Posted on 03/25/2017 11:55:54 AM PDT by MNDude
We were impressed, but that was before we learned that an enemy rifle squad makes exactly the same racket but in your direction.
After the noise settled, that Staff Sergeant pulled a rifle round from his shirt pocket and showed it to us - it had colored rings painted on it - and then told us that Marine Corps Development had "designed this single round to replace the firepower of an entire rifle squad".
He soberly chambered that round into his M-14, took slow aim and fired - and after a couple of beats, there was a huge explosion downrange with a fireball rising up in the air.
He said "gentlemen, I present the 7.6mm Nuclear Round!.
Sad to say, but most of us believed him...
My father was career military. He was very strict and began teaching me self-defence from the time I was eight, while we were living in Okinawa.
Once we moved to Japan, we lived on a base and were bussed to a private school in Yokohama. One day I missed the bus and was standing rather forlornly at the bus stop. A marine in a jeep pulled up and asked me if I’d like a ride home. I decided that my father would not object, so I climbed up and he drove me home.
I don’t think that either of us said a single word during the drive and when he dropped me off, I thanked him and he responded politely. He must have been very young, because I was only twelve and he didn’t seem terribly old to me.
All of my experiences with military men were positive. Polite and professional, I have always had the greatest respect for them.
I was stationed in England in the late 50’s on a USAF bas without an airfield or planes. It was a 250 bed Hospital that serviced about 8 active USAF airbases in the surrounding area. All Med-Evacs were transported to Mildenhall. They closed the base in 1965. It was called Burderop Park — 7505th USAF Hosp. A lot of advanced medicine was conducted there including open heart surgery in the late 1950-60’s.
The statute of limitations precludes telling the real good stories ....
I just hit my PDS at Ellsworth AFB and I was training for my first access into the belly of a Minuteman 3 launch site. Part of training was learning to use a shotgun in a confined space. This was to protect us against possible attackers. We also needed to learn how to properly affix a gas mask.
For the shotgun exercise they took us out to a firing range where there were wooden posts set up as targets. The instructor was finished teaching us the proper use of the 12 gauge shotgun and we started loading shells for the firing exercise. No sooner did we finish loading then a jack rabbit came running through the range. Everyone started firing at the poor rabbit. 10 of us unload on the thing without a single hit.
The instructor just looked at us, shook his head and congratulated us on a fine lesson. As we put our shotguns on the table and get back on the bus, we hear one instructor say to the other instructor, “I’m getting too old for this sh*t”.
When I was in the infantry training portion of Marine Corps boot camp it was the night that all four platoons in our series were to shoot tracers at this hill in the distance just after sundown. About four or five recruits in each platoon were given extra rounds and told to fire their rounds on full auto. I was really hoping to be one those to fire full auto, but wasn’t selected. So I dutifully got in line to get my one box of tracers from the back of the truck. Then I got to thinking. Not something you should do in Marine Corps boot camp. It was dusk at the time and with over 200 recruits all looking the same, I got back in line and got another box of tracers, and another and some more. I borrowed extra magazines from others in my platoon and loaded them all up. When all 200+ of us were proned out in one continuous line and the order was given to commence fire, I unloaded every magazine on full auto. By then it was dark and there was no way for the drill instructors to know who was who, so I totally got away with it!
Well, actually, that was what we 13Echos and 13Foxtrots thought about you guys.......Heh-Heh :-)
1976, USS Ranger: I was the New guy in the squadron (VA25). They did the obvious jokes-—”Go get me 50 feet of flight line” or “Bring me a gallon of Prop wash”. But the worst/best one was “Go get the keys for aircraft number such and such”. First off, A-7s did not have keys, but the killer part was the aircraft number. The naval numbering system skipped over a few numbers, unbeknownst to me, and that’s the number they sent me after. I searched the hanger bay, the flight deck, then back to the hanger bay, then returned to the flight deck (keep in mind that carriers are about a fifth of a mile long). Unable to locate the aircraft, I returned to our squadrons work area, where the old timers cussed me out, asked how I could lose an aircraft, and told me to go search again “you dumbass”. After repeating the same search again, upon my return to our work area, they took pity on me and let me in on the joke.
He was on his final mission and was a “short-timer” (he would be a civilian again in about 60 days) so his dedication to the job was getting lower with each passing day.
One day, while we were walking along the flight line without wearing our flight caps. ( A common occurrence around aircraft because headgear can blow off and get stuck in a running aircraft engine)
So we crossed paths with a Lt. Colonel on the other side of the fence who yelled out “Airman! Where're your head covers?” My friend yells back “In our pockets Sir!”
To which the officer angrily yells, “Why aren't they on your heads?!!”
My friend yells back, “Cuz our heads won't fit in our pockets Sir!”
We picked up the pace and got the hell out of there while he was still yelling for us to come back! We couldn't stop laughing all night!!
Read where the black U.S. soldiers had to sit in the balcony while the German POWs sat down below. As a white Westerner, that ROYALLY pist me off.
While we were standing there, Cookieman had his hands on his knees, panting, and looked at me with a big grin and said "She looked like Grandma but sounded like Grandpa..."
When I served on the USS JFK back in the Seventies, there was a sailor on watch one night on the Port Quarter (Left side of the ship, all the way towards the back, for you lubbers out there...:)
It was about 0300, the sailor was sitting in a chair, peacoat on, soundpowered phones on, looking out at the ocean and...he fell asleep. A couple of his buddies came down to say hello, saw he was sleeping, and had a great idea for a prank.
They crawled over and tied the shoelaces on his boondockers together. They retreated back into the hatch and then called out in semi-hushed tones “Man Overboard! Man Overboard!”
Well, it had the desired effect. The sleeping sailor jumped to his feet and fell flat on his face.
Unfortunately, someone on a catwalk above heard them, and raised the alarm. The entire battlegroup came alive, 5000 men on the carrier, and thousands on the destroyers, cruisers and support ships were rousted from their beds and ran to their battle stations to report in as the ships maneuvered in unison to come about.
IIRC, the men went to mast.
Nah. It's the statute of limitations that allows spilling the beans at this late date, since it prevents prosecution after a cutoff date. It's those misdeeds that have no Statute of Limitation that must remain untold.
I arrived in Vietnam just in time for the welcoming reception that became known as Tet '68. They really didn't have to go to all that trouble just for me!
But a couple of weeks before, we'd been run through a 14-day school called POR School, [P/rior to O/verseas R/eplacement] where we got some idea about what units were where in VIETNAM, heard from some guys recently back, learned how to strip and clean the SKS and AK rifles...and learned what to do if the VC attacked during a blinding snowstorm, which was what the weather in Kansas was that month. That part wasn't real useful.
What a worthless flock of Doolies! Get off my planet!
At one point on Steele's Tank range at Ft Knox, we were practicing combined directed platoon fire with the co-axial machineguns of 5 tanks when four deer wandered into the backstop area and an immediate hold fire order came over the radio. Then, tank 3-1, take the doe on the left. 3-3, you have the buck. 3-3, 3-5, get those two does on the right end. 3-4, you get any that take off and remember they may come at us. Short bursts, 5 rounds if you can. Open up in 5 seconds, 4, 3, 2, 1- FIRE!
We ate good that night, And we knew what 5 well-directed tanks could do to troops in the open at a quarter-mile away.
True: snowstorms were pretty rare in Vietnam. Maybe during the last Ice Age.
Congratulations on arriving during Tet ‘68 - what a way to feel wanted, needed, and appreciated!
Military service might be boring and dangerous and inspiring and a host of other things, but it also has some of the funniest moments you’ll ever know.
During Air Force basic training in Texas in 1974, we somehow screwed up our laundry. Somebody apparently took the clothes out of “our” washer and put it in the wrong place. It took an hour to locate our lost scivvies.
T.I. Ovey J. Babineau called us into the day room and had us stand at attention. Uh oh! Here comes a royal chewing out from the Ragin’ Cajun!
TSgt. Babineau looked us up and down, then grumbled, “You dummies could f*uck up a steel ball with a rubber mallet.”
I nearly lost it. That was the funniest thing I had ever heard, and at the worst possible time. I don’t remember anything else he said that day, but I still remember the way my stomach hurt from fighting back the laughter.
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