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Military BS Stories or the last liar wins.
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- Start date
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Depending on the story, that's probably a good thing.
One of the earlier stories reminded my of an FTX in Korea during the winter. The platoon managed to lose my cold weather duffel. It was snowy, cold wet and miserable. Fortunately the platoon found a building that we stayed in while everyone else in the company stayed in tents and froze. We ended up with quite a few cold weather injuries, frostbite and hypothermia. Thankfully I wasn't one, when we were on missions, I tried staying near the vehicles. It was still a brutal exercise and completely understand how so many died from the cold there.
Things/Events that make good stories, SUCK when you are in the middle of the action.
It's only later, when you tell the story, that it seems great.
It's only later, when you tell the story, that it seems great.
THIS!!
Had a Company Commander who ran marathons. Every day we went on a run, he ran until everyone dropped out. Might take 3-5 hrs. It was the pits.
I wasn't bad, about in the middle of the pack, still a f####ing nightmare.
Don
Most of my old stories start with the preface, "I laugh now, but at the time......."
It's pretty easy to look back on things with rosey colored glasses. I miss the guys I was around, because going through those times with good people made all the difference.
It's pretty easy to look back on things with rosey colored glasses. I miss the guys I was around, because going through those times with good people made all the difference.
Absolutely. The best people on the planet. Certainly always made things bearable.
My grandmother passed while I was in Korea, was told since she wasn't immediate family I would get no time off. My buddies took it on themselves to switch the schedule so I had some time off and they took me out drinking too. Mostly never forgotten how they stepped in and were there.
Grenada, October 1983
C-141 Flight engineer running the Combat Entry Checklist and one item is turning off all exterior lights.
I am flying with an E-9 that has 30,000 flying hours, has farted more air than I have flown thru, chest of medals that go up to his epaulets and could wrap around onto his back. As we wait our turn to descend, land and offload, we can see tracer fire in and around the airport and other portions of the island.
There is a FAA rule that below 10,000 ft all exterior lights need to be turned on. As we dip below 10,000 ft I see the E-9 reach up and turn every exterior light on. Thinking he is doing that out of habit I remind him where we are.
He turns to me and says...........BOY, if you want a medal, you need to be shot at. To be shot at, you need to be seen.
True story
C-141 Flight engineer running the Combat Entry Checklist and one item is turning off all exterior lights.
I am flying with an E-9 that has 30,000 flying hours, has farted more air than I have flown thru, chest of medals that go up to his epaulets and could wrap around onto his back. As we wait our turn to descend, land and offload, we can see tracer fire in and around the airport and other portions of the island.
There is a FAA rule that below 10,000 ft all exterior lights need to be turned on. As we dip below 10,000 ft I see the E-9 reach up and turn every exterior light on. Thinking he is doing that out of habit I remind him where we are.
He turns to me and says...........BOY, if you want a medal, you need to be shot at. To be shot at, you need to be seen.
True story
I might have thrown him out.
My watch as RO (Reactor Operator) being over, I went to the Mess Decks to grab a bite to eat.
The offgoing EO (Electrical Operator) mentioned he had to top off the battery.
I think we were getting ready for a battery charge.
Normally we maintain the battery on a "trickle discharge".
There is an amp-hour meter that displays the state of charge of the battery, and it actually clicks each amp-hour of discharge.
If we have a reactor scram, the only source of power is the ship's battery, until/if we can start the diesel generator.
Until we can get the electrical load under control, this meter will be clicking like mad. Each click meaning the battery has lost another amp-hour of charge.
If watchstanders can't isolate non-vital loads fast enough, the EO will actually dump the non-vital busses via the main distribution panel.
Keeping the battery trickle charging is not good for the life of the battery.
So, we trickle discharge it.
Then when the battery hits a designated amount of amp-hours, we charge it back up.
This minimum point is determined to be the minimum necessary to start up the reactor plant again.
All the pumps, control systems, lights, etc that are necessary to run the reactor.
Non-vital loads would be things like ovens, certain lights, basically anything that can be turned off that won't kill us in the next hour or so.
Anyway, before the charge we need to make sure the battery electrolyzes and water level are okay.
It's the offgoing EOs job, but it's a big job.
So, since he sometimes helped me with calibrations, I help him with the battery.
So, we had to remove all metal, such as belt buckles. And a wrench to check terminals tight, shorter than 9 inches. 9 inches is the distance between terminals. Well, I think it was 9. It was many decades ago.
Now, you're probably thinking of the battery being like a bunch of car batteries.
And it is, and it isn't.
Here is a little about WWII batteries
https://fleetsubmarine.com/battery.html
The batteries look something like this
Except these all have gaps between them.
In the sub, they are butted together.
In the battery compartment, kinda looked like this, but it didn't.
While this compartment looks small, it's actually a large room. Each battery cell is around the size of a person, and there are hundreds of them. So, when we changed the ship's battery one time, I got to stand in a room that normally I had to crawl in.
We didn't ride a trolley like this.
We could crawl on small platforms.
But we did have about this much room to crawl in.
The EO would use the hydrometer, and I would follow him with what basically was a garden hose.
He'd check.
I'd fill.
We were finishing the job up, I took the hydrometer from him, he took the water hose to finish.
I crawled back to the hatch.
The hatch is in the ceiling of the battery compartment, and enters the lower level berthing in Ops compartment.
So, I was pulling myself up through this tiny access hatch when..
I was surrounded by a brilliant bright white light. Kinda like something you'd only see in the movies. No color, just white. So bright, it's like I was the only one in the universe, surrounded by white light and nothing else.
All the normal background sounds of the sub disappeared. The motors, blowers, etc.
My first, second, and third thoughts were, I'm dead.
After all, battery casualties were common on older submarines, and we had been briefed on causes, AND EFFECTS OF battery casualties.
https://www.ussflierproject.com/tags/battery-explosion/
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/25/...red-in-fire-aboard-a-us-diesel-submarine.html
Finally, ship's lighting returned, though the center of my eyes had a bad "after image".
Background noises came back.
I pulled my feet from the hatch, noticed I wasn't burned.
Turned and put my head back down the hatch.
I feared I would see a dead body that used to be a shipmate.
Instead, my not-so-dead shipmate was pushing my head out of the way, so that he could rapidly un-ass the compartment.
As his hand's shook, he lit a cigarette.
I wasn't a smoker, but to tell the truth, I coulda used one then.
I asked WHAT THE ACTUAL **** HAPPENED?
Probably louder than necessary, but at the moment, I was pretty "amped" up.
(get it, amped up.
)
He told me he accidently shorted the wrench out.
So then I rather loudly yelled about the nine inch rule, and he didn't have a big wrench going in, and a few other not so nice comments.
He told me he didn't have a wrench over 9.
So I said, then how the hell did you short it out?
He rather calmly explained (later I found this funny, he was calm, I was a raging maniac) that the battery compartment was in fact, not a rectangle.
That there were some small indentations in the compartment, causing parts of the wall to be a couple inches closer.
These were designed that way, because there was something on the other side of the wall that needed more room, so they gave it more room.
When he was turning the wrench, it slipped from his hands and hit the wall.
For a brief moment, it became an incandescent light bulb. The brightest, hottest thing on the sub.
Then, it turned to plasma, and was no longer there.
Fortunately it had been out of his hands, so his hands were okay.
And he was just far enough away that his face didn't get burned.
After that, guys took more care with the wrench, even at the end when you're tired. ESPECIALLY at the end when they were tired.
The offgoing EO (Electrical Operator) mentioned he had to top off the battery.
I think we were getting ready for a battery charge.
Normally we maintain the battery on a "trickle discharge".
There is an amp-hour meter that displays the state of charge of the battery, and it actually clicks each amp-hour of discharge.
If we have a reactor scram, the only source of power is the ship's battery, until/if we can start the diesel generator.
Until we can get the electrical load under control, this meter will be clicking like mad. Each click meaning the battery has lost another amp-hour of charge.
If watchstanders can't isolate non-vital loads fast enough, the EO will actually dump the non-vital busses via the main distribution panel.
Keeping the battery trickle charging is not good for the life of the battery.
So, we trickle discharge it.
Then when the battery hits a designated amount of amp-hours, we charge it back up.
This minimum point is determined to be the minimum necessary to start up the reactor plant again.
All the pumps, control systems, lights, etc that are necessary to run the reactor.
Non-vital loads would be things like ovens, certain lights, basically anything that can be turned off that won't kill us in the next hour or so.
Anyway, before the charge we need to make sure the battery electrolyzes and water level are okay.
It's the offgoing EOs job, but it's a big job.
So, since he sometimes helped me with calibrations, I help him with the battery.
So, we had to remove all metal, such as belt buckles. And a wrench to check terminals tight, shorter than 9 inches. 9 inches is the distance between terminals. Well, I think it was 9. It was many decades ago.
Now, you're probably thinking of the battery being like a bunch of car batteries.
And it is, and it isn't.
Here is a little about WWII batteries
https://fleetsubmarine.com/battery.html
The batteries look something like this
Except these all have gaps between them.
In the sub, they are butted together.
In the battery compartment, kinda looked like this, but it didn't.
While this compartment looks small, it's actually a large room. Each battery cell is around the size of a person, and there are hundreds of them. So, when we changed the ship's battery one time, I got to stand in a room that normally I had to crawl in.
We didn't ride a trolley like this.
We could crawl on small platforms.
But we did have about this much room to crawl in.
The EO would use the hydrometer, and I would follow him with what basically was a garden hose.
He'd check.
I'd fill.
We were finishing the job up, I took the hydrometer from him, he took the water hose to finish.
I crawled back to the hatch.
The hatch is in the ceiling of the battery compartment, and enters the lower level berthing in Ops compartment.
So, I was pulling myself up through this tiny access hatch when..
I was surrounded by a brilliant bright white light. Kinda like something you'd only see in the movies. No color, just white. So bright, it's like I was the only one in the universe, surrounded by white light and nothing else.
All the normal background sounds of the sub disappeared. The motors, blowers, etc.
My first, second, and third thoughts were, I'm dead.
After all, battery casualties were common on older submarines, and we had been briefed on causes, AND EFFECTS OF battery casualties.
https://www.ussflierproject.com/tags/battery-explosion/
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/25/...red-in-fire-aboard-a-us-diesel-submarine.html
Finally, ship's lighting returned, though the center of my eyes had a bad "after image".
Background noises came back.
I pulled my feet from the hatch, noticed I wasn't burned.
Turned and put my head back down the hatch.
I feared I would see a dead body that used to be a shipmate.
Instead, my not-so-dead shipmate was pushing my head out of the way, so that he could rapidly un-ass the compartment.
As his hand's shook, he lit a cigarette.
I wasn't a smoker, but to tell the truth, I coulda used one then.
I asked WHAT THE ACTUAL **** HAPPENED?
Probably louder than necessary, but at the moment, I was pretty "amped" up.
(get it, amped up.
)He told me he accidently shorted the wrench out.
So then I rather loudly yelled about the nine inch rule, and he didn't have a big wrench going in, and a few other not so nice comments.
He told me he didn't have a wrench over 9.
So I said, then how the hell did you short it out?
He rather calmly explained (later I found this funny, he was calm, I was a raging maniac) that the battery compartment was in fact, not a rectangle.
That there were some small indentations in the compartment, causing parts of the wall to be a couple inches closer.
These were designed that way, because there was something on the other side of the wall that needed more room, so they gave it more room.
When he was turning the wrench, it slipped from his hands and hit the wall.
For a brief moment, it became an incandescent light bulb. The brightest, hottest thing on the sub.
Then, it turned to plasma, and was no longer there.
Fortunately it had been out of his hands, so his hands were okay.
And he was just far enough away that his face didn't get burned.
After that, guys took more care with the wrench, even at the end when you're tired. ESPECIALLY at the end when they were tired.
[video=youtube;TkOO8qQ26bE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkOO8qQ26bE[/video]
Oh they've had a lot of problems with integrating women on board.
nonobaddog
Grandmaster
.
You know this is really messing with my fantasy illusion of what it is like to patrol the seas in a submarine.
This is a little long.
But it covers some history, some engineering, some construction, some design, etc.
It's about the 21 class.
It's 4 decades older than the sub I served on.
And it came out 2 decades ago.
[video=youtube;2wT0H21lMjg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wT0H21lMjg[/video]
But it covers some history, some engineering, some construction, some design, etc.
It's about the 21 class.
It's 4 decades older than the sub I served on.
And it came out 2 decades ago.
[video=youtube;2wT0H21lMjg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wT0H21lMjg[/video]
nonobaddog
Grandmaster
There is a lot more to it than dodging depth charges and firing torpedoes.
And being in the infantry is more than firing your weapon.
Being in the airborne is more than jumping from an aircraft.
Being a police officer is more than running down a criminal.
Mostly what you'll see on TV, on almost every subject, would be the exciting parts all compressed together.
I would rate my 6 years in the Navy as being pretty boring.
But if you were to cut and paste, and make a movie, I could make it look like a thriller.
But spread over 6 years, not so much.
Couse, my belief is, when things are boring, NEVER EVER wish for it to get exciting. NEVER!
Exciting usually entails looking at not making it home.
And it makes the surface of the ocean, where you can live, as far as the surface of the moon.
And, FYI...
Depth charges are mostly useless in modern anti-sub warfare.
Except for subs in shallow waters, such as harbors.
Our biggest dangers were usually homing torpedoes.
Depth charges are mostly useless in modern anti-sub warfare.
Except for subs in shallow waters, such as harbors.
Our biggest dangers were usually homing torpedoes.
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