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

me | 04/04/02 | Me

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

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.

[in the Arena]

I don't know if this will qualify as a true military story.

I was enrolled in Army ROTC my freshmen year of college (1981) and we had a field exercise combined with the local National Guard unit. The NG had spent the previous day setting up a course that included rappelling, rope bridge river crossing and a slide for life.

Some of the NG must have had a "little" experience because they were really into the activities, they kept jumping off the picnic tables doing something they called a PLF and doing a thing called an Australian Rappel and while on the slide for life they would yell something that sounded like "Rainjerrrr" and release, falling into the middle of the river...

It came time for the slide for life for the ROTC students...

The students would slide to the bottom and be stopped by one of the NG. They had to stop you or you would bottom on the edge of the river.

Well, I was feeling pretty cocky after several trips down the rappel line and several river crossings and seeing the NG guys having a blast...I wanted to fit right in...so as I went down the slide for life I yelled the only thing I could think of..."FRESHMENnnnn"...I'm not quite sure what happened next but the only thing I remember was the NG soldier stepping away and waving at me as I augered myself into the mud on the rivers edge.

Then it was time for chow...we formed up and were dismissed, but first were orderd to strip to our t-shirts. The uniform of the day required a white t-shirt under the OD shirt...well, the only white t-shirt I had was an Ocean Pacific shirt with a big, blue dolphin in the center of the back...oh yeah, I had cut the sleeves off earlier that summer...so, I obeyed the order and striped off my OD shirt. The NG guys thought that was a riot...one even came over and said they were promoting me to honorary FNG...

BTW, the lunch we were issued was C Rations packaged sometime before I was born...

[Husker24]

They were all asleep?

[Balata]

While flying C-141's out of McGuire AFB NJ one of our missions was to fly Presidential support missions. These missions mainly consisted of carrying White House communication people and equipment that was needed by President Nixon when he went on international trips.

On one of the missions I was lucky enough to fly was one when Nixon went to U.S.S.R. in 1972. Our leg of the mission was to fly from Tehran Iran to Kiev. Eventhough it's true English is a truly universal language in the world of flying it was not spoken behind the Iron curtain. For us to accomplish our mission we had a Russian pilot fly with us to work the radios. When we showed up at the airplane in Tehran for our pre flight we notice several of our instruments had duct tape covering them. We soon learned this was a prank by our flight engineer to pimp our Russian pilot. Sure enough it worked like a charm. The Russian pilot would politely ask us about our instruments and we would just as politely tell him. He would then repeatedly ask about the instruments that were covered with the duct tape and we would always tell him they were classified. It worked like a charm. To this day I laugh at the debriefing he went through and what he must have told his comrades about our classified instruments covered with duct tape.

[Washington-Husky]

That's funnier than hell, lol! And you can darn well believe that this poor guy's "handlers" did debrief him to the nines!

[wafflehouse]

these too: waveguide grease and the bit bucket

my infantry brother inlaw had the misfortune of learning the prick E7 thing the hard way (ouch)

[DCBryan1]

My favorite boot camp story is between an Asian American recruit in my unit and the biggest, meanest black drill sergeant you could imagine; the famed Sgt JJ Thomas at Ft. Knox, KY. And of course the instructor hated each and everyone of us. He called this guy "Gook", and "Gook" said very nasty things about SGT Thomas.

We were on the LAW (Light AntiTank Weapon) and AT 4 range and were firing live rounds one day.

Before you pull the trigger (push button) on these bazooka-type weapons, you are supposed to look behind you and shout the warning "BACK-BLAST AREA! BACK-BLAST AREA! BACK-BLAST AREA!" before letting loose, as to not kill anyone with the tremendous back blast these weapons generate.

Well, Gook got in the hole with DI Thomas and armed the weapon with the instructor right next to him. They hated each other with a passion. Upon finding his target downrange, and scanning behind him for dangers, the recruit shouted as best he could the warning, "BACK BLAST AREA!".....but unfortunately, being engrish impared, the recruit sounded to us like he was screaming "BLACK BASTARD! BLACK BASTARD! BLACK BASTARD!"

The next words we heard were "What he hell did you just say "Gook"? And the recruit dutifully said "BLACK BASTARD!...of course saying "back-blast area" but sounding very very wrong. Of course to us, including the one very pissed of instructor, a physical fight ensued inside the foxhole with the partially armed and extended LAW falling outside the hole and two guys going at it.

It was funny as hell because of the tension between all of us, but we kinda missed SGT. Thomas because he was sent to another unit for the stunt. "Gook" and I later went through OCS and came back to SGT Thomas and told him he was the best DI he had ever seen and appreciated his help.

Here's to you DI Thomas!

1LT DC BRYAN- Little Rock, AR

[eagleye]

Seems to me this is mighty dangerous business. Messing with somebody else's radar could get some people killed, and it could also lead to a security alert with some unanticipated consequences. As a taxpayer, I don't want our people in the armed services messing around and playing jokes for their own amusement. Let them have fun while on their own time, not when they are supposed to be minding the store.

[Balata]

I can still see him sweating under the bright interrogation light trying to explain those classified instruments. LOL!

[Washington-Husky]

I agree (see my post #19). If there are any Navy (or any other branch of the military) personnel who are knowingly and willingly screwing with civilian or military aircraft in flight, I can only hope that someone in authority has the power to take you to task. Pranks are fine, but really...

[Lokibob]

Click here for my contribution.  When you get to the web site, click on "Greenland" for the worst duty station a young buck private could have.   http://www.lokibob.bravepages.com/

[Washington-Husky]

That was a classic story, I love it! That belongs in that book "1001 Uses for Duct Tape" (now the book can be retitled "1002 Uses...")

[meatloaf]

One of the best I heard was about a chief petty officer that constantly warned his men about the dangers of sex while on liberty. You could ctach some serious stuff.

The guys got tired of hearing his speech knowing he had a regular honey ashore so they got ahold of his skivies in the laundry and soaked them in bleach, dried them in the extractor (dryer), soaked them in bleach, dried, etc., etc.

The hospital corpsman was in on the joke. Needless to say the chief devloped a hell of a rash after putting on his clean shorts from the laundry. When he went to sickbay the corpsman told him he'd never seen anything like it but it looked like a severe case of some sort of VD.

The chief got sent ashore to the base hospital and missed movement when the ship pulled out.

Then there were the cops in San Diego that used to ticket sailors driving off the base until someone used a ship's fire control radar to smoke the cop's radar.

One of the country music stations in Norfolk used to get drowned out by a ship's WRT-1 emergency transmitter tuned to the station's frequency.

Just another day at the office.

[Newbomb Turk]

Good old Ft Knox. One of my favorite places. While going thru my Armor officer basic there I had just came in out of the field after 10 days. My roommate, a Cpt was sitting on the curb smoking a cig while I talked to some basic training recruits waiting for ther drill Sgt to come out of the mess hall by our housing complex.

We both had field gear on and ruck sacks and kevlars just like the trainees. There drill Sgt came out and they all hopped into formation just like good little troopies. Then the drill came and stood behind the Cpt and yelled ,Soldier get your A## off the curb and get into formation. Snickering could be heard as my roommate rose and turned to face the drill Sgt and in his best John wayne voice said Are you talking Da me.

Troopies got to see there Sgt do some pushups that afternoon.

[Newbomb Turk]

bet you never fooled around on the job did you.

[Southack]

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

Well, the trick that I saw played wasn't on either military forces or civilians, but on Soviet bureaucrats.

It was the early 1980's. Reagan was President and the Soviets were still our enemies. I was a mere kid running a bulletin board. That was before the internet was popular or even viable outside of research facilities and universities (and military bases). People dialed in to bulletin boards back then on an individual basis.

But I owned this particular hacker board, and ownership has its privileges. One of the private email exchanges on it between some hard core phone phreaks (you'd probably call them "hackers" today) was about an insurance scam that was legal to play.

The hackers had discovered that the Soviet embassies wouldn't accept large unsolicited packages from the West (might have bugs or bombs or drugs in them, I guess), but they didn't follow Western rules and wouldn't return said packages, either. Who knows, perhaps they blew them up or sent such packages off to some agency for study, catagorization, processing, or storage.

But the hackers claimed that the Soviets were getting stuck paying off the insurance on said packages for diplomatic reasons. The email even had the address of two Soviet embassies, including one in Poland, and mentioned that you could insure international packages for $5,000 back then.

Then one of the later exchanges had the hackers discussing a killer sound system that they had just purchased with their windfall.

Apparently the Soviets got stuck paying off several of those claims, too. The email chain that I watched would have been tough to fake. They were talking about this scam, their windfall money, and various items that they kept purchasing... over a period of two years.

[Squantos]

Were you ever in the service eagleye ?

Stay Safe !

[Michael Barnes]

Here's one we pulled on the comand hooch while in Bridgeport for mountain training. The MRE's were coming with meal warmers that basically was a chemical reaction when water was added..The things got damn hot, but also produced a sh*t load of "vapor" or "gas" or whaterver ya want to call them..Well, a few of us took a two liter empty coke bottle, crushed up a few of these meal warmers and put the "grounds" in the two liter. We added the water when we got to the command hooch..We (silently) left hte two liter under the tent and made our escape..About ten minutes later, the bottle bursted due to the heat and pressure build up of the gasses. It sounded like an 81mm mortar landed right there on the hooch..Sufficed to say, command was not happy...

[GATOR NAVY]

You mean like sending the new guy to the supply depo for 5 gallons of prop wash or 50 feet of flight line. Oh and dont forget an ID ten T (id10t). Or sending someone for the keys to the turret lock on a tank ,squelch oil for the radio or sending him to the Plt Sgt for a prick E7.

In the Navy, you send them for 10 feet of mess line, or some relative bearing grease, or down to the engine room for a BT (boiler tech) punch. The best was mail buoy watch. Put them on the focsle with a life jacket and a pair of binoculars and tell them if they don't spot the mail buoy, nobody on the ship will get mail and the whole crew will take it out on them personally.

[cva66snipe]

And let's not forget the stupid person who ignores a secured sign on the head, and then has a seat about the same time the Hull Tech back flushes the clogged drain with full fire main pressure :>}

While in the yards me and my chief dumped two cans of sea marker into the chill water system to find the elusive chill water loop leak. The yard C.O. called us to the pier it seems about every discharge was pouring green water.

Then there's the real good one. Be on a ship stationed out of NORVA operating in VACAPES and in the evening while sailing into the sun tell someone the KENNEDY or whatever ship is DIW at ROTA and we are headed to the MED to relieve them.

Wait till 1 am and take a couple of cups of R-11 and toss into someones rack. Watch them feel around and scratch their heads in confusion.

Hold a 1 am bottom rack tricing.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

I don't quite get it. Why would the Soviets have to pay? Someone sent them a package and they wouldn't accept them, but would destroy them or store them, right? How does the insurance money come into play?