Military BS Stories or the last liar wins.

[patience0830]

Dark as the inside of a goat.

 

[2A_Tom]

Hough, while in the 82nd Airborne, I spent 3 summer drills training secondary 96B Intel Analysts of the 28th Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

This was prior to the Gulf wars, so I take some credit for the continued freedom of the Keystone State.

 

[Old Bear]

I spent a lot of time protecting and transplanting poison ivy patches at Atterbury.

Before that, I also spent some time training the 28th, at Indian Town Gap.

 

[MarkC]

Hough, while in the 82nd Airborne, I spent 3 summer drills training secondary 96B Intel Analysts of the 28th Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

This was prior to the Gulf wars, so I take some credit for the continued freedom of the Keystone State.

While with the 101st Airborne (Air Assault), I spent 3 summers training and evaluating units of the 42nd Infantry DivArty, New York Army National Guard.

This was also prior to the Gulf wars, so I take some credit for the continued freedom of the Empire State..... oh wait, uh, never mind.

 

[HoughMade]

Hough, while in the 82nd Airborne, I spent 3 summer drills training secondary 96B Intel Analysts of the 28th Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

This was prior to the Gulf wars, so I take some credit for the continued freedom of the Keystone State.

As well you should....as well you should.

 

[Alamo]

Since it was the Airborne that kicked all this off, my Airborne School story. Two of them, as a matter of fact:


AFROTC in the 1980s offered some summer training programs to contract cadets (last two years of AFROTC, we signed contracts to enter the USAF as an officer...if we graduated with a degree...or enlisted if we didn't). One of these opportunities was to attend The Airborne School at Fort Benning. Two cadets from my detachment got the opportunity, me and another guy (who actually used the training later as a Combat Control Team officer).

In the beginning...

The first morning at "school" there was a great mob of soldiers, sailors, marines, 9 AFROTC cadets and some enlisted Air Force ROMAD (essentially forward air controllers) guys,milling around in the company courtyard when SGT Delgado stepped out of his office to start organizing things. He gently introduced himself as Jesus Christ and announced his two tactical NCOs assisting him as his disciples. After this display of humility we knew we were in good hands.

He then yelled for all the regular army enlisted guys (most of the mob) to line up first. Then "Navy is the next best service, line up next!" Then yelled for the marines to get in line behind the Navy.

Then he yells: "IS THERE ANYBODY ELSE OUT THERE?"

We knew were were in for good time then. While we did push-ups.



At the end...

The uniform for the entire school period, save one day, was the utility uniform. In those days both Army and Air Force wore the plain green utility uniforms. The marines had a slightly different but plain (no camo) utility, and I think the navy wore the same as the mrines. So basically we all looked the same. Green.

For some odd reason tho, on the last day when we processed out, we had to be in Class B uniform. For the Army this was the short sleeve light green shirt and dark green pants, black low quarters, dark green garrison hat. For Air Force we basically had the same except in light and dark blue (and we had very rude name for our flight caps). The marines I think wore khaki short sleeves with a different dark green pants, I don't remember what the Navy equivalent was. As AFROTC cadets, we all wore the standard USAF uniform, with the only difference being cadet rank on our shoulders instead of regular Air Force rank.

Except Frank.

Frank was from Texas A&M. Texas A&M had the largest AFROTC detachment of cadets in the nation. (Historical Hoosier note: at that time my detachment was the second largest, and that was Det 215, Indiana University). But since they were part of the Aggie Corps of Cadets, Texas A&M AFROTC members wore the Aggie uniform. This was (and is) basically a WWII cavalry uniform - khaki shirt, riding pants, campaign hat, and cavalry boots and spurs. Sam Browne belt too, IIRC.

When Frank walked out of the barracks into the courtyard, all 200 or so of us just stopped, turned around and stared.

And then we see SGT Delgado walking down the sidewalk straight at Frank. For the entire time we were at The Airborne School, SGT Delgado never smiled, never had a good word for anyone. Usually what the did say ended in "NOW DO SOME PUSH-UPS!". Couldn't wait to see what he had for Frank.

Delgado walks up to Frank, stares him up and down, and then walks a complete circle around him, studying his outfit. Then he looks Frank in the eye and says:

"THAT'S A DAMN FINE UNIFORM."

and struts off down the sidewalk.

 

[singlesix]

Not a real Ft. Bragg story unless it involves scrubbing toilets with a tooth brush or so I heard.

 

[2A_Tom]

I spent a lot of time protecting and transplanting poison ivy patches at Atterbury.

Before that, I also spent some time training the 28th, at Indian Town Gap.

I worked with HQ 56th IN BN 28th IN DIV at Indian Town Gap in '89.

The 28th is the 82nd's sister DIV, we were told that If we deployed they would be right there with us.

The 28th battle flag has more streamers than any other I've seen. They go back to the Civil War. Men served in the Revolution, but the 56th was not organized until 1879.

 

[cce1302]

When an "airborne" guy calls you a leg...if he isn't in a plane, or on his way down...he's a leg, too.

 

[HoughMade]

The most fun I had was playing OPFOR for other units including ROTC cadets.

As I mentioned somewhere, I was an ROTC cadet along with being an enlisted MING member. My college had an agreement that allowed me to attend ROTC at Western Michigan University. I did the first semester of MS1, after which I wondered why. Then I actually contracted and did the entire MS3 year (having been previously enlisted). Long story short, I opted to complete my enlistment and not continue on to commissioning. There were some great people who went on to be very good officers, but I was ready to move on.

The funny thing about all this (funny 25 years later, not so much at the time) was that I was counting on the ROTC credits and a couple "life learning" credits related to Army stuff to complete college. SNAFU reared its ugly head in the way of paperwork being permanently lost and a "misunderstanding" about what could count for what and HoughMade left college after 3 1/2 years without a degree (this was after I had decided not to pursue commissioning and had nothing to do with it). Eventually, I CLEPed a couple of classes and took a freshman geography class and got my sheepskin.

I never told my parents I hadn't graduated until I actually did 2 years later. I even walked through graduation in spring 1993 (I left college after fall 1992) and got an empty envelope. I finally graduated in December 1994.

Anyhoo, back to OPFOR- I used to volunteer for that all the time. We would go out to Fort Custer and have a ball. One time, I was leading an OPFOR squad in the snowy, winter forests...at night, and this PFC kept insisting we were going in circles. As a confirmed LEG, I kinda felt like land nav was important and I was damned good at it, day or night. We were supposed to make contact with an ROTC unit that was supposed to ambush us, and I was leading exactly through the area they should have been, but no ambush. That's when PFC smart guy started with the "we're going in circles". "No we're not, I know what I'm doing". Then came the words that I've always found kinda funny: "Are you sure....maybe one of your feet is bigger than the other one." He was totally serious.

Anyway, eventually, with the cadets not, apparently, able to find the right area and set up to ambush a slowly moving target, we received orders to proceed to a certain area, start a fire and sit around the camp fire until the cadets found us (they're land nav was apparently not as strong as mine). Keep in mind this is taking place between about 2200 and 0400. When the beleaguered platoon-sized elements finally made the assault on our fixed position...with all, about 3 of us there....they thought they were Rambos, every one. Miles gear going solid beeeeeeeeeep....they won!

So here they are, in this little draw between decent sized spurs...it would be a shame if someone set up an M-60 and the whole OPFOR contingent wasn't around the fire....

Like I said, this was fun.

 

[flatlander]

You haven't lived until the cherry next to you pulls you out of the Huey by your field pant legs on your 6th jump. After you clear the skid you realize you're upside down. It will fix itself. Then bicycle out of the twisted risers. Start to enjoy the ride until the same idiot is running towards you, with the wind, and mirrors you pulling your toggle. Bam, he slams into you. He then pulls both toggles and drops below you. Looking up, you see your chute deflate, because since he was under you and couldn't see he lets go of his toggles. Long story short, did you know it's about 30' from top of canopy to your shoulders? Neither did I but that's about how far I fell onto the packed runway on St. Mere without air in my chute. Cracked and dislocated a couple of things in my legs but if I could have got up I would have killed that trooper. Saw him running away across the DZ never to be seen again.
And thus started my Airborne career.
A leg will always be a leg as far as an Airborne trooper goes, but, the wings on your chest make you Airborne forever.

Bob

 

[Alamo]

The most fun I had was playing OPFOR for other units including ROTC cadets.

...
I never told my parents I hadn't graduated until I actually did 2 years later. I even walked through graduation in spring 1993 (I left college after fall 1992) and got an empty envelope. I finally graduated in December 1994.

..

This will not play well at your confirmation hearings.

 

[Alamo]

... the same idiot is running towards you, with the wind, and mirrors you pulling your toggle. Bam, he slams into you. ...

Bob

Was just running off the landing zone during Jump Week when we heard the Black Hats blaring at us through the megaphones "EVERYONE STOP AND FACE THE DROP ZONE. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT THREE DUMBASSES LOOK LIKE."

There were three guys all tangled up together, all three chutes reinflated, coming down like one of the Apollo space capsules. Bam, right into the ground, no PLFs, just thump. Was told later one of them had his thumb degloved with a lose riser line got wrapped around it in the "crash" and then the chute reinflated. ouch.

 

[HoughMade]

This will not play well at your confirmation hearings.

I always thought that this was too good a story to not share.

The truth of how this went down was that I planned on never telling my parents that I had not graduated when they thought I did.

However, I got a call from my Mom, I think in February or March of 1995. She was confused as to why my college had sent her an invitation to my graduation ceremony in May 1995 (we only had 1 ceremony per year). By then, i had the diploma in hand, so I fessed up.

...of course the joke was really on me. I started law school in the fall of 1995 and my Mom positively nagged, nagged and nagged me about making sure I had all mt credits accounted for. I can't blame her.

 

[2A_Tom]

As a confirmed LEG, I kinda felt like land nav was important and I was damned good at it, day or night.

This is the reason you were not qualified to be wear butter bars.

You haven't lived until the cherry next to you pulls you out of the Huey by your field pant legs on your 6th jump. After you clear the skid you realize you're upside down. It will fix itself. Then bicycle out of the twisted risers. Start to enjoy the ride until the same idiot is running towards you, with the wind, and mirrors you pulling your toggle. Bam, he slams into you. He then pulls both toggles and drops below you. Looking up, you see your chute deflate, because since he was under you and couldn't see he lets go of his toggles. Long story short, did you know it's about 30' from top of canopy to your shoulders? Neither did I but that's about how far I fell onto the packed runway on St. Mere without air in my chute. Cracked and dislocated a couple of things in my legs but if I could have got up I would have killed that trooper. Saw him running away across the DZ never to be seen again.
And thus started my Airborne career.
A leg will always be a leg as far as an Airborne trooper goes, but, the wings on your chest make you Airborne forever.

Bob

I have seen it, but never had the pleasure.

Was just running off the landing zone during Jump Week when we heard the Black Hats blaring at us through the megaphones "EVERYONE STOP AND FACE THE DROP ZONE. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT THREE DUMBASSES LOOK LIKE."

There were three guys all tangled up together, all three chutes reinflated, coming down like one of the Apollo space capsules. Bam, right into the ground, no PLFs, just thump. Was told later one of them had his thumb degloved with a lose riser line got wrapped around it in the "crash" and then the chute reinflated. ouch.

Aren't black hast wonderful? You are one of few that have seen that.

6+ years on jump status, around 100 jumps and the only malfunctions I can boast are a chute "full" of small (less than fist size) holes. It was my very first jump, I checked my rate of descent and there were a lot of jumpers below me and since I was the lead man in the 1st plane I was confident I was OK. That didn't stop the black hat on the ground from bellowing at me to pull mu reserve.

Another time I had a full right to left inversion. I will never be convinced that both of those chutes were not packed that way.

 

[Hohn]

Yeah, it's always super secret-secret squirrel stuff. Nobody ever makes up stuff about driving a forklift in the rain, or loading a truck in a snowstorm, or what you got at a DRMO sale, or going to meetings.

Well there was that one time one of my troops got heat exhaustion driving a forklift in the sandbox.

ca 2002. A young SSgt is loading barrels of that nasty additive used to dope commerical Jet A to close to JP-8 specs. They are on pallets and we've got a whole bunch of them to move to the fuel bladders. This was at a "deployed location" with AWACS and KC-135s to keep them gassed.

Guy wasn't following the guidelines and nearly fainted on the forklift, dropped a pallet of the nasty stuff on the tarmac and next thing you know there's an "incident" and all that drama as all the phone colonels and up (Lt Col) with nothing better to do suddenly have a chance to "show their leadership" (read: meddle and magnify).

They made me write the guy a LoC for his "failing to hydrate" type of thing and deprived him of the customary ribbon for his tour. Total BS.

I did get to meet LeAnn Tweeden. Unlike Al not-funny Franken, I didn't sexually assault her or pretend to. Also Mr Belding and some random soap opera old actress I'd never heard of.

Running the air terminal can be a cool gig because you meet all the people that aren't officially there, just passing through on a gas-and-go. Like the Redskins Cheerleaders

 

[Hohn]

6+ years on jump status, around 100 jumps and the only malfunctions I can boast are a chute "full" of small (less than fist size) holes. It was my very first jump, I checked my rate of descent and there were a lot of jumpers below me and since I was the lead man in the 1st plane I was confident I was OK. That didn't stop the black hat on the ground from bellowing at me to pull mu reserve.

Another time I had a full right to left inversion. I will never be convinced that both of those chutes were not packed that way.

I got my wings at the Academy (the one in Colorado Springs) freefall style. Largely uneventful for me other than I was about 0.25 seconds late pulling my cord and the AAD fired. Reviewing the tape showed that I had in fact pulled it, so I didn't get booted from the program. Yes, I forgot to count when I first bailed out of that crappy little Twin Otter. By the time I started counting, I was already potato chipping pretty good until a got a hard enough arch to settle down.

Things happen fast at 120mph.

Truth be told, the toughest part was just the physical act of reaching the cord. See, this was Feb of 1998 and ambient temp that day was in the 20s (cold for C-springs). Who cold was at at 6k AGL? Crazy cold, like your fingers don't work right cold.

When I landed, I had the customary frozen snot streaks on my goggles.

Fun times.


My roomie was on the Wings of Blue and winged me when I got my 5th jump in without incident.


I had one of the Rivera twins (Amy or Amanda, can't remember which) in my class. Both of these girls were tough as nails (Dad was career Army grunt), but not even 5ft tall. On her 2nd or 3rd jump, she pulled the cord before she was face to ground (or so was the rumor). Chute came around and her arm was in the risers when it popped.

Spiral fracture in several locations. OUCH.

Delayed a year, graduated a year later than the rest of us because she temporarily lost her med qual for commissioning.

Related note: a guy from the class of 99 was on the jump team and a had a weird wind basically collapse a perfectly good chute and he fell 40 feet or so onto the roof of the jump building. Broke his back. Graduated with us instead of his '99 classmates.

Military colleges aren't cakewalks. I swear most of my knee and hip issues today are from having to run half marathon distances in crappy issue boots.

 

[Nazgul]

We were tasked to do some time as adversaries for Army Reseve un**** at Ft Lewis. We were the bad guys, hidden in the woods, at night, with simulators. Never figured out who the genius was that figured they would give a group of active duty MARINES major pyrotechnics (Flash bangs, artillery simulators, grenade simulators) and tell them to defend an area.

We were set up out front of the Combat Town they were supposed to reconnoiter and then attack. Several decided they were cold and tired, started a fire about 6 ft from us and take a break. Let's just say an artillery simulator is a serious piece of hardware. Tossed one in the fire, heard "What the hell is that?", then a big kaboom.

It was an eventful night

P.S.- I had weekend duty in the barracks next weekend. Had a guy that decided to sleep late. I hear a door shut and laughter, followed by another kaboom. Couple guys set one off under his rack. Took some serious scrambling to hide that one....

Don

 

[Alamo]

I hadn't thought of Airborne School in years, and now that I've focused on it all these odd little memories come tumbling out.

Every morning the Black Hats held uniform inspection just before morning PT was to begin. Spit-shined boots, clean utilities, shave, all-around squared away.

So I'm at attention and this little (shorter than me and I'm 5'7") female Black Hat is glaring in my face, like she's looking up my nose. She finally gripes that maybe I didn't shave my mustache close enough that morning. My mind involuntarily forms the thought "Me? You missed yours completely!" which of course I did not say out loud, but I couldn't help it, I could feel the smile muscles starting to pull. She say me trying to stifle the smile and launches "WHAT ARE YOU GRINNING ABOUT YOU THING THIS IS FUNNY GET IN THE GIG PIT!"

The Gig Pit was an open space full of sawdust where those who failed uniform inspection had to conduct PT. While everyone else was out on the nice clean grass doing push-ups, sit-ups, leg lifts and such, us less fortunate ones were in the gig pit doing those plus whatever weird but exhausting exercises the Black Hats could think up. Like Dead Bug, where we had to violently throw our selves on our backs and vigorously wave our arms and legs in the air. Then back over for more pushups, situps, side-straddlehop DEADBUG!. etc.

The worst part was that when the rest of the class was finished with PT, they got a few minutes to spray off with a hose, get a drink, put their T-shirts and blouses back on, catch their breath. Because of the high heat and humidity, PT was done without shirts on (except females). While everyone else was cleaning up and getting a drink, those of us in the Gig Pit were still waving our arms and legs in the air and other nonsense. At the very last minute, just as the Black Hats called "Fall IN!" they would release the Gig Pit internees and we had to race to put our shirts on -- over the top of our sweaty torso COVERED in saw dust -- while hauling ass to our place in formation. And spend the rest of the day with sawdust embedding itself in our skin.

Good times, good times.

 

[2A_Tom]

The 82nd is an "Airborne Division". A full division air head has a diameter of one mile, which puts our rear area 1/2 mile from the front. Army doctrine stated that female soldiers could work at division HQ, 3 miles behind the front.

So the 82nd was the last hold out to have women assigned. My class at Ft Benning was the first to have female students, but they were both recycled after 0 week (PT).

I had been with 82nd MI Co for a few months when we lost the fight and had the first one assigned to the division. She had broken her arm, reaching for the ground on her first jump at Benning, "BUT", they had to keep on schedule, so they shipped her to us and she eventually got her wings, completing her 4 qualification jumps with the unit.

Well I am sitting in the day room relaxing and i catch her out of the corner of my eye entering the room. I ignore her ( she is not cute and I would bet she is over max weight for her height). She sits down behind me and starts whimpering. I mean whimpering and whining, "My arm, my arm". This goes on for a while and I get irritated and turn around to tell her to shut up. As i turn I see that her hand and upper arm are swollen bigger than the cast and bright red.

I tell her she needs to get to the hospital, go get dressed and I'll give her a ride. I took her to the hospital and they changed her cast.

The good thing is I got a date with a cute little girl medic. Picture Charlie Brown's little red head girl.