What is the funniest/ Dumbest thing you saw or heard while in the service?

[brad k]

when I was in the 82nd abn. I saw a new guy get sent to supply to get his rucksack lights for the night jump that night, they gave him a string of christmas lights and a radio battery and the guys were showing him how to rig them up.

[mikie]

On 2/12/2021 at 4:29 PM, Brig said:

Never having served, I've gotta ask this. How do you handle it if you are the new guy and told to go requisition a smoke bender, and you know it's a gag? Do it anyway? Would you get away with it or get in trouble if you  laugh it off? 

 

[lettow]

While in processing at AIT at Ft. Huachuca, one of the other trainees spelled out our drill sergeant's middle name instead of just using the initial - Romeo.  

[TheCrustyBosun]

1 hour ago, mikie said:

Never having served, I've gotta ask this. How do you handle it if you are the new guy and told to go requisition a smoke bender, and you know it's a gag? Do it anyway? Would you get away with it or get in trouble if you  laugh it off?

If you know it’s a joke, it’s your turn to play along. One kid was asked for the keys to the sea chest. He returned later that day with a key and a tag that read, “Sea Chest Key”. Here ya go. 

[Skysoldier80]

On 2/13/2021 at 10:35 AM, The Rooster said:

Now that dont surprise me a bit because I saw the same thing in the 1980's-1990's

And we were not even in combat!!!!  Its just some guys could not handle being out in the woods for long periods of time.

You know its uncomfortable (At First) lol

My buddy and I helped a guy over and into a jeep. He had an inured foot and they were taking him in. He had his boot off and he was sitting there and he looked at my buddy and me and said, "Im gonna make sure they dont bring me back, and he took his M16 and slammed it on the top of his foot. No kidding !

Another guy at a different time who was despondent about his girl etc etc etc somehow cut the tendon in his hand sharpening a stake.

Not in a war not in combat, no body trying to kill us and these whack jobs injured them selves to get out of a little under two weeks living in the woods.

Dumb!

So it dont surprise me a bit.

Great stories !!!

Keep em coming !

 

Weak sauce people that is about it

[Brig]

8 hours ago, mikie said:

Never having served, I've gotta ask this. How do you handle it if you are the new guy and told to go requisition a smoke bender, and you know it's a gag? Do it anyway? Would you get away with it or get in trouble if you  laugh it off? 

Well, once upon a time it was similar to what you tell your kids when they're being picked on...play along, own it, take the power from them and flip it. It's all in good fun, but there's nothing sweeter than when you out-wit your seniors. One of my Marines went Army, and at school they kept calling him a crayon eater...so he bought some candy crayons, stuck them in his left breast pocket, and nonchalantly started munching them during class, distracting the instructors and resulting in a loss of bearing. Priceless.

 

Nowadays, however, you cry to mommy on social media over the slightest thing and get the next three people in your chain of command relieved

[Brian Keith]

Reminds me of a story my dad used to tell. He was in the Air Force during the Korean war, an aircraft mechanic. It so happens there was a "new" guy, and one morning, they sent him to supply for a spool of flight line. He didn't return till supper time, said he searched all day and everyone was out. They never were sure if they played him, or he was wise to the joke and took the day off. Probably the latter.

Great Stories everyone!

BKW

[The Rooster]

I joined the Army because at a young age I developed a fear of aircraft.

I joined the Army because I developed a fear of the Oceans.

I joined the Army because Grandpa and Dad were in the Army.

Right before I joined the Army, I was working as a janitor.

I got in the army and was handed a buffer. We had to clean everything every day.

Even the pipes under the sinks. In the army, I developed a fear of tanks and artillery. Our own.

First day on the rifle range, the day ended and we didnt march back to the barracks,

we didnt take trucks, we flew in huey aircraft. I ended up using that buffer more times than I used it at work and

I ended up flying more times than I ever wanted to.

Life has its ironies.

I dont know why it never occurred to me that the Army Flies and likes everything real clean.

:-)

[Allan H.]

I don't think I've ever told this one here. When I was at Basic at FT Knox, KY, we had a rather large, muscular, dude from Philly who when asked his name, told everyone that his name was Darryl Dawkins. Everyone was calling him Darryl until the Drill Sergeant called out his real name, Andre C. (name withheld to not be searchable). Talk about a bunch of ticked off troopers when we realized that he gave us a fake name.

 

Back in those days, you would get issued your uniform and CIF would sew the name tapes on while you waited. Our Drill Sergeant told us not to have the patches put on because we were going to order embroidered US Army and name tapes from the off-post tailor and have them sewn on at their establishment. We marched out to the off-post location and dropped off our BDU jackets to have patches applied and then spent the next couple of days in PT uniforms until the uniforms were done. We marched back to pick up the finished uniforms and picked them up. It was at the tailor's that the one of the Drill Sergeants realized that Andre had filled out the order form and had put "ANDRE" in for the name. Needless to say, the DIs went ape and PVT C. spent the march back to the barracks running around the platoon at the double time. 

 

Allan

[gwb123]

2 hours ago, Allan H. said:

I don't think I've ever told this one here. When I was at Basic at FT Knox, KY, we had a rather large, muscular, dude from Philly who when asked his name, told everyone that his name was Darryl Dawkins. Everyone was calling him Darryl until the Drill Sergeant called out his real name, Andre C. (name withheld to not be searchable). Talk about a bunch of ticked off troopers when we realized that he gave us a fake name.

 

Back in those days, you would get issued your uniform and CIF would sew the name tapes on while you waited. Our Drill Sergeant told us not to have the patches put on because we were going to order embroidered US Army and name tapes from the off-post tailor and have them sewn on at their establishment. We marched out to the off-post location and dropped off our BDU jackets to have patches applied and then spent the next couple of days in PT uniforms until the uniforms were done. We marched back to pick up the finished uniforms and picked them up. It was at the tailor's that the one of the Drill Sergeants realized that Andre had filled out the order form and had put "ANDRE" in for the name. Needless to say, the DIs went ape and PVT C. spent the march back to the barracks running around the platoon at the double time. 

 

Allan

 

Allan,

 

As you know, there is one in every platoon.  You were never sure if they were some kind of joker, or just not smart enough to get with the program.

 

I remember talking to an Army Recruiter about some of the less than adquate soldiers that showed up in our units.  He just smiled at me and said "You should see the ones that we don't send!"  That coming from an individual who had to meet a recruiting quota every month!  

[Zack Miller]

When I was a psychiatrist at the Sub Base in New London,I was asked to evaluate a well endowed female because she didn’t wear a bra.   My corpsman and I interviewed her and didn’t find anything unusual.  
 

So the corpsman called the personnel officer and asked if there were any regulations about female service members not wearing a bra. 
 

The immediate response was, “No.  We encourage it.”

[AASLT]

“What is the funniest/ Dumbest thing you saw or heard while in the service?”

The Book of Streets 🤣

[Linedoggie]

On 12/15/2019 at 11:14 AM, mortarman said:

In the late 1980's, after serving my 4 years on active duty, I decided to join the National Guard. In the Guard unit we had a Staff Sergeant who was Full Time NG (previously active duty). One night while in the field, my mortar section was given the task of being OPFOR and ambushing the rifle platoons on their patrols. The Staff Sergeant decided to come along with us and join the fun. We were given some bobby trap simulators to use during these ambushes. The SSgt asked me, " these things whistle for a while and then explode, right?" My answer "No they explode immediately when you pull the string. You are thinking of artillery simulators." He responded "Are you sure? I think there is a delay." My reply "They explode immediately." --- A few seconds later it did. Followed by him moaning and clutching his hand. He had pulled the string. My response "you dumbass." The only time I am aware of a that Spec 4 got away with calling Staff Sergeant that to his face!!!

 

(He had blown his thumb nail off and was bleeding. When asked he said he was trying to pull the string and throw the device away at the same time.)

USMA West Point 2002. our platoon had rotated into a 10 day training phase from normal duties in the gates and QRF.  We went into Camp Buckner and initiated our training plan which included a nighttime raid over the ridge, the objective being a connex. led by our PL who we rarely ever saw normally (I cant even remember his name)

 

Platoon had assault and SBF, specialty teams all set waited for night and conducted the lane

 

Demo tm was led by our recent acquisition, SSG Raymond "F" an 18B3V from 3rd Grp before he went Guard just prior to 9-11 where he joined us at ground zero(another story entirely). he looked literally like Ned Flanders from the Simpsons

 

Speschul Ray Ray set up the Flash on the connex and decided since it just whistles, to pull the string rather than attach a 550 cord lanyard (we were just guard 11B's who knew nothing)....

 

 

Cue the fire in the holes and rayray pulled the string by hand

 

Cue RayRay deaf and blind for the rest of the night being led back up and over the ridge holding onto a joes belt.

 

Every few minutes in the dead silence he would yell out for our PSG- "TOOKER? YOU TALKING TO ME?" it took us hours to get back to the ORP and then to the AA

 

oh did I mention the PL disappeared somehow? we found him eventually and fomr some insane reason he was allowed to lead us to the crest. We couldnt find the ORP so got on the horn & told Danny  the tm ldr at the ORP to fire his 60 so we could get a sound fix

 

when we asked him to fire it  again, he said he had

 

 

Oh F........ PL had us about 2 clicks away

 

 

Speschul Ray ray was still yelling the next day and all he saw was a image of his hands as he had pulled the string for the next 24 hours

[AASLT]

(Before I was Army, I was Air Force)
 

Whoever did the dumbest thing during that particular quarter would win the Military Personnel Flight Golden Brick Award which would sit on that person’s desk until being able to pass it away.. unless of course you win consecutive awards like Airman First Class W(redacted). Who holds 2 Oakleaf Clusters (2OLC)
 

The first time A1C W won the golden brick award was for coming in to Customer Service soaking wet in dress blues and reeeking of curry… you see, it was pot-luck Friday, and A1C W tried to ride his bicycle from the dorms with a crockpot on the handlebars.

 

The next time he won it he showed up in his dress blues, as was customary for Fridays at the MPF (CBPO for you old timers) and we thought A1C W finally got some action. I said “What’s on your neck? Is that a hickey?” And he said “No, I burned myself.” I asked how he burned himself and he said “Ironing my shirt”

 

Another one I remember was when TSgt Van-(redacted) tried to call her hubby, MSgt Van, so we could leave for a luncheon (we did that a lot at the MPF 😄)

And she was talking as she was dialing.. the office phone rang so she picked up SSgt W(redacted)’s phone and had one in each hand and said “Hello? I hear myself!” and summarily secured the quarterly award for calling herself and answering. 🤪 

[Brig]

1 hour ago, AASLT said:

 

 

The next time he won it he showed up in his dress blues, as was customary for Fridays at the MPF (CBPO for you old timers) and we thought A1C W finally got some action. I said “What’s on your neck? Is that a hickey?” And he said “No, I burned myself.” I asked how he burned himself and he said “Ironing my shirt”

 

Back when I was a corporal, I was TAD for 6 months and one of the other NCOs temporarily got a PFC in his room until space became available. One Friday night my roommate and I were headed past his room to meet up with another buddy to hit the bar, when we saw PFC Schmuckatelli ironing his bravo shirt on his body. This wasn't the first nor last weird thing he did, so we just stared at him for a minute and wandered off to let him learn his lesson the hard way.

[patches]

Hey You.....Newbie, do us a favor and go to Supply to get a Box of Grid Squares.

[Vanderbilt]

.....just stumbled across this one. Funniest I remember. I had just reintegrated back into a line platoon after spending the last 8-9 months as the unit armorer. This was Sept, 1983, incidentally I had just come off a months leave as well. We went on alert. Now, mind you, at least in the 2/11 ACR, we usually had a bit of warning that there would be an alert. Not this one. The CQ was running thru the hall throwing doors open, screaming get your gear, and get your weapons and get to vehicles. Weapons were normally checked, signed out, no, you told them a vehicle #, they shoved $#-+ out the door and said "you can swap'em later, if you have time, lol. We threw everything into or onto the vehicles and rolled to the ammo point. Once there, they quite literally heaved and threw ammo on to the vehicles and we proceeded to a ralleypoint. Once there, we checked weapons, had quick meetings, formed details and pertinent information as it was known, relayed to whom it was necessary to know. In the midst of all this, one of guys looked at me and honestly asked, " what happens if we have to bust the bands on these boxes"? My short reply, which by the expression he gave me wasn't a pleased one, "we're probably goin' to war".  Nearly 40 years later, don't remember what time we got the order to stand down. I remember by the time we took the ammo boxes back, moved the vehicles back to the hardstand, returned our weapons, it was LATE. I do remember we didn't get much to any sleep and we up again at 5am and proceeded to see another duty day, lol!

[Brig]

8 hours ago, Vanderbilt said:

.Nearly 40 years later, don't remember what time we got the order to stand down. I remember by the time we took the ammo boxes back, moved the vehicles back to the hardstand, returned our weapons, it was LATE. I do remember we didn't get much to any sleep and we up again at 5am and proceeded to see another duty day, lol!

 

So you're still on post until next year???

[Vanderbilt]

7 minutes ago, Brig said:

 

So you're still on post until next year???

...yep, guess I am, lol.....

[AASLT]

..that one time in Bamberg Germany when  we left for training (Graffenwoher?) in two separate convoys.

 

Our convoy arrives and would love to start getting set up, but the other convoy led by the 16th Sustainment Brigade, HHC First Sergeant is not here with the keys and other necessary equipment.

 

We waited and waited.. Comms are lost

Several hours later we find out our First Sergeant accidentally led a U.S. Army convoy, already in a foreign host nation,  through a different foreign country nearly causing an international news incident. 🤪

[S.ChrisKelly]

This is what happened to me...  another branch, but still, different approach to the same end... Seriously, no exaggeration...

 

1) My attitude before...

2)  Who I wish I'd seen when I got on the bus, and likely what she would have said to me...

3) What I thought about when I was on the bus... I was actually starting to think it might not be that bad...

4) Who I actually saw when I got off the bus... Maybe I should have stayed on the bus.

5) Our subsequent relationship, for at least the next month.

6) Drill.  Favorite military activity.  Morning, noon and night.  We were actually quite good...  At being the center of attention.  That's not always good.  That's really... never... good.

7) My buddy, "Quo Vadis?"... My response, "Et tu, Brute?"

8) Seriously, nobody will ever believe this.  I was there and I don't believe it.  Career cancelled due to lack of aptitude, discipline, initiative, morale...  and... interest.

 

Thanks for your perusal. I had a good laugh. I hope you did too.

 

 

[S.ChrisKelly]

Do Department of Veterans' Affairs situations count?  It happened to me... Really!

 

1) I went to my appointment, and my health care provider seriously asked me if I'd ever been the victim of (her words, verbatim!) "Offensive remarks or inappropriate workplace behavior by a member of the opposite sex"...

2) My response... "I wish. I was always open to suggestions..."

3) Her reaction.

4) My next stop.  Referred by my primary healthcare provider.

 

[S.ChrisKelly]

One final thought... I promise.  For those interested who have never been there... This is what it's really like.

 

I graduated from a private secondary school, and a top ten private liberal arts undetgraduate college.  I did not eat.  I dined.  I had never heard people food referred to as "chow", or "provisions", and I had certainly never heard a place designed for the preparation, service and consumption of food called a "mess hall".

 

1) Typical of my school's culinary staff, preparing our usual cuisine.

2) What I looked like then.

3) Typical of the military's culinary staff, preparing the usual cuisine.

4) How delightfully we were served.

5) My reaction.

6) What I looked like afterwards.

 

[JohnBrandes]

WWII story, as I recall,  told to me by the German solder who lived it....

 

I worked for a man named Kurt Milchraum,  who was a teenager in Germany in WWII.
Just a kid at 16 years old, he was assigned as a member of the crew of an 88mm Anti-Aircraft Gun stationed in France, towards the end of the war. 
I asked him, what was the funniest thing that happened to him during the war?

He Laughed and fondly recalled how on a day light air raid, his crew was firing flak at the allied aircraft flying over head.
One shot he saw it was a direct hit on the aircraft ! Punched a hole right through the wing !  They could see it, a massive hole in the wing! Yet the plane kept flying, the flak shell didn't explode ? !
Thats right, the flak projectile kept going it didn't explode, till it was well above the aircraft. Safely above it and didn't do anything to the plane other than the hole it punched through the aircraft's wing!!
The entire crew blamed the guy who set the timer on the flak shell. Evidentially there was some sort of setting as to when the shell would explode and send it's flak everywhere. 
He thought that was so funny, and he laughed at the memory.

I said to him,  "Holy *!#*%!! Kurt can you imagine how those guys in the airplane must have crapped their pants?"
He got a strange sort of blank stare on his face as he said, " I never thought on that." and slowly walked away, ( yes he used the words thought ON that, it was one of his broken English ways of speaking).. You could sense he was suddenly back in time with those memories
  I didn't pursue the conversation any further as I could see I had stirred up some emotions and memories that he wasn't eager to share.

Another day I asked Kurt how the war ended for him, How he got captured? 
He said he didn't get captured, he surrendered.  His crew received orders to damage/disable their 88mm, and try to head back towards an area where they would regroup, as their position would soon be surrounded.   His Crew agreed that they should follow the orders to destroy the 88mm, but then they would head towards the American forces and surrender.  They all felt that continuing to fight at that point was futile and suicidal.

Kurt told me that the Americans had so many German prisoners that it became a logistical issue. He told me that everyone wanted to avoid getting captured by the Russians, and if they had a chance, they wanted to avoid the British as well. So they all were surrendering to the Americans.  

 

[S.ChrisKelly]

 

From a disaster relief deployment, in the wake of Hurricane Andrew, one of the 20th century's most destructive storms...

 

"Arrived at Homestead AFB on 3 Sep 92 and reported to ALCE (airlift control element)... Most planes coming in did ERO's (engine running offload/onload), so very little maintenance was performed. A total of 181 missions were flown by C-141's. There was a total lack of communication most of the time. ALCE did not always tell supply what was going on. We lived in tent city on base and were forgotten about... Did not receive any money prior to departing TDY (temporary duty-deployment) and could not get any money at Homestead due to orders stating we were in field conditions. Finally received money after getting amendments to orders, but was given a bad time about it. That Kramer departed Homestead on 14 Sep 92. A1C Patterson and the WRSK (war readiness spares kit-a container of essential aircraft parts) departed Homestead on 5 Oct 92. One pallet (of six) of WRSK left behind, because they would not all fit on C-130. Was not informed of this until plane was getting ready for take off.

 

Kevin W. Kramer, TSgt, USAF

War Readiness Section

 

Kenya M. Patterson, A1C, USAF

War Readiness Section, Augmentee"

 

These two men were members of the 437th Supply Squadron stationed ar Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina. For their deployment, both were awarded the Humanitarian Service Medal.

 

Airman Patterson was subsequently promoted to Senior Airman. He was not held personally or financially responsible for the loss of a WRSK.

 

Homestead Air Force Base, Florida, was so completely destroyed, the entire 31st Fighter Wing was re-deployed to USAFE at Aviano Air Base, Italy. It is still stationed there today. 

 

I was their Squadron Section Commander. I was a second lieutenant who had been on active service for seven months when I deployed to HAFB three days before them. I was attached to what remained of the 31st Logistics Group, and my (temporary) commander was Colonel Daniel V. Connors. The ALCE commander's name (no kidding) was LtCol John Commander. I returned to CAFB four days before Airman Patterson.

 

In my era, the USAF did as much, if not more, for the CONUS (Continental United States), as it did abroad. We aided both ourselves and our fellow citizens, the people we were supposed to protect first and foremost.