Your Funny, Humorous or Incredible Military Stories

[pbfoot]

Hot mikes almost desreves athread by itself
It was a slow Sunday with no scheduled flying so it was quiet in the Ratcon , so the always present card game was on .
We recieved an inbound on a weekend cross country (or dad can I borrow the T bird and go to Florida) the boss was winning in cards and made us move the game into the unit so the ACC in Moncton handed us off the aircraft and it was identified on handoff . The aircraft is heading inbound but isn't talking to us , so the boss gives him a call no answer
asks him to squawk Ident which he does . The boss says look at this Ahole doing a no comm has he got nothing better to do and now he's ruining the game. So he prceeds with a no comm approach
The boss is calling this pilot every thing under the sun combinations of words unheard of before
to make a long story short the aircraft lands still no comm and about 15 minutes later this Bgen walks in the unit walks up to the controller and goes "Hi I'm the ahole how are you "
It turmed out the foot pedal we used to transmit was stuck in the on position so every word uttered by the contoller was heard by the pilot
The Bgen was a good guy and just laughed it off but made the boss squirm a bit

[davparlr]

Good post!

Lots of Darth Vader breathing on take-off from first time soloist pressing the transmit button with white knuckles.

[A4K]

Yep, with Dav!

[Engineer]

My unit (conscript combat engineers company) was on exercise in Oksbøl, the biggest military exercise area we have here in Denmark. I was in the "park" platoon, as a truck driver.

My truck had an HMG ring on the roof, and about a half-foot gap between the cab and the bed - I was hauling anti-tank mines, btw (dummies).

One fine dark morning while we're tactical, we all of the sudden have to move camp. Now, Unlike the other trucks in my squad, I don't have a designated container for my camouflage net. Add to that, for the first (and only time), I'm pointed out as the first truck in the convoy. So... I bunch the net into the HMG ring as best I can, then use straps to secure it. Get about halfway there when I'm told to... get my finger out...

So off we go!

2 km later, chugging along at about 70 kph, my truck suddenly grinds to a halt. The camouflage net had flipped up and over, fallen in between the cab and the bed, and had been reeled in by the trans-axle until I ground to a halt.

My sergeant was not impressed.

[pbfoot]

Don't know if it's true or not but I heard a crew was on a check flight on a C130 when the ICP walked over to the FE's panel and feathered an engine , the flight engineer apparently looked at the ICP and quickly feathered another engine with these words
"it's your turn again sir"

[RabidAlien]

Sub story.

We were generally under-manned in my division, with an average of 9 guys doing the work of a 12-man div (on a submarine, divs are rather small), and a grand low-score of 6 men at one point. I think we were near this low point when we all found ourselves assigned about three or four repair jobs at one time, and just sorta Round Robin'd between them as one became too frustrating to continue for the moment. The boat I was on was well over 20 years old, so of course things kept breaking. Anyway, our Div-O was a freshly minted Ensign straight out of ROTC or something, really good with book-smarts, but not quite there in the real-world application. He kept coming around, trying the "hands-on" leadership approach, just buggin the crap out of everybody, especially me since I wasn't all that up on troubleshooting. Repair, no prob. So, finally, I'd had enough of his pestering, and decided to kinda get him out of my way for awhile. So the next time he came down to find out if I'd found the problem, I told him I had. Yup. Somebody'd let the smoke out of the wires, so the electricity wasn't flowing anymore. Seems like he hadn't ever heard of the "smoke theory of electricity" before, so I calmly explained it to him.

"Well, sir, they usually don't teach this unless you're more involved with electrical repairs, because the math involved is rather complex, so what they do is teach the 'solid copper cable' concept. What really happens is that nothing can move through a solid, by definition, so these plastic 'insulation' covers on the wires are really nothing more than nifty tubes for smoke travel. The electrons latch on to the smoke, kinda like O2 and bloodcells, it travels down the tubes and into the components."

He gave me this priceless "deer in headlights" look, and sorta-kinda questioned my logic, caught between wanting to believe what his precious books told him and "being one of the guys" and let in on a secret. So, of course, I had to reel him in.

"Yes, sir....think about it. Have you ever seen an electrical device that works after the smoke has been let out?"

I'll be danged if the lights didn't come on (talk about nothing more than an dim orange glow!!!). Anyway, it worked just fine, because I didn't see the guy for another twenty minutes. Which is when the Engineer showed up (guy in the heirarchy just below the CO and XO). He said hi (nice guy), inquired how my repair was going (I'd figger'd out the prob by that point and was polishing up the last little bits)...I didn't think much of it, until he looked at me and said "smoke theory, huh?" Well....I'm an E-4 at this point, he's an O-4, so of course I turn sheet white and start sweating. "He didn't come to you with that, did he, Eng?" Thankfully, the Eng was a great guy (I think I mentioned that earlier), and sorta-kinda slapped me on the wrist with a comment about "respect the uniform, not the guy wearing it" blah blah blah...as he was walking away, I swear he was trying not to laugh.

[RabidAlien]

Another thread reminded me of this one:

A friend of mine and I were at the uniform shop one day, buying the latest ribbon our boat had won (Battle-E, I think). We were standing in line waiting to pay when he made a comment about the Coast Guard. Me, being the clueless village idiot that I am, didnt' think there would be any particular reason why he'd say something about the CoastGuard, and so decided that that would be a perfect time to whip out a joke I'd picked up somewhere: Did you know that the US Coast Guard doesn't have a swim qualification requirement during bootcamp? Yeah....apparently, if the ship goes down, you just wade back in to shore. Now...normally, he's a fellow fun-loving guy, always ready for a quick slam-the-other-guy mental bash-fest (what subber isn't???), but this time he's not laughing. Even slugged me in the arm. I figured the joke had bombed (I'm notorious for that) until I notice him very conspicuously NOT looking behind us....yup, a Coast Guard commander was standing right behind us, buying some doodads for his uniform, too. Apparently he hadn't heard the joke before either, because he was trying not to laugh, also.

John wouldn't let me forget that one.

[Glider]

This isn't clever at all but it was amusing at the time. We were on parade for an inspection by the Third Sea Lord, everything as you would expect had been checked, double checked, practiced until we could do the parade in our sleep. When splat, one significant seagull dropping all down my right shoulder. I groaned quietly and people started to notice.

Nothing I could do, just take the inevitable. When he came around on the inspection with his entourage he just stopped, looked me in the eye, asked me my name, 'Apprentice Slack Sir' he just looked at me again with half a smile and replied 'Not your lucky day is it Apprentice Slack'.
What was interesting was the reaction from the people behind him. The more senior and experienced ones were fighting to keep the grins off their faces, the newbies were giving me looks like daggers as if is was something I had done deliberately.

[Konigstiger205]

Funny stories guys

[A4K]

Yep, with Tiger!

[ScOoTeR1992]

yep i'm with the above to post's

[timshatz]

Great one guys, great stories.

[RabidAlien]

A guy I work with was a Navy corpsman assigned to the Marines for the duration of his enlistment. Of course, they were over in Iraq, back in the early to mid 90's. He just e-mailed this story to a bunch of us guys, thought I'd share it with y'all:



One of my better days with the Jarheads was when I learned to address Officers in a group. We were out in the field, training. In the rain. Is there any other time to train? I had walked up to our Staff Sgt, Captain, and a brand new, just out of the Academy Butter-Bar when they were all clustered around a map.

'Excuse me, Sirs' I said, when they looked up.

'Doc,' the LT began, 'the plural address of Officers is 'Gentlemen' not 'Sirs.' What do you need?' Like I said, he was new, and had been doing a lot of these Manners Tutorials since his arrival.

But I was momentarily stunned. I had never heard of this before. And as I tend to do when confused, I couldn't just accept it, I had to examine it and poke it with a stick. 'No. Really? That can't be right.' I looked to SSgt Williams for help, who had put on his poker face, but his eyes were just a little bit wider than normal. I clearly remember dropping any form of honorific until I got confirmation from a source I could trust, which meant enlisted.

'Corpsman,' the LT broke in before the Staff had a chance to speak, 'exactly why can't that be right?' The LT liked using your rate just before he beat you over the head with his rank. I'm sure had I been through Marine Corps Basic Training, I would have seen this as the warning it was meant to be. But, NNNNOOOOOOOooooooo! I answered as honestly as I could.

'Sir,' because I *knew* that was right. 'The problem is the word 'Gentlemen.' In this day and age, it brings one of two things to mind; one is the courtiers in King Louis XVI court - a parasitic drain on a flawed form of government who wore wigs, make-up, and dressed like drag-queens; the other... well... Strip Clubs just out the main gate. You are neither. Our language has outgrown the terminology. You are Marines.'

The LT looked as stunned as I had a minute before, and looked to the Captain for reassurance. The man just jerked his chin at the Staff Sergent. Who responded by escorting me away from the group. 'Jimbo,' as he called me since I had helped set a femoral fracture two years earlier, 'you gotta learn not to make junior Officers look stupid in front of their bosses.' But he was smiling when he said it. 'Marines will work just fine.'

-merely_jim

[A4K]

Thanks for sharing RA! I had a few uncomfortable moments like that myself with senior ranks at times - You know you should keep your mouth shut, but still, why should they get away with BS just because they are a higher rank...? (In saying that, I'm usually very patient, but I find it hard to maintain the 'put up and shut up' mode of thinking in the face of an arrogant a*se...)

[RabidAlien]

Heh....I often had to remind myself of what a Chief once told me..."enlisted men are enlisted because they can think for themselves and aren't afraid to work. Officers are officers because they're too prissy to do either."

(paraphrased to protect sensitive officer eyes from harsh reality of crusty ole Chief vocabulary)