Comical Military Moments (2 Viewers)

So I imaging your say ouch:eek: I bet that hurt well actually it didnt but we had to try and recover as much of the tube and shroud aswecould for the accident investigation. The findings was the tanks position was too deep and they scouped up a bunch of rocks when they rolled forward to engage. The funny thing was they fired at least 3 more rounds before they found out they had blown nearly 3 feet of guntube away.

Just another day in the life of a tanker! I was very glad my loader had his camera...

Hope you enjoyed this one Chris.

All the best

Dave
 
DMNamiot said:
So I imaging your say ouch:eek: ...Hope you enjoyed this one Chris.
Dave
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I rolled back in my chair and let out a loud "Oh my God!!!" I don't think a lot of people realize how much torque that took!!! A couple of rocks!!! I bet you could have tore out Pikes Peak!! :D So what did they do?? Did you guys DX that bad boy?? I cannot for the life of me imagine that you were still able to throw rounds down range with that gun in that shape!! Was it determined that firing the rounds had caused more damage??

Great post Dave!! The pictures make it so much more dramatic. Now, on to my equipmant FUBAR story with the Pa Army National Guard.............
 
Here we go- I call this "Blackhawks Down" Unfortunately no pictures are available as no unauthorized cameras were admitted to the wreck sites :eek::eek:

Summer Camp 1994- First Camp with the Pa Army National Guard
FT. Drum NY- 10TH MOUNTAIN- CAN I GET A HOOAAHHH!! Love those guys!!

So I had been with my Infantry battalion here in the Pa Guard for over a year and was going to my first annual training (AT) -missed the first AT because of a broken ankle. They were making the transition from light infantry to mechanized and we were going to Drum to learn how to operate the 113. Myself and some other NCOs were giving the battalion the training. Learned a lot from this experience!!! :eek:

So we are about a week in and we are sleeping in our tents when everything starts going nuts. Turns out one of the cooks screwed something up and blew up a stove and was burned up pretty bad- definately not funny. So, the colonel gets a medevac to come in. A blackhawk comes tearing out onto the scene- I was not an eyewitness to this but it was 10 at night and someone didn't realize how high some of the trees were when they were bringing the bird in. The rotor whacks into several trees and send the chopper into a tailspin and it crashes. Oh crap!! Everyone is going in chaos. It was loud!! So they call in another bird and it arrives about 15 minutes later. The pilot and crew were ok, just shaken and bruised.

So, another bird comes flying in and decides to land in an area that was a better clearing. He is coming down when this old crusty Guard mess sergeant turns on the high beams from a 5 ton and temporarilty blinds the pilot (who had on Night Vision Goggles). He dips the bird and it whacks into another tree and, yes, you guessed it comes crashing down about 25 yards from the other one.

Finally, not wanting to bring down an entire aviation company into our company area, they said screw it and an ambulance hummer shows up- well, a few of them. The medic (who later went through OCS) did a bang up job keeping the cook healthy, and was not going to move the cook into a clearing for fear of the dust and dirt getting into the soldiers burn wound. The wreck site was easily 300 yards long by 200 yards wide. The first Hawk tore off 8-10 foot sections of trees- just sheared them right off. The other hawk threw stuff all over the place. It was a disaster. The 10TH ID CG showed up the next day to survey the place, along with the Inspector General's office and the Criminal Investigation Division (CID). I was assisting in some of the minor details of it, definately wanted nothing to do with this disaster so I kept running troops on the 113's. When I was close enough though, I heard all sorts of new curse words from that General!! :D

The news of the event reached our families and news in Pa. My wife was frantic- she knows how I have a tendency to be a magnet for this kind of thing. We were ok and the cook and pilots and crew were ok. To this day though, we were never invited back to Drum!!:D
 
Hi Chris,

To make a long story short they were sent to the bone yard and had fun learning how to install a new gun tube in the desert. My oh my it was a sight and yes we got visited by all sorts of stars and they too were amazed that some rocks in the tube could do this sort of damage. Still makes me chuckle when I look at the pictures...

94' I was in Germany and I recall reading about those wrecks on the safety news I'm glad no one was hurt too bad.

I had a guy I knew back then that was a Forward Observer for the Artty and his nickname was Danger Close! Yes there are a lot of stories I will pass on later...

All the best

Dave
 
DMNamiot said:
94' I was in Germany and I recall reading about those wrecks on the safety news I'm glad no one was hurt too bad.
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REALLY?? Wow- man alive- that was a disaster. It really was. It is easy to look back on it now and have a laugh but it was a close call there with all those birds dropping down. It was one of those "When it rains, it pours..." moments.
 
Hi Chris,

Do you think anyone else has any funny events to discuss? I have a couple of other good ones but I was hoping someone would pop in with some new stuff. I have a great friend who was in Vietnam and told a really good story about why you should never drink and volunteer in a combat zone. I share it some time it is a lively one.

Dave
 
Hey Dave-

Well, I am not sure- judging by the responses, we have had some good submissions by some other folks but otherwise, it seems to be the Dave and Chris show. I am hoping (hint, hint) we get some other folks to chime in as well- we can', just CAN'T be the only guys or gals out there with comical situations.

STANDS ALONE

CC
 
Ok new one:

Ft. Polk Louisiana. Fall 1992 A week or so away from roll out to NTC:

In order to go to NTC, every soldier in the battery had to have a valid drivers license. The first shirt lined us all up and had us hold our drivers licenses under our chins. He was going to walk around the formation and look at everyone's license to ensure compliance.

So, I am standing in formation next to two black soldiers and they say "Hey Chris, how much do you want to bet me and Carter switch licenses and Top doesn't even notice that we aren't holding the correct licenses- you know, that hillbilly won't notice." I of course couldn't believe it- these men were clearly CLEARLY distinguishable from one another. "Ok, i'll bet you a 6 pack"

So, my buddies swapped licenses and sure enough, Top walked right by them and didn't bat an eye. He looked mine and a couple other guys over pretty good but pretty much glossed over Carter and Pipkin. We were having a good laugh over that one for quite some time.

STANDS ALONE!!
CC
 
When I find my old pictures I will post a picture of my "lost radio jeep. " I was the first vehicle in line to drive off a landing craft in North Borneo while we were on an excercise with the British Marines. The Navy UDT (Seals) scouted and picked landing area. The front gate opened and I drove off the ramp about 30 yards from shore when down I went. Radio Jeep and my weapon were sunk in about 20 feet of water. I bobbed up and other jeeps hit the brakes. They spent about 8 hours retreiving the jeep and personal gear.
We were to spend three weeks in jungle for training but after a series of disasters they pulled us out after a week. Thirty snakebites a day, chased by wild water buffalos and we thought we would go into the water at night to cool off and here comes the sharks.Giant spiders and land crabs crawling on us while we slept on beach instead of inland. Oh yeah, I saw a cable break and a radio van slung under a chopper went into the ocean farther out. I don't think they recovered that van.At 117 degrees we had plenty of heat stroke including me. That was a disaster excerise. Leadmen
 
Yeah Leadmen, that just sounds like a disaster. Love the way you tell about the jeep sinking. I had actually got a Hummer stuck on manuevers outside of Ft. Polk- of all things, it was shortly after I received my expert drivers badge and it was the Maintenance Chief's truck of all vehicles!!! He was pretty PO'd.
 
Leadmen said:
Thirty snakebites a day, chased by wild water buffalos and we thought we would go into the water at night to cool off and here comes the sharks.Giant spiders and land crabs crawling on us while we slept on beach instead of inland. Leadmen
Click to expand...

Add some crocs and that's just another day at an Aussie beach ;)
 
Leadmen said:
When I find my old pictures I will post a picture of my "lost radio jeep. " I was the first vehicle in line to drive off a landing craft in North Borneo while we were on an excercise with the British Marines. The Navy UDT (Seals) scouted and picked landing area. The front gate opened and I drove off the ramp about 30 yards from shore when down I went. Radio Jeep and my weapon were sunk in about 20 feet of water. I bobbed up and other jeeps hit the brakes. They spent about 8 hours retreiving the jeep and personal gear.
We were to spend three weeks in jungle for training but after a series of disasters they pulled us out after a week. Thirty snakebites a day, chased by wild water buffalos and we thought we would go into the water at night to cool off and here comes the sharks.Giant spiders and land crabs crawling on us while we slept on beach instead of inland. Oh yeah, I saw a cable break and a radio van slung under a chopper went into the ocean farther out. I don't think they recovered that van.At 117 degrees we had plenty of heat stroke including me. That was a disaster excerise. Leadmen
Click to expand...

Makes you respect the WWII servicemen who fought the Japanese under these conditions throughout the Pacific and Burma theaters even more.
 
Ok new one-

Basic Training, Summer 1990

We were having a general inspection by the Drill Sergeants. THey wanted to look over our equipment, make sure everything fit properly, etc. So, one soldier, Clemens, was at the locker opposite from me and the drill sergeants were making their rounds on the other side of the barracks.

My buddy Rob starts giggling under his breath. I look at him like he's crazy, surely the Drills are going to get mad and make us push or do something else. Then I see what he is looking at- Clemens had his kevlar helmet on backwards!!! It was the funniest thing because Clemens was a really nice guy but had this soft, effeminate voice to him- definately not your Rambo type. So Drill Sergeant Dawson makes his way down the rows before we could get him to fix the thing. Drill Sgt looks at him "Private, is there something wrong with you." Clemens looks around "No Drill Sergeant" I am squared away."

"Really?" "Yes, Drill Sergeant." At this point my face is red holding back the laughter and my buddy Rob had these tears rolling down his checks. You have to see what this looks like, the kevlar is much wider in the rear to protect the back of the neck. Turned around backwards, it looks like awful!! Like somebody beat you up with a baseball bat and your frontal lobe got all swollen up!!

The Drill sergeant turns around to look at us, with this big smile on his face, probably because he couldn't look at him either:

"So, which one of you panty waists did this to Clemens?" With that my buddy Rob and I just burst out laughing and as soon as that happened, about 5 drill sergeants just swarmed all over us cursing at us screaming, just chaos and insanity. We did pushups elevated off the bunks, flutter kicks with boots and full gear, it was a gas!!! Clemens got all red because he was embarrassed that poor kid never did live that down, we would walk around the barracks with out kevlars on backwards imitating him until we graduated.

STANDS ALONE!!
CC
 
Oh yes- the return of the comical moments-

this one I share knowing full well it my taint your image of me but bear with me.

Ok- 1991- Republic of Korea- DMZ- Camp Greaves

To protect the innocent I am using an alias name for the individual referenced in this post.

A favorite soldier pasttime has included reviewing magazines or videos of an "Adult" nature- not really my thing but it seems to be pretty popular among the troops.

One lazy Saturday afternoon, I had returned to the barracks after a workout and was getting ready to watch some TV when a buddy of mine was looking at one of said magazines and it caught my eye- in particular, there was a full page ad with the infamous "900" numbers. Well, one of them had a scantily clad female wearing lace and over her head it read "For a good time and hot phone love call Jane"

So, being the somewhat evil person I was realized this had the potential for a prank. Our squad leader had the last name "Jane" (alias). Sgt "Jane" was a really good guy from South Carolina, took himself a little too seriously at times but was generally a good guy. I knew he was down at the motor pool so it was either now or never.

So, I tear out the picture and run down to his room and paste the picture all over his door to his room. We listened to several guys come down the hall and you could hear them tearing up with laughter.

So finally Sgt. Jane comes down the hall and I jump into my bunk, pretending to be asleep. A few guys let out some catcalls as he was walking down the hallway. He gets to his room and lets a few curses fly and comes busting into my room. My buddies and I are trying our best to hold in the laughter and we maintain our composure.

"Where is that @$%#%^$#^ Chris at!!!" I pretend like he is waking me up:

"Hey Sgt. Jane, can I help you??" "You know what you did you little @#$%@!#$@!#" and he snatches me up by the ankles and pulls me out of the bunk. I am holding on trying to stop him- I kick at him but to no avail. My head bounces off the floor and he begins pummeling me. I am laughing so hard I nearly wet myself- he is calling me all sorts of names and curses and before you know it, there is a crowd gathered in the room- platoon sergeants, our platoon leader, etc.

I curled up in the fetal position on the floor while he was standing over me and was just laughing but then he twisted my arm and put his boot up against my face and started yanking my arm!! That hurt!! So I bit him in the leg just up above lip of his boot and punched him in the groin. That gave me a chance to get my bearings.

So,he and I go at it for like 5-10 minutes or so- friendly enough- in fact we went into about 3 rooms through the entire melee. Finally, exhausted we both called it quits.

The sad thing though, I was in my boxers the whole time as I had just got out of the shower when he had come bursting into my room!!! :D:eek::eek:

For a few months following, we used to sprinkle in "JANE" comments while calling cadence during our morning runs.
 
Here is one from Berlin, Germany circa 1986. I was a grunt in C Co 5/502nd. Grunts like to play practical jokes, especially with FNGs(F***ing new guys). We would tell them to jump up and down on the 113s to test the shocks or get a backblast bag for the LAW or Dragon or TOW. Then there was the old faithfuls of a blank adaptor for the .45 or a box of grid squares.

These are all common to infantry units. In Berlin we had a clock tower. One day our squad leader told a new private to change into his class "a" uniform with "Mickey Mouse" boots and helmet liner and to report to the platoon sgt. for clock winding detail.

Usually this joke would end there. This time though the plt sgt sent the young lad to the 1st Sgt. He must have been in a good mood because he decided to send him to battalion HQ to report to the Sgt Major. In about 15 minutes after the young private's departure, the company clerk gets a phone call from the Sgt Major that someone needs to get their a** over to BN HQ because Private "Smith" can't stay in the front leaning rest forever!

Everyone in the company had a good laugh except for "Smith". From then on until I left he always tried to play the joke on newly arrived privates but was never able to equal his adventure.
 
Hi Guys,

Ah Yes some of my favorites but you forgot the can of Squelch for the radios. Another really good one was give a new private a ballpeen hammer and have him spend time tapping on the sides of the M113s looking for the soft spots...

I just remembered when I was a Tank Comany XO I was down on the line working on my tank when this new private less than a week in the unit comes running up and say Sir Sgt B the Motor Sgt sent me to get a new reticle for my tank. So without batting an eye I opened up my small arms spare parts box and hand him an Aircraft reticle for the Bradley. He looks at it and all giddy says Gee thanks Sir! Off he ran. Well about a minute later I hear all of the mechanics laughing at Sgt B because his joke had now backfired. Needless to say they didnt send the guys to me on those sort of missions unless I was in on it. I have to say they were a funny bunch of guys.

All the best

Dave
 
NTC- Ft. Irwin Ca, November 1992

We were on an evening mission when one of our 113's snapped a torsion bar. Fairly common occurence. So it was like 9-10 at night and I was on the radio guiding one of the recovery teams in to lend us a hand (Dave- it was a 548- do you remember those Cherry Pickers??) I think we were the only ones in the battalion who had one- it had 12 pages of maintenance problems on the 2404's!!!!

So anyway, earlier in the day, the Colonel had been roaming around and I heard him yelling at some guys because we were on the net too long (Army SOP requires a break in the message after something like 5-7 seconds of communication). So, being the high speed super trooper, I felt this way my moment to shine.

I see the recovery vehicle cruising along- there was a big, beautiful moon out. I was trying to talk them over to our position over the net and I felt panicked because I was on the line beyond the alloted time. Finally, in a last fit of desperation, I call out to the wrecker operator:

"Hang a right at the moon" :D:D:D After all, they were directly under it, all they needed to do was veer right and they'd be on us. So a moment or two passes and I see the vehicle stop. Next thing I hear:

"Please be advised that the moon moves relative to our position" AHHHH!!!

"Yes, Yes, I know, Hold please" at that time, I had our guy flick on the lights and completely broke light and noise discipline. They wrecker saw us and came and fixed us.

Needless to say, I had a hard time with that one. in fact, one squad was out rolling along the next day and when they passed our position, a few of the Joes dropped their drawers and showed me their backsides- should we hang a right now Chris???? After being in the field for a few weeks and no showers, that was a mighty disgusting sight :eek:

STANDS ALONE!!
CC
 
Hello Chris,

Ahh yes Cherry Pickers in the dark. Now I suspect a lot of the folks who have never been in the desert at night will not understand how very very dark it gets. Its a lot like driving as fast as you can with a bag over your head (30mph) cross country through land the Army has been tearing up since the 1930s with all the assorted bumps and ripples the terrain can offer.

I had a lot of experience as a Field Observer Controller at Ft Irwin with Maintenance Teams. These poor guys are a lot like Vampires because it seems like they have to do all of their work in recovery in the darkest of dark nights and the long and often tedious wandering around looking for a Tank or PC that was broken and by passed and is sitting generally nowhere near where they thought they were due to the often poor ability to terrain associate and give a good set of coordinates to their position. But I too have heard the infamous line we're right under the moon! That was so funny that guys usually lost it on the net. Of course I also loved it when guys would say I'm flashing my light and 1/2 a dozen or more vehicles with guys like Chris in them would also flash their lights.:D Always good for a laugh.

Tanks for the walk down memory lane Chris! Oh and the Jane Story is a total hoot. Makes you remember why they call it the "Land of not quite right" my friend.


All the best

Dave
 
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