The funniest instructor I remember at TBS was Captain B. He wasn't famous(that I know of) but he was absolutely hilarious. He was our Engineering Instructor and brought to that explosive profession the grace of a gazelle in the body of a defensive tackle.
Captain B was being 'stashed' at TBS while he waited for his own class - AWS - Another Wasted Summer - to start. I don't know how long he taught at TBS but he certainly made an impression on me.
On our 'field day' of Engineering practical we were in one of those outside bleachers overlooking a pond while Captain Barilich taught the class. Now, this isn't just any class. It is a class and demonstration on Combat Engineering i.e. Explosives. C-4. Detonators. Det Cord. Fun stuff!
After spouting the usual technical data of burn rates, explosive potential, TNT equivalents, the Captain asks where we're from, "Any grads from Texas A&M?"
"Yea!" cries simultaneous with boos, jeers and other derogatory names. This goes on for a couple of other schools and finally the Captain asks, "Any Naval Academy Grads?" Well, our company was the one they crammed the USNA grads into ech year(before USNA types went to Marine OCS like everybody else). Everybody at Quantico knew this and we had been harrassed mercilessly about this for four months. Capt B was new to TBS so most assummed he just hadn't gotten the word.
Wrong!
A bunch of hands go up. Cheers, jeers and catcalls ensue and the Captain points at five of the hand raisers and has them come down out of the bleachers.
He has these five butter bars form a file one behind another and stand at attention facing away from him. He then starts a long, rambling detailed discussion of Det Cord including telling a probably apocryphal tale about two combat engineers on Okinawa being told to march 50 Japanese prisoners back to the rear. The captain explains that the Marines accomplish this daunting task by using the newly invented det cord exactly as he is doing now.
While he is telling this story he is unrolling det cord from a spool and coiling it in his left hand. As he is finishing the story he walks down the file and starts wrapping det cord around the five Lt's necks connecting them in what engineers call a "daisy chain". Now at the head of the file he is in their full view and he pulls a blasting cap out of his pocket and puts it in his teeth (telling us to NEVER do that) and pulls a pocket knife out of his pocket and starts to trim the det cord.
One of the Lt's starts to get nervous and starts to ask the Captain a question, "YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE STANDING AT ATTENTION LIEUTENANT!"
The Lieutenant's all jump back to ramrod attention. While the captain pulls a detonator out and hooks up the blasting cap and rolls the wires out to our right.
During this entire time the captain is talking about Marine Combat Engineering and holding the entire class's rapt attention. To include the Lt's standing in front of us.
He then starts to talk about the Naval Academy and how much he hates the USNA and how he lost a football game to them when he was in college and says something crazy and holds up the detonator and drops his palm on the switch and about 50 meters behind him one of his Sgt's sets off about 12 feet of det cord that has one coil wrapped around a stump and the top six inches of this pine stump flies straight up into the air and then lands with a thud about ten meters in front of the Lt's and the Lt's just about wet themselves.
We laughed so hard and then cheered and screamed. He was then really conciliatory to the Lt's and proceeded to follow this demo with detonating about 20 gallons of diesel about 100 meters in front of our position. The whole world is burning! It looks like the napalm strike in "Apocalypse Now"
Trees, grass, brush - It's all on fire!
Several of his Marines grab shovels and head out to put out the conflagration before it gets to us and the captain simply holds up his hand and says, "No. I got it."
He sets off a second charge that is in the bottom of the pond and the entire pond rises up 50 meters into the air and comes down in a cascade EXACTLY where the diesel has been set off. The water completely douses the flames. Everything is wet, misty and cool.
The cheers were like a football stadium! Marine Combat Engineers! Captain B. What a stud!
Best class I ever had - anywhere!
If this doesn't read as funny it's purely my fault because I thought I was going to break a rib laughing.
Semper Fi,
TS
TBS may have been “two weeks of intensive study crammed into six months”, but there were a lot of fun times.
We came in from a three day field ex and were sitting in the dirt getting debriefed. The instructor was going on & on & on. We just wanted to get home, a shower and see our wives.
Unbeknown to us, an official photographer was snapping pictures. Several months later a big, glossy OCS recruiting brochure came out. There we were, sitting in the dirt, three day old camo grease paint half washed off of our faces, looking madder and meaner than any troops on the planet.
All over a instructor who would not let us go home!
now, THAT was a kewel story!
That is an awesome story!
It reminded me of that movie “October Sky” where the kids steal a rail from an inactive railroad bed. While doing it, they hear a train coming and think it isn’t inactive at all, and all nearly have heart attacks trying to put the rail back in place, only to find out the train was on some adjoining tracks...
That must have been hilarious when the det cord went off! I’ll bet they all jumped, I know I would have!