Funniest Military Moment

Holy Crap that was Funny!!

 

A little more recent, about a month ago, I was repairing a concertina wire perimeter on the beach to divide the Okinawan village of Henoko from Camp Schwab. Every single day at Camp Schwab, professional protesters talk on loud speakers and have parades because they dont want us to build a new airstrip.
Back to the story, I was slamming stakes into the ground with a sledgehammer and I see a large mass of about 70 locals walking towards me.
If you have ever been to Japan before, you would know that Japanese people feel very uncomfortable when you look them in the eye. Well sure enough, this was a protest b/c they all stared at us trying to intimidate us. Well their plan backfired b/c we felt like rockstars and started talking to the cute girls where as the protesters felt really awkward when it was apparent how comoforatable the marines were. Slowly we dispersed the crowd via eye contact. The next morning, we were on the front page of the newspaper.

Another victory for the cause. Kill! Kill! Kill 'em all!

 

When I was at NAS Glenview we used to send newbies, and yes I fell for this one too, to go get things like Grid Squares, a spool of Flightline, a favorite of mine was to send people to get a battery. Now most battery serial numbers started with BA. So I would send them for a BA-1100-N.

Take a moment to really look at that and you will catch what we were sending them off for. And of course we always gave the Supply office a quick heads up call.

 

I enlisted in the USMCR in 1980 and graduated Parris Island in August. My first drill weekend with the 4th LAAM Battalion in Fresno, California was about a week after I graduated. A buddy of mine graduated about the same time from San Diego so we were both pumped for our first (almost) "real" Marine Corps experience.

We were really excited to find out we'd be flying to the coast to spend the weekend in the field at Camp Roberts - or Camp Bob " as we called it. It is a California National Guard base by San Luis Obispo. So we fly out there in CH-53's (Shitters), move to the bivouac area and set up camp. Of course, being the reserves the first we did was have chow. Now this was 1980, so it was the old canned "C-rats" we were having, not MREs. This meant that in order to heat them up, you had to use a 'heat tab' and cook it. Now, Camp Bob might be beautiful, but in August it's also incredibly dry, and since it's near the coast, kind of windy.

So no sooner did we start chow than someone kicked over their C-rat oven and started a fire. Every jumped up with field jackets in hand to try and put the fire out - in doing so, someone else kicked over their stove and started a second fire. About five minutes, three tents and a dozen field jackets later, we put the fire out. All told, we probably scorched about a 3rd of an acre, which under the circumstances was pretty good.

The battalion CO, Major Bruno, immediately called a formation to do a head count. This was only the second time I had seen my new CO. The first time was the formation that morning, and as a new PFC, when a Major gets up in front of you and he's your CO - and you're a week out of boot camp -well, you pay attention to every word. Once he was convinced nobody was injured, he looked around in disgust and said: "Now you know why they call us the f--king reserves!"

 

I would have loved to have seen that one.

When we would send a noob out to get grid squares we always told the guy to get some help cause they are heavy.

 

A buddy was listening over the radio in his HQ as a Helicopter pilot, who was chasing a mortar team in a car around Baghdad, called out over the net "he just turned left on backalakadaka street."

It was at one of our Bde HQs, but the story went around our HQ within minutes.

If you don't get it, go rent Team America.

 

Somewhat military-related. My dad is a government employee that works on military aircraft. When he was at Al Assad early 2006 this exchange happened. He was staying in a "can" on the base and the neighboring cans had Iraqi women living in them. He was coming back from the showers one night and his neighboring lady surprised him from behind as he was in a towel. He told her to not scare him like that and asked what she needed.

HER: "do you have a condom?"
HIM: "what!?!"
HER: "do you have a condom?"
HIM: "a what?!?"
HER: "Condom." She then spelled it out: "C-A-N-D-L-E."
HIM: "That's candle! And no you can't have a candle!"

The next night a group of the women were nextdoor at the lady's place and he heard a large laugh from everyone that lasted a few minutes. She didn't look at him in the face for over a week.

 

That's always funny until the newbie you send meets the newbies on the flight line and they work out what you mean as 100 yds of yellow rope and a barrel of aircraft soap. Throw in the request for a "spark plug for a diesel forklift" which the guy at vehicle maintenance figure must be a glow plug. You should have seen the poor sap when he was told to take it all back. He was so proud up to that point.

Seriously, it happened once at Zweibrucken AB. But it wasn't me, I swear!

 

Good times!!

We used to send noobs out to get Ba-1100-n's

Of course it works even better when you call ahead to supply and let them in on what you are doing.

 

Yeah, call ahead then hope they don't screw with your newbie by giving them something heavy to carry back. That used to be half the fun though, waiting to see what came back in their eager little arms.

I had a different variation of the theme played on me. The buck Sargent I was given to told me to go check the air pressure in the 5th wheels for all the tractors in the yard. I went up and took a look and saw that, sure enough, they were all flat. And dirty, all covered in grease. So I went back to the equipment shied where I though he'd be but he'd left to laugh it up with some of the other NCOs, so I headed to dispatch where I reported the flats on those dirty tractors. They told me to go get some coffee while my boss cleaned the tractors and took them to maintenance to have their 5th wheels replaced. He was one happy camper when I got back, oh yeah....

but that's a whole other story...

 

Some great stories on here, cheers for them. It shows that a soldiers humour is a constant in any Armed Force, the world over. I served four years in the Household Cavalry in the British Army and now serve in the Yorkshire Regiment of Infantry as a territorial, until I recover from injuries. Working with horses is always good for a laugh. Preparing for the State Opening of Parliament we were being inspected by a captain with a bit of a reputation for over-the-top inspections. When It came to me he couldn't find anything to comment on, so he went ultra on me, looking under the saddle for dust or flaked polish and still couldn't find anything, so he lifted up my horse's hind leg to check the oil on his hooves, something I'd warned all and sundry about doing previously. He promptly kicked him ten feet across the stable yard, breaking two of his ribs.

I was desperately trying not to laugh, and this was becoming obvious to the Regimental Corporal Major (RSM) who halted behind me and whispered "If you laugh Lance Corporal I'm going to have to kick your f*cking teeth out".
"Yes sir"
"Good, wait till the fat little shit gets up and f--ks off", and off he marched concealing a smile.

One of those moments you had to be there for I think.

 

I was going to the E5 promotion board in the army. In the morning, while still half asleep, I stepped into my class a pants wrong and ripped them. I never DX'd my 2nd pair of pants in over a year so I was royally ********ed.

So I went to my NCO and told him what happened and told him I'd just go to the board next month. He went and told our 1st Sergeant, the 1st came and told me that I'm talking my ********ing ass to the board and to use my BDU bottoms. I'll just have to take the loss of points for my uniform. So there I was in the board in class a tops and BDU bottoms.

Other than the uniform, I did quite well on the board and even thought I was actually going to pass the board. That is until my 2nd ******** up occured.

I was in the 3rd Infantry Division. Anyone who's been in army divisions knows those really ********ing stupid anthems that every division has. 3rd ID's was called "The Dog-faced Soldier" song. We had to sing this corny piece of shit every day in the morning before PT. So of course, we get to start singing our alternative versions of the song after a while.

Well at the end of the board, after our reciting of the NCO creed. Our last thing to do was to sing the dog-faced soldier song. I kept telling myself while singing it, "don't ******** up and sing the other version". I was singing so fast that I didn't realize that I ********ed up.

A part of song goes "I"m a dog-faced soldier with a rifle on my shoulder, I eat raw meat for breakfast everyday..." Instead, I ********ed up and sang: "I'm a dog-faced soldier with your wife on my shoulder, I eat McDonalds for breakfast everyday!" All the board members heard that and immediatley stopped me and yelled out: "MCDONALDS?!" I thought I was going to get my ass ringed, but they were so supprised that they all just started laughing their asses off!

Needless to say I had to attend another promotion board at a later date.

 

One time when we were out in the field, we sent a newb out to ask our XO for a chem-lite battery. The XO and the whole tent was laughing at him.

 

I know this this thread is old as hell but here's my story about farking with my boots. Keep in my mind, there is no helo. Ever.

So, we're on a pre-field op. We got three sites set up just outside of our garrison HQ acting as the actual field sites. I'm in a comm unit so we do things like a week early to test our stuff, because if we're not up when it starts, nobody is. Anyway, our three sites for this pre-op are really just different sets of tents separated by a few yards. So it's like 0300. I've been up for 30 hours or so because nothing is going right. Me and my buddy are setting there trying to stay awake while doing some tedious but needed work, and we decided we need some excitement to stay awake. So we get on the hook and call one of the other CPs, let's say it's Site 2. I say, "Hey this is Sergeant Smith, get me Lance Corporal Asus real quick." He comes on the phone. I say, "Look, LCpl, we got a helo flying in like five minutes and I'm too busy to deal with this shit. Go grab some chem lights and mark out a place for it to land! And hurry up!"..."aye, aye Sgt!"

Then I peek out of my tent and see him running his ass off to the main CP with the chem lights. So I get on the phone to the other site, let's call it Site 3. "This is Sergeant Smith, get me LCpl Azur!" "This is LCpl Azur" "Marine, you're a senior LCpl right? Tell me why this Marine is standing out there like a jack ass in the middle of the night waving a bunch of chem lights around! Me and Cpl Rodriguez are way too busy to deal with this shit, so go fix this! NOW!"

So then we kinda hide in the bushes. We see LCpl Asus run out there and mark a helo spot. Let's forget that the spot he chose to mark for a helo to land was a thirty foot space in between two tents. He comes out there looking like a lost dog, throws two chem lights on the ground, holds the other two above his head in his outstretched hands in anticipation.

Then comes LCpl Azur. LCpl Azur comes out with a straight knife hand yelling all kinds of unintelligible words at this guy. The conversation went like this

LCpl Asus: Hey Sergeant Smith told me...
LCpl Azur: AHHHHHH!!!!!!
LCpl Asus: But Sergeant Sm...
LCpl Azur: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
LCpl Asus: But Serg...
LCpl Azur: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then LCpl Azur just straight snatches the chem lights out of his hands, shoves him in the chest and walks off. LCpl Asus is standing there "Well, whatever, I did what I was told..." and then kind of starts to wander away. This new LT, freshly woken up, comes out of the darkness like "WTF is going on here?", ready to take charge. Cpl Rod walks up and says, "Good evening, sir. Sorry it's so late to be doing this. It's essential. It happens. But this part is over with for tonight. Have a good night, sir".

Yeah, they found out what happened. They know new guys get messed with, and as long as it's not the kind of "Hey, go burn the hairs off your chest with my lighter" type of stuff it's all in good fun.

 

Sending someone out for grid squares was always a good one

 

It got boring at sea so there was a whole lot of newbie training going on. Things I've been sent for (or sent others for) include gig line, sound-powered phone batteries, permission to blow the DCA (it's a person, not a tank), and my personal favorite, going to the tool locker for a machinist's mate punch. I was a Machinist's Mate, after all.

Picture this:
You're on a nuclear-powered vessel.
You're a nuclear operator.
There are easily-breakable sticks full of glowing neon liquid in plentiful supply and they are seldom inventoried.
People will believe almost anything a nuke tells them about radiation, especially with a little visual evidence.

Could you resist the temptation? We sure couldn't. "Uh-oh, you've been exposed, Seaman Jones..."

 

When I first reported on station, I was sent to get 50' of gig line, but I knew what a gig line was. Now, if they had sent me for flight line, I might have fallen for the charade...

I spent the last 6 months of my tour in Planning, the most senior division within Operations. We had two lieutenant colonels, one prior enlisted captain with almost 20 years and a major with 24 years, but he had been on three survivors from the Gander crash and he was allowed to stay on as long as he wanted. We had 5 enlisted guys, four were Senior Master Sergeants and the office secretary was a master sergeant. And there was me, a 1st Lieutenant with 3.5 years. So, as the junior guy, I was told it was my job to make the coffee. But I don't drink coffee and I guess I really screwed it up because the next day I was forbidden from ever touching the coffee pot.

I went to jump school at Fort Benning. Now, my previous summer I had done my ROTC camp, and it being an introductory camp, we never had a spare moment and no need for money. Well, at jump school, most of the participants were regular army and the school day was a normal workday, meaning we had lots of time off. I had taken very little money with me and blew through it within a week. One of the highlights was going to Phenix City, a ratty little town whose express purpose was to separate a GI from his money. Me and several other ROTC cadets decided it would be great to go see a strip show, never having seen one before. We got there around 8:00, but first we had to pay a cover charge and the drinks were expensive as hell. Plus, the club was abnormally hot, obviously, they wanted us to be thirsty and drink more. Well, even nursing my drinks, I spent all my money well before the first stripper came on around 11:00. I had to call home for money and I never got to see any tits.

 

Or a spool of flight line, bucket of rotor wash, etc.

 

A friend at work used to be in the army, on a base that had an American section that had nuclear weapons (more of that later), and there was someone called 'The Phantom Shitter', who somehow managed to place these perfectly formed turds in impossible places, waiting to ambush another person. They included on the Commanding Officer's desk 1st thing in the morning, in someone's coffee flask, in the saddle bag of someone's bike and best of all on this control tower in the part the Americans controlled. There was this ongoing thing where the British soldiers would try to sneak past all the armed US guards and steal this light off the top of some tower, and someone my friend knew managed to sneak past the guards, made to the top of this tower, reached for the light.......and then shook hands with Mr. Hankey.