. Winter Warfare training is a lot like desert training only there's more water (beneficial) and your toes can fall off (not so beneficial).

We also used snowshoes at times. Something the locals were not at all familiar with. Neither was I, being from Florida, but that's another story for another time.

 

So there we were on the outskirts of the old 1936 Olympic facility. The map said we had on bodacious climb and then turned south for a few kilometers where we would pick up a truck convoy. In cross-country skiing someone has to break trail. You change off frequently when the point man gets whupped and stick a fresh body up front. We traversed up a pretty steep slope most of the morning, making frequent switchbacks as we got higher. At last we reached the top just as I rotated into the point position.

"Lucky break", I sez to myself. It's flat and packed up here. We had reached the well used Olympic site and families of Germans, ski bunnies and Jean-Claude Killy wannabe's were everywhere having a great time. We poled along with our clown skis, overstuffed rucksacks and sweat stained berets as we waved and greeted the multitudes. They were quite used to seeing GIs wandering about the countryside. It was the Cold War period after all, and we were there to keep it from warming up.

"Guten Morgen" I cheerily exclaimed to each smiling Teutonic face I encountered. "Gruss Gott" (Southern German for Howdy).

 

One of my team members called from behind me. "Hey Ell-Tee, do you know where we're going?"

"Of course", I said smugly, "I've got the map right chere".

 

For 10 minutes or so we had a marvelous time schussing (That's what you do on skis. You schuss) along the flat manicured trails. We passed a restaurant, packed with people looking out at the sunny slopes. We also passed a sign at the entrance to a path. It was in German. My German was not too good. I ignored it.

I noticed a lot of the people up at the restaurant were standing on the balcony or inside at the pictures windows and waving excitedly at us. I waved back. I was MacArthur. I was Patton with my troops behind me on parade. I was Caesar returning triumphantly to Rome! They waved even more enthusiastically. Some would say frantically.

I waved back. American Hero smile on my face.

We passed another sign. Couldn't read that one either but one of the men behind me could. "Oh Shit" was what I heard.

 

It was too late.

 

Suddenly, the benign, pleasant pathway narrowed. We passed a small building, I thought it said, "Luger". “Odd place for a gunshop”, I thought. I was wrong. It didn't have an R on it.

 

Along with the narrowing came a difference in surface texture. From packed snow to....ice.

 

Now the Army White Star skis were pretty inadequate on snow. On ice they become instruments of death. You have no control and basic physics takes over. Momentum, inertia, gravity, all that stuff.

 

Next, after the solid ice surprise, came another. The angle of the narrow trail increased from 5 degrees to 25 degrees to OHMYGOD degrees. The sides of the trail rose on each side. I began to hear shouts from the long line of troops behind me. Perhaps a few curses. They faded away as the wind in my ears drowned out everything else after a few seconds. I wouldn't have been able to hear them anyway over the screams of terror. Mine.

Once you're skiing down an Olympic Luger trail (it was actually Luger without the r), you don't have a lot of control. I suppose that's why they put up those Eintritt Verboten signs. Turns out it means “Oh No You Don’t.”

 

If you ever see an Eintritt Verboten sign turn around immediately. Germans, not known for their impish sense of humor, never kid about those.

 

So down we went at ever increasing speed. then we hit a corner. I'd never skiied on a wall like that. Some of the fellas took that opportunity to shoot right up and out of the Trail 'o Death at that point. Actually I'm not sure that it was by choice. I think they were yelling "Yahoo" but, as I said, I couldn't hear too well.

Down, down, down we sped as I alternately prayed to the snow gods and cursed the wooden slats strapped to my feet. Sometimes I was on my skis, sometimes my butt, I even went down backwards at one point. It seemed I could hear demonic laughter in the chattering of the skis. After what seemed like 12 or 15 hours on this e-ticket ride the trail widened out. The tall ice sides dropped down. It straightened out, flattened out, and ended…..

In the late winter Bavarian mud and gravel.

While the Army skis are poorly designed they at least do slide, albeit uncontrollably, on snow an ice.

On mud and gravel they do not.

I was the first one in line to come to an abrupt stop. The other 80 or 90 men then plowed into me in rapid succession. Such a tangle of men, equipment and skis has probably not been seen since on the continent of Europe.

 

The good news is the only one civilian witness to my fall from Caesar/Patton-like status was an old farmer on a honey wagon about 50 yards away. He seemed interested and amused. I wondered what he did during The War.

 

As the groans curses and wind noise abated, I thought I heard a voice in my ear....”All Fame is fleeting”.

The incident became known as "The Charge of the Ice Brigade" I think they put a statue up to honor me at the Olympic stadium.

 

Maybe not.

You follow the OIC no matter what.

[DocWard]

Yet another.

 

During my time in HHB in the field artillery, the medics and the mechanics always ended up being billeted together when in garrison at AT. We ended up getting along pretty well, and all seemed to have an odd sense of humor. As we were preparing to leave one year, we were doing a GI party on the barracks. (An aside- Every unit I ever met preached "leave the barracks cleaner than you found them" when pulling out, which leads me to ask, exactly how dirty were those things when they built them???) At any rate, about a dozen of us were cleaning, and the song "It's a Hard Knock Life" from "Annie" came up. We were laughing and joking about it when our First Sergeant walked in. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't been there, but we spontaneously broke into song with the appropriate dance as Top stopped dead in his tracks. It didn't take ten seconds for him, probably five, for him to shake his head, mutter obscenities to himself as he turned and walked out.

[Birdgun Quail, SASS #63663]

The Army commissioned me.

The end.

Me too. And I was a warrant officer!

The end.

[DocWard]

March 1993, Ft. McClellan, AL Military Police OSUT (One Station Unit Training, it combines Basic with AIT). We were about 6-7 weeks into Basic, just before rifle qualifications. I was on fire watch and the power went out, my shift ended, I waked my relief and went back to bed. At this point in Basic I had fallen into the habit of waking about 5 minutes before reveille and when the morning came I woke up accordingly and waited for the Drill Sgt to play reveille over the loud speakers. At that point I realized there was still no power and one of the other recruits looked out one of the windows and saw the foot of snow that had fallen overnight. Being as it was Alabama, we hadn't been issued liners for our filed jackets. Anyway, the only Drill Sgt in the barracks came around, told us to get dressed and to stay where we were. The morning of the 1st day we were taken over to the mess hall and ate any of the perishable food that did not need to be prepared. Later the Drill Sgt took the company over to a hall and tried to do some gas mask training until one of the recruits suffered a claustrophobia attack after having the mask on for a while. Aside from trying to shovel a path with our entrenching tools to the main road for the minivan the company used for errands, we were told to remain in our barracks the rest of the weekend. As an aside, shoveling powdery snow with an entrenching tool kind of sucks. Anyway we spent the remainder of the weekend writing letters and sitting next to the windows trying to get warm from the sun until the power came back on Sunday evening. It was the best part of OSUT.

 

Some related thoughts: Alabama loses it's collective mind when it get's a foot of snow. Being from the Northeast, I've never seen any place shut down so completely. Most of the Southern recruits had never seen snow first hand.

 

 

During AIT at Ft. Sam Houston in 1989, San Antonio suffered an ice storm--one which left all of us from north of the Mason-Dixon wondering what all the hubbub was about as we looked around. Multiple fatal accidents on the roads, highways shut down and all of the military installations in the area- Ft. Sam, along with Lackland, Kelly, Brooks and Randolph Air Force bases, were closed for almost three days, with limited service at the mess halls.

[Chantry]

 

During AIT at Ft. Sam Houston in 1989, San Antonio suffered an ice storm--one which left all of us from north of the Mason-Dixon wondering what all the hubbub was about as we looked around. Multiple fatal accidents on the roads, highways shut down and all of the military installations in the area- Ft. Sam, along with Lackland, Kelly, Brooks and Randolph Air Force bases, were closed for almost three days, with limited service at the mess halls.

We ate MRE's for 2 days and had no heat or hot water. With no access to TV or newspapers, I'm not sure how the surrounding area handled things or if anyone was hurt.

[DocWard]

We ate MRE's for 2 days and had no heat or hot water. With no access to TV or newspapers, I'm not sure how the surrounding area handled things or if anyone was hurt.

 

Not knocking what happened to you! Just saying down that way, they don't tolerate winter.

[Chantry]

 

Not knocking what happened to you! Just saying down that way, they don't tolerate winter.

 

I didn't take it as a knock. I agree completely, some states can't handle winter

[Irish Pat]

1970, I was on the AFROTC rifle honor guard drill them team at LaTech. Me and a pal went over to the Monroe La airport to pick up his girlfriend. We were in our drill team uniforms with paratroops boot, Ray-bans, honor guard shoulder straps, we were looking pretty sharp! There was a group of young Navy guys in the terminal. They were not sure what we were so they snapped to attention and saluted us so we gave them a nice crisp honor guard salute back

[DocWard]

1970, I was on the AFROTC rifle honor guard drill them team at LaTech. Me and a pal went over to the Monroe La airport to pick up his girlfriend. We were in our drill team uniforms with paratroops boot, Ray-bans, honor guard shoulder straps, we were looking pretty sharp! There was a group of young Navy guys in the terminal. They were not sure what we were so they snapped to attention and saluted us so we gave them a nice crisp honor guard salute back

 

A good friend of mine in law school spent his Air Force days enlisted as a combat photographer, serving in a test wing. He said whenever they would land at a Naval Air Station, he would get all kinds of salutes, because the sailors assumed flight suit= officer.

[Chantry]

Random moments: Gas mask training, I had been suffering from allergies and was congested. Once the initial symptoms of the tear gas wore off, I felt great the rest of the day.

 

My platoon leader in my National Guard MP unit was an artillery officer. Rumor has it he fired a live 105mm round over the main highway on Cape Cod leading to him being assigned to my military police company.

 

After totaling my patrol car in Panama and after being examined and assigned a foot assignment, the 2nd Lt in charge of our rotation came up in a car and wouldn't stop asking me if I was ok. After he finally left, the TN National Guard guys doing gate guard duty asked if he was always such an ass. To put things in context, the 2nd Lt was a banker with an infantry MOS who was way too gung ho. I think he was more concerned about how it might affect his career, then my welfare.

 

On patrol with a Panamanian National Police officer, we went to some laundry that was part of our vehicle patrol area. As we come near the building I happen to glance at my PNP partner and he has his S&W revolver out making me wonder just what the hell I had gotten into.

 

Going out clubbing one night while we in Panama, we reach the club and the bouncers have shotguns and metal detector wands. By habit I had stuck a folding knife in my back pocket and as the bouncer is running the metal detector I'm thinking I'm about to spend some time in a Panamanian jail. Fortunately the bouncer thought my Zippo was what had set off the metal detector wand.

[Shorty Jack Hammer]

Field exercise on Ft Bragg. Our mission was to build contingency field runways and tent cities to house troops so we of course practiced that constantly. On this particular deployment they built a huge field latrine building out of plywood and 2x4's. If we used wood for a latrine it could not be reused and was usually burned. They dug a huge hole/burn pit behind it with a backhoe then knocked the mega building into it. The intent was to pour diesel fuel on it and light it but the last of the diesel we had was used to top off the generators, so Msgt B****** decide to use 5 gallons of gas which he poured on the pile. Then he pulled out his lighter and a roll of paper to use as a big match and proceeded to light it...or try......click click....click click click......shake shake....click click click....shake....click click....hmmmmm anyone got a light or a match? No? Go find one....que Jeopardy music.....5 minutes later (I think you see where this is going) . Click, flame, light paper, toss......KABOOOOOOOOM......huge fireball explosion, flying plywood, 2x4s, straight up in the air, flaming streamers of toilet paper rolls coming out of the sky......airmen scattering in all directions except Msgt B******* who never moved just standing there with his singed eyebrows..... They were all really lucky because the pit was deep enough that it forced everything to go straight up....it wasn't too funny to our commander but because no one got hurt we all thought it was hilarious

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

 

he would get all kinds of salutes, because the sailors assumed flight suit= officer.

My afore mentioned nemesis J.J. Thibault used to do that. It irritated some of us so much that we would make it a point to ensure that everybody within earshot heard us call him CORPORAL Thibault.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

I am still imagining the sheer unadulterated HORROR of doing mach 1.5 on a pair of sheeting boards!

File that one under "S" for "Scares me and I'm fearless!"

[DocWard]

My afore mentioned nemesis J.J. Thibault used to do that. It irritated some of us so much that we would make it a point to ensure that everybody within earshot heard us call him CORPORAL Thibault.

 

If I remember correctly, my friend was told by one of the pilots he flew with "just salute back, it's easier than explaining."

[Tennessee Trapper Tom]

From 1985 to 1987 I was serving as a senior instructor for the Primary Leadership Development Course on Fort Knox Kentucky. Each cycle of students (Spec 4s and SGTs, occassionally a Staff SGT or two, would have to go out on a 4 day field training exercise. These students came from all different MOSs (military occupational speciality) so it would be an eclectic group of soliers. on the first day I gave the students a class on lighting the emerging heaters for the steel garbage cans that contained wash water. We had ten such cans set up for the company to wash in the morning. Our squad had the duty.

 

I got up at 0400 hours to check the students progress on the lighting of the heaters. When I arrived all the heaters were lit but one And the gas can was missing from the heater. The student returned after a couple of minutes with the can. He stated that the can had been empty so he filled it. I told him that he did a good job, that it was time to wake his squad and that I would light the last heater. He left.

 

I mounted the can and turned the gas on to a slight drip. I dipped the lighting rod into the drip to soak the end. I lit the end and placed it into the flue. There was a tremondous white light followed by intense heat as the explosion enveloped my head. It singed all my hair, eyebrows and mustache basically disappeared. My scream evidently was so loud and long, that in seconds the other instructors were at my side assessing the damage. My mind suddenly realized that dumbass had emptied the can into the pot before removing it for refill and he failed to inform me.

 

I screamed "specialist, so and so (can't remember his name), I'm going to f$%&ing kill you. It was easy to locate his direction of travel has he ran blindly through the thick underbrush of the woods. I must have chased him for 15 minutes before realizing that I needed to see the medic. Luckily the loss of hair and brushed ego was the worst of it, other than the feeling of having laid on a sunny beach for way too long.

 

I gathered my platoon and set about my day of teaching.

 

The specialist finally returned several hours later and only after I sent the squad out to convince him that I wasn't going to kill him. Ultimately I knew that the fault belonged to me.

 

While I knew it was the right course of action. Secretly to this day I still want to beat the crap out of the little sh$t.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

My afore mentioned nemesis J.J. Thibault used to do that. It irritated some of us so much that we would make it a point to ensure that everybody within earshot heard us call him CORPORAL Thibault.

 

 

 

If I remember correctly, my friend was told by one of the pilots he flew with "just salute back, it's easier than explaining."

Yeah, but Thibault did it because he WANTED them to believe he was an officer. He'd get mad when one of us pointed out that he wasn't.

[Bugs Bonney SASS # 10171]

RAF West Ruislip was in the London Suburbs and a warehouse base. I was assigned there from 1967 until they shut it down in 1969 as a USAF Fire Protection specialist. It was a great location but a small base (.9 mile around the perimeter fence) and nothing ever happened there. So our fire chief was always looking for busy work to keep us out of trouble. This lead to several stupid make work projects that, as a bunch of board 18 and 19 year olds we resented and did our best to sabotage. We had one chief that was certifiable. He was a Tech Sergeant (E6) and a gardener in his off duty time. He thought we should improve the fire station by planting Roses around the building and would go out and buy the bushes and then put us to work planting them. He even went so far as to have the base repair shop put together a trellis so he could frame the fire station sign with climbing rose bushes. On payday he would bring us a bunch of rosebushes to plant and we would spend the day putting them in and each night we would water them with gas from the firetruck. The next payday more rosebushes would arrive and promptly be planted and die. Soon we were planting rose bushes in improved beds with the soil enriched with fertilizer and god know what. Now it was taking us several days to dig up the old dead bushes, dig up the soil around them and incorporate the fertilizer and peat and then plant the new bushes that did no better once "watered". There is no telling how long this would have gone on except that out Fire Chief was abruptly reassigned. His three year tour was strangely cut short about a week after he put in a requisition to the Motor pool to paint red roses in a white circle on the doors of our fire trucks. Evidently someone at Third Air Force headquarters questioned his priorities.

[Utah Bob #35998]

RAF West Ruislip was in the London Suburbs and a warehouse base. I was assigned there from 1967 until they shut it down in 1969 as a USAF Fire Protection specialist. It was a great location but a small base (.9 mile around the perimeter fence) and nothing ever happened there. So our fire chief was always looking for busy work to keep us out of trouble. This lead to several stupid make work projects that, as a bunch of board 18 and 19 year olds we resented and did our best to sabotage. We had one chief that was certifiable. He was a Tech Sergeant (E6) and a gardener in his off duty time. He thought we should improve the fire station by planting Roses around the building and would go out and buy the bushes and then put us to work planting them. He even went so far as to have the base repair shop put together a trellis so he could frame the fire station sign with climbing rose bushes. On payday he would bring us a bunch of rosebushes to plant and we would spend the day putting them in and each night we would water them with gas from the firetruck. The next payday more rosebushes would arrive and promptly be planted and die. Soon we were planting rose bushes in improved beds with the soil enriched with fertilizer and god know what. Now it was taking us several days to dig up the old dead bushes, dig up the soil around them and incorporate the fertilizer and peat and then plant the new bushes that did no better once "watered". There is no telling how long this would have gone on except that out Fire Chief was abruptly reassigned. His three year tour was strangely cut short about a week after he put in a requisition to the Motor pool to paint red roses in a white circle on the doors of our fire trucks. Evidently someone at Third Air Force headquarters questioned his priorities.

Apparently he thought the base was RAF West Roselip.

[Bugs Bonney SASS # 10171]

Apparently he thought the base was RAF West Roselip.

 

Yeah, I'm fine with nose art on airplanes and even pickup trucks but Sgt. Weber was a little past quirkey. One of the jobs he found for us was to scrape the apparatus floor down to bare concrete. Paint stripper would have been to easy and not taken as long so he had us do it with screwdrivers. With four men on a shift it took use several months to scrape the entire floor of dozens of coats of paint, seal it and then repaint it. He is also the guy that had me under the truck degreasing the grease fittings because , as he so correctly pointed out, They were greasy

[Utah Bob #35998]

A psycho martinet.

Met a few. Worked for a few.

[Dorado]

I wasn't in the military but I've had the chance to work with some on occasion. I do have a story to tell though.

 

About 10 years ago in college I worked for an electronics company selling computers and video games. Well one day some dutch pilots came in and wanted to know if they could borrow a couple of game systems, tv's, and games for the kids as they were celebrating the Dutch queen's birthday. After a discussion with the managers we agreed and I was placed in charge of making sure they'd be returned. So a few days later my boss and I showed up at the base with his truck loaded down with tv's, games, and things, the gate guards had no idea what was going on. Seems the pilots forgot to tell them about us showing up. They somehow managed to get it figured out and we set up in the gymnasium they reserved. To this day I have never seen so much beer. They lined the walls with cases of it 10 feet high, 4 crates deep. I was there for 5 hours, they drank all of it. 100 or so DUTCH pilots, their wives, and friends completely plastered. I couldn't understand anything they were saying, but I understood that when a fight breaks out with that many drunks, hide. MPs showed up quickly to stop the fights, but were overwhelmed. Not by the fighters but by the fighter's wives dragging them off to have drinks. Before long there were a bunch of drunk MPs running around. Fights stopped somehow, but the base commander(I think) himself came out to stop the party. Did you know that dumping a garbage can of ice on a high ranking officer is a bad idea? I thought I knew, found out real quick that it is. Gave everyone 10 seconds to leave anybody left inside will be court marshaled. Everyone bolted for the doors, except me. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't leave the equipment, didn't want to get in trouble. I just kinda froze. He walked up to me and asked why I wasn't running. Told him I was in charge of the electronics and couldn't leave. He waited until everyone left. Sat down and we played a couple of games before he left and I had to load up the equipment. Strange experience but glad I was there.

[DocWard]

 

 

Yeah, but Thibault did it because he WANTED them to believe he was an officer. He'd get mad when one of us pointed out that he wasn't.

 

Ah, gotcha! I believe I know the type.

[Cyrus Cassidy #45437]

A psycho martinet.

Met a few. Worked for a few.

Oh, I've got some stories about these...but the point of my post was to ask about FUNNY military stories!

[Bugs Bonney SASS # 10171]

Oh, I've got some stories about these...but the point of my post was to ask about FUNNY military stories!

 

Sorry, I thought an idiot with a flower fedith was funny. Getting his tour cut short and sent home because he wanted to paint roses on a military vehicle was even funnier. How about this one

 

Not satisfied with making busy work for us all day our industrious Sgt. Weber took his Chief's pickup and drove up and down every street on base and recorded both the mileage and the time it took. He then instructed us to keep a continuous fire patrol from the time he left the base at 1700 hrs (5 PM for you non military types) until 8AM when he came back on duty. Now every building on base had fire alarms wired to the fire station and we had to keep a 24 hour phone watch so we already had one person up all night. Now he wanted us to have two people up all night. Most of the time we only had four or five men on a shift and we were on 24 and off 24 so everyone had to pull two hours phone watch and two hours base patrol every other night and sleep on our day off. Being inventive and typical American troops we knew Bullsnot when we heard it so took the simple expedient of jacking up the rear wheels of the pickup, putting it in gear and letting it run until we had the required mileage. Then we would let the truck down and send someone out on base patrol at 0730 and keep him out until the Chief showed up for work at 0800. He would go out, check the mileage before roll call and never did catch on to what was going on. I'd fake up the daily report to shoe who went on patrol and when and luckily he never came by and checked during the night.

[Shooting Bull]

War games at Clark Air Base in the Philippines during the height of summer. In between sorties the maintenance crews would find any cool spots we could to try to prevent overheating. We were shacked up pretty good in the hanger when the lieutenant came running through yelling at us to all get out to the flight line and look busy. The wing commander, who'd just found out he'd been selected for general, had shown up unexpectedly and we needed to look sharp. I was standing under the wing of a jet trying to enjoy the shade and wake up when a voice behind me asked, "Sergeant, why in the Hell are you out here in this heat." I instantly blurted out, "Wing commander's here and we're supposed to look bus.....................Damn!" Thankfully I had the presence of mind to render a sharp salute to the wing commander. He laughed and said, "Get your ass inside where it's cool." "Yes SIR!"

[Clay Mosby]

I was stationed with the 375th ASA Co. at Ft. Hood from Nov of '70 to Aug of '71. When the 4th of July rolled around we were inundated with dire warnings of Article 15's or worse if any fireworks were brought on base. So of course, with the Infantry barracks about 100 yards away across the parking lot, we had many, many gross of bottle rockets on hand.

With look outs for the roving MP patrols, wave after wave of rockets flew back and forth with lots of noise, lots of trash talking, and virtually no damage. Then about an hour into the battle the Infantry guys escalated and the next thing we knew we were being attacked with 6" long rockets!! Before we could mount a counter attack the festivities came to an abrupt end when on of the Infantry launched a rocket through the window of the MP's 4x4 and it detonated inside the cab!! No serious injuries but to this day I have never seen that many folks disappear that damn fast!!!

[Trailrider #896]

In the late 1960's, the Air Force made an attempt at saving money. The program was known, strangely, as the Cost Reduction Program. As a newly promoted captain, and maintenance field supervisor in a Minuteman ICBM maintenance squadron, I was "awarded" the job of Cost Reduction Officer for a 600-man squadron. (Should have been a group, and later was so-designated.) Our goal was $500,000, half of the entire wing! It was my job to review each submitted cost reduction proposal before forewarding it to the civilian auditors for approval or disapproval. It was not my job to determine the legitimacy of each submittal, only to check the paperwork. Somebody in squadron submitted as a "cost savings" the fact that they had ordered an entire J-47 jet engine (IIRC for a T-33 aircraft)...and then cancelled it! Tremendous cost savings...except that being a SAC missile wing, we had no T-33's or any other aircraft, except UH-1H helos, which couldn't use a J-47 anyway! I knew what the answer would be, of course, but had to pass that one to the auditors, with predictable results! I may have included a note expressing my opinion of this attempted chicanery, but can't recall.