Looking for good Military stories (tricks played on other military forces or civilians)

I was talking to a guy the other day who said that when he was in the Navy (in the early to mid 1990's) he and other sailors would play games/tricks with other military forces. He also said that they would jam the radar of commercial Russian planes for a little while until they could see the airliner go off course and then they would give them their radar back. I got a real kick out of hearing his stories and was wondering if any other FReepers have stories that they could post.

Sure I do. If memory serves we both posted our stories on that one. I'd post my story about the kid on his first cruise right out of bootcamp who got drunk and hooked up with a trans-gendered hooker in Naples but I might get banned for it. Instead I'll offer this gem....

Port call in Dubrovnic, Yugoslavis, tied up to the pier. I was Command Duty Officer when I get the call to come down to the quarterdeck. When I get there my attention is directed to a local civilian, about 5 foot tall, 300 pounds, wearing a shiny suit obviously made for someone 5 foot tall, 250 pounds. When I ask what's up I'm told that the man was here for his boat. "What boat," I ask innocently. "The motor launch," I'm told, "This man holds title to it." When I look at the piece of paper and, sure enough, Petty Officer Ronald Wilson Reagan and traded one regulation U.S. Navy motor launch in exchange for 12 bottles of beer and three servings of some Yugoslavian food I couldn't make out. I should hasten to add that U.S. Navy ships didn't call in Yugoslavia much and the locals weren't used to all the tricks. Desperate to think of something, I assured the civilian that Petty Officer Reagan (No, sir, I'm sorry but I don't believe that he and the President are related) did indeed inform me of the transaction but unfortunately Petty Officer Reagan dented the boat when he had it out for a spin earlier this morning. So the boat was being repaired and would be ready in two days. However, in light of the fact that the boat was damaged property, it wouldn't be fair to charge him the full 12 beers and three meals. If he would only present himself to the U.S. Consulate the day after tomorrow he would receive not only the title to the boat but $5 as well. Jest tell them that I sent you and they will understand everything. My name, sir? Why I am Lieutenant Richard Milhous Nixon, at your service.

P.S. We left port 8:30 the next morning. Poor SOB is probably still trying to get his boat.

LOL!!! That's quick thinking!

I liked standing the 04-08 OOD watch when we were in Norfolk, because Krispy Kreme would deliver about 100 dozen doughnuts about 0430 every weekday. Whenever I had the watch a few dozen would somehow find their way to my shop. One morning I came down to the Quarterdeck to assume the watch and the galley watch captain was there. He said to me, "I've been losing too many doughnuts lately and I'm here to personally sign for them." About 0430 as usual, the Krispy Kreme truck showed up, and sure enough, the watch captain personally opened each box and counted each doughnut, and stacked them neatly by the quarterdeck. He then said, "Keep an eye on these while I go round up some mess cooks to carry them." Talk about the fox watching the hen house. By the time the mess cooks showed up, he was short about 10 dozen. I got my share, the MOOW and POOW got their's too. He obviously never recounted what arrived at the galley, because I never heard any complaints.

Here's a CH-47 prank I witnessed once: Crew of 4 (two pilots/ two flight engineers (FEs)) were transporting some young soldiers cross country to another training installation. By the looks and comments made it was evident that most had never flown in a helicopter before.

During runup, the senior FE manually charged the hydraulic lines using the charging handle located near the ramp (a standard procedure), immediately after which the aircraft broke the surface, hovered, then began climbout.

After levelling off at several thousand feet the pilots would occasionally begin a nice slow descent upon which the FE would return back to the pump handle and give it some strokes, then the aircraft would climb again, level off, then after a few minutes, descend again.

The pilots and FE continued this procedure all through the flight under the watchful and apprehensive eyes of the young troops buckled into their web seats.

After the last iteration of this prank, the two FEs spread out on the web seating and feigned sleeping with their shaded helmet visors down. The passengers were noticeably agitated by this and just as the conversation between them got interesting concerning this lack of attention to the "lift control device", the pilots bottomed out the collective for a steep approach to land at their destination. The looks on their terrified young faces was priceless.

Boy, I got a bunch of these. One favorite everybody used to do is plop fake PCS orders (Transfer Orders) on some poor bastards desk, with a fake return address of MPC (Military Personnel Center) indicating a transfer to some god-forsaken place like Thule Air Base in Greenland.

The thing is MPC would do stuff just like that. No warning - one day orders arrive at your desk after MPC found a square peg and a square hole. So it was always believable. Then you gather round and listen to him cuss out MPC (which probably put him on the sh*t list for a future transfer to Thule), before you break the prank to him - and scatter quickly.

I can't confirm this - but this was a rumor in our organization. Seems there was always a Soviet trawler off Vandenberg monitoring our launches. So one enterprising Captain at one of our Satellite Tracking Stations - leveled a full 10-meter antenna straight at the trawler and hit full power - frying out the front ends of the trawler's sensitive eavesdropping equipment.

The Soviets complained to the US Embassy, about what I don't know - maybe a blown-out fish finder - who relayed it to the State Department, who relayed it to the Pentagon, which downloaded it to Systems Command, which downloaded it to Space Division, which sent a General driving up to Vandenberg, who located and called the Captain to attention - and said "Consider yourself reprimanded." And without another word nor action, he turned on his heel and drove back to Space Division.

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