Military BS Stories or the last liar wins.

[nonobaddog]

Thanks. My dad (technically step-dad, he and mom married when I was 4) would only let out snippets of things, like how he hated the smell of wintergreen because that's what they would pack bodies in to ship them back to the states. He's recently broken out some pictures and told of some USO performances he saw and how he has a small scar up his arm from the VC firing up at the Huey he was firing out of on a retrieval. Probably get a lot more out of him on the trip to and from DC.

Wow, being door gunner on a medevac chopper is a very dangerous position.
I'm glad he survived and I hope you both have an absolutely wonderful time!

 

[jwamplerusa]

Know this is for you veterans, but I wanted to let everyone know that I have the honor of accompanying my dad on an Honor Flight this September. Dad's a Vietnam Vet, served as a front line medic over there. He doesn't talk about it much, but since he got selected I've learned a lot more about his time over there. I know this doesn't mean much to anyone other than me, but just wanted to express it somewhere and here seemed like a good place. Thanks.

@rhamersley

Yes, it does mean much to others than just yourself. Getting our veterans to memorials for their service is the least we can do as they enter the twilight of their lives.

Every time I saw the veterans in Normandy it became incredibly dusty very quickly.

Dad never was able to visit the Korean War memorial, and I find that sad. He did receive a thank you letter from the South Korean government however; which he appreciated.

 

[rhamersley]

@rhamersley

Yes, it does mean much to others than just yourself. Getting our veterans to memorials for their service is the least we can do as they enter the twilight of their lives.

Every time I saw the veterans in Normandy it became incredibly dusty very quickly.

Dad never was able to visit the Korean War memorial, and I find that sad. He did receive a thank you letter from the South Korean government however; which he appreciated.

Thank you. I don’t know if this has ever been posted before, but they do have a mail call on the way back from DC where the veterans get a packet full of mail from school groups and such, and they also give out a sheet for kids, grandkids, etc can send one to a specific vet. If anyone is interested for this one or any others, here’s the flyer. There’s also one for the homecoming they have at Plainfield high school that evening.

 

[rhamersley]

Wow, being door gunner on a medevac chopper is a very dangerous position.
I'm glad he survived and I hope you both have an absolutely wonderful time!

Thank you, I’m sure we will.

 

[Nazgul]

Have a relatively new neighbor 4 doors away from us. He has a Marine plaque on his porch so I decided to stop and introduce myself, I was on my Indian motorcycle with USMC veteran plates . Asked if he was a Marine, he said 'No, but my brother is, he was killed in Iraq 2 years ago".

I got off the bike and hugged him. Stop and talk quite often now. He has a 6 year old redheaded daughter that makes the wife and I laugh with her redheaded antics. Saw her chasing her brother trying to stab him with a broken broom handle.

Don

 

[jwamplerusa]

Saw her chasing her brother trying to stab him with a broken broom handle.

She'll be fun when she grows up!

 

[Nazgul]

Ran across a short video of an SR71 over Vegas breaking the sound barrier. It reminded me of this story.
Wife was an AF officer nurse stationed at Mather AFB, Sacramento. On the base was a training squadron for bombardiers and navigators as well as a B52 squadron.

They had a change of command ceremony for the base commander who had been a Blackbird driver at some point. They had an SR71 flyby at the close of the proceedings. The pilot pushed the speed as far as he could and exceeded the speed of sound over the base. It knocked pictures off our wall in base housing. I found it awesome!!

Heard from another pilot at the O club later that he got in some trouble over that.

Don

 

[Alamo]

This:


reminded me:

Once upon a time I was stationed at LosAngeles AFB to buy GPS equipment for the DoD. LAAFB was basically a bunch of office buildings at the corner of Sepulveda and Aviation Blvd in El Segundo (so Los Angeles AFB was not actually in Los Angeles.) The buildings have been there for a long time, and mine had a leaky roof.

Third item on my daily routine checklist was to read The Early Bird sent out by the Pentagon every morning.

If you never worked in a staff office you might have missed this. I didn’t know about it until I got to LAAFB and I had 10 years service at that point. There was an office in the bowels of the Pentagon that received every major and many many second tier city newspapers (paper copies of course) every morning and manually clipped out any story that had anything to do with the DOD and its components. They pasted these onto 8.5” x 11” pages — many many pages — and then distributed them. In the old days this was by paper copy, I’m sure there were runners to the secdef’s office, but you could send in your DSN fax number and they would fax it to you. Every morning. Pretty cool, actually.

By the time I got to LAAFB there was this new fangled thing called email. You just sent in your .mil email address and boom! Your own personal copy. This was still early days, so they still manually clipped everything, but just scanned the physical pages of clippings into a PDF and emailed it as an attachment.

So back to Number 3 on my checklist. I’m scanning the Early Bird to make sure neither my name nor my program is on the front page of the NYT. Happily it’s not, but somebody else’s is. Turns out the guys paving the helicopter landing pad on the grounds of the White House are illegal aliens and the INS just busted them on the job (again, the old days when the gummint still did stuff like that) right at the White House.

Remember the leaky roof on my building? A contractor had a bunch of guys up there spreading hot tar all over the place. At lunch time one of my bud’s and I were heading downstairs to go out and we were talking about that story. Making wise I cracked, “I hope they let our guys finish before they bust them.” Then we walked out into the parking lot.

Three busses. Guys in INS uniforms. All the roof workers lined up and being herded onto the busses.

Damn. The roof still leaked.

 

[actaeon277]

This:
View attachment 291998

reminded me:

Once upon a time I was stationed at LosAngeles AFB to buy GPS equipment for the DoD. LAAFB was basically a bunch of office buildings at the corner of Sepulveda and Aviation Blvd in El Segundo (so Los Angeles AFB was not actually in Los Angeles.) The buildings have been there for a long time, and mine had a leaky roof.

Third item on my daily routine checklist was to read The Early Bird sent out by the Pentagon every morning.

If you never worked in a staff office you might have missed this. I didn’t know about it until I got to LAAFB and I had 10 years service at that point. There was an office in the bowels of the Pentagon that received every major and many many second tier city newspapers (paper copies of course) every morning and manually clipped out any story that had anything to do with the DOD and its components. They pasted these onto 8.5” x 11” pages — many many pages — and then distributed them. In the old days this was by paper copy, I’m sure there were runners to the secdef’s office, but you could send in your DSN fax number and they would fax it to you. Every morning. Pretty cool, actually.

By the time I got to LAAFB there was this new fangled thing called email. You just sent in your .mil email address and boom! Your own personal copy. This was still early days, so they still manually clipped everything, but just scanned the physical pages of clippings into a PDF and emailed it as an attachment.

So back to Number 3 on my checklist. I’m scanning the Early Bird to make sure neither my name nor my program is on the front page of the NYT. Happily it’s not, but somebody else’s is. Turns out the guys paving the helicopter landing pad on the grounds of the White House are illegal aliens and the INS just busted them on the job (again, the old days when the gummint still did stuff like that) right at the White House.

Remember the leaky roof on my building? A contractor had a bunch of guys up there spreading hot tar all over the place. At lunch time one of my bud’s and I were heading downstairs to go out and we were talking about that story. Making wise I cracked, “I hope they let our guys finish before they bust them.” Then we walked out into the parking lot.

Three busses. Guys in INS uniforms. All the roof workers lined up and being herded onto the busses.

Damn. The roof still leaked.

You failed to learn the primary rule of.. keep your mouth shut till... later

 

[actaeon277]

That reminds me..


I was TAD to a school ("C" school, nuke elec repair) in Groton Connecticut.
At the end of the school, I was to fly out and meet my sub already in the Med.

So, I'm in the barracks watching TV and the news came on.
Something was happening in the East Med, and the announcer mentioned there were rumors that the Navy MAY have a special sub carrying SEALs, and a Los Angeles class sub in the area.

As I was standing up, jaw on the ground (cause I knew at least one of those was correct, and probably both), wheels were turning in the "high command".

I had completed the school, so I was cut orders for immediate transfer to Norfolk, to await my flight overseas.
The Navy, and probably any other service, doesn't like it's employees to sit while waiting, so I was a "runner" for SUBRON 6 (Submarine Squadron 6), and I was warned to report anyone discussing submarine "movements". (destination, arrival/departure dates/times are VERY classifieds)
Of course, "We're not at war" so guys would tell their families and wives that stuff, "but don't tell anyone."
And then of course the family NOT being security conscious cause "we're not at war" would not even think twice about saying anything.
So a wife calls Squadron 6 asking if it was true that USS (unnamed sub) was really pulling into (insert port) on the (date) at (time).
Back then, the tap equipment was ancient, and you'd hear clicks as it came on line trying to trace the call.
So, I quickly said that that information was classified, and that the woman should check with her liaison.
Heart beating, I hung up, walked away, and told my supervisor I need to go (somewhere, I don't remember, it was just NOT THERE).
Some guy didn't need to come back home from half a year at sea, and find himself and family trying to deal with espionage and secrecy law violations.

 

[Nazgul]

Act : "The Navy, and probably any other service, doesn't like it's employees to sit while waiting,"

Carrier was in dry dock and they TAD'ed some of us for other things. I was sent as a Bailiff for a JAG court. Ended up being really neat duty. Had to say "All Rise!" and intro the Navy Capt who was the judge. He was interesting, small guy maybe 5' 10", soft spoken but the tone of his voice was different. He was heard throughout the room. I could hear him in the back of the court even with my blown out hearing.

Had to transport the criminals to and from the hearings. After sentencing I took some to Portsmouth Naval Prison. I decided I NEVER wanted to go there!!

Would enter the jail to a concrete block room thru a sliding steel gate, handcuff the detainees to a rail, turn in the paper work. They would take them thru another steel door and I left. Close enough for me.

Don

 

[actaeon277]

Drydock as a Snipe SUCKS.
TAD would have been nice.


I TAD'D cutting grass one time. (Waiting on another flight)
Got a chief mad at me and he told me he was going to make me WISH I was back on the sub .
I laughed pretty hard.
Told him on the sub I'd be lucky to get 6 hours of sleep. Was he going to come in extra hours from his Monday to Friday, 8-4 to get that work done.
He was even more mad when he tried to extend my TAD
Seems that sub captains running Reactor Controls division on Port/Starboard watches, while performing operations directly reported to Joint Chiefs, Pentagon, and Commander in Chief have enough pull to basically put the fear of God into obstacles.
And not in a way to worry about the obstacles feelings.
I would have loved to hear those phone calls.


We had a Chief Engineer get his ankle caught between the sub and a boat during a small boat transfer.
Swelled up HUGE
Stayed on board instead of going to medical facilities
And an XO in the US for birth of a child, leave cut short, flown out, then helo transferred to sub.
Dunked in the water during approach.
Slammed into the sail pretty hard and bounced off.
Then on the next approach had 4 crewmen jump on top of him on the deck to get him unhooked .


And some E-7 thinks HE can affect that.

 

[actaeon277]

Also, the medical department on subs consists of 1 corpsman.

Because of the special mission personnel on-board and the expected missions, we had a REAL doctor on-board.

Real doc on a sub doesn't happen often

 

[actaeon277]

That reminds me..


I was TAD to a school ("C" school, nuke elec repair) in Groton Connecticut.
At the end of the school, I was to fly out and meet my sub already in the Med.

So, I'm in the barracks watching TV and the news came on.
Something was happening in the East Med, and the announcer mentioned there were rumors that the Navy MAY have a special sub carrying SEALs, and a Los Angeles class sub in the area.

As I was standing up, jaw on the ground (cause I knew at least one of those was correct, and probably both), wheels were turning in the "high command".

I had completed the school, so I was cut orders for immediate transfer to Norfolk, to await my flight overseas.
The Navy, and probably any other service, doesn't like it's employees to sit while waiting, so I was a "runner" for SUBRON 6 (Submarine Squadron 6), and I was warned to report anyone discussing submarine "movements". (destination, arrival/departure dates/times are VERY classifieds)
Of course, "We're not at war" so guys would tell their families and wives that stuff, "but don't tell anyone."
And then of course the family NOT being security conscious cause "we're not at war" would not even think twice about saying anything.
So a wife calls Squadron 6 asking if it was true that USS (unnamed sub) was really pulling into (insert port) on the (date) at (time).
Back then, the tap equipment was ancient, and you'd hear clicks as it came on line trying to trace the call.
So, I quickly said that that information was classified, and that the woman should check with her liaison.
Heart beating, I hung up, walked away, and told my supervisor I need to go (somewhere, I don't remember, it was just NOT THERE).
Some guy didn't need to come back home from half a year at sea, and find himself and family trying to deal with espionage and secrecy law violations.

Ombudsman.
Not liason.
Families interface with the Navy with an Ombudsman during deployment.

 

[actaeon277]

 

[Alamo]

That reminds me..


I was TAD to a school ("C" school, nuke elec repair) in
…

So, I'm in the barracks watching TV and the news came on.
Something was happening in the East Med, and the announcer mentioned there were rumors that the Navy MAY have a special sub carrying SEALs, and a Los Angeles class sub in the area.

… "movements". (destination, arrival/departure dates/times are VERY classifieds)

Of course, "We're not at war" so guys would tell their families and wives that stuff, "but don't tell anyone."
And then of course the family NOT being security conscious cause "we're not at war" would not even think twice about saying anything.
So a wife …

That reminds me…

1983-ish, I’m a butter bar with the 552 Airborne Warning and Control Wing/Mission Support Deputate at Tinker AFB. We practiced drills where the E-3s were launched on short notice to go to some far part of the world. This generally kicked off with a recall of our unit, and then designated people would build pallets of computer tapes (this was the old days with old equipment), and other necessary support items. Other parts of the Wing did their parts too. The E-3 has a bit of a footprint when it goes somewhere.

One Sunday a real world tasking comes in to send one or more E-3s to Egypt for some reason. So does the commander follow the practiced procedures? of course not. Wants to keep it quiet, so they cherry picked the recall roster to call in only the guys needed to build a specific pallet. Need-to-know, hush-hush.

As it happened one of my classmates from AFROTC at Indiana University was also assigned to the 552 and worked across the hall from me. In a further bit of coincidence one of our Air Force instructors at IU AFROTC, a major, was assigned to an Air Force Communications facility on Tinker. AFCC was its own Major Command then; 552 was in Tactical Air Command, completely different animal. The major used to invite my buddy and me over to his house once in awhile for Sunday dinner.

This particular Sunday, my buddy and I go over to the major’s house for dinner, and his wife immediately asked us about the tasking to Egypt. Buddy and I immediately do the second lieutenant salute: eyes-wide, shrugged shoulders, indicating no clue whatsoever, which was true – neither buddy nor I were on the pallet build team and had heard nothing about this. Turns out she heard about it in church that morning from some other wives. !!

It was on the front page of the (IIRC) Washington Post and New York Times next morning. That particular leak came out of the Pentagon. 552 Wing Commander was steaming about that, mentioned”silver bullet“ for whoever at the Pentagon leaked it. But of course that would never happen. it was someone way above his pay grade.

This was a lesson for us butter bars has to “how things really work”. People far down the totem pole got their careers executed for relatively minor security breaches. Really big security breaches at the top just kind of “happened”.

 

[actaeon277]

It was on the front page of the (IIRC) Washington Post and New York Times next morning. That particular leak came out of the Pentagon. 552 Wing Commander was steaming about that, mentioned”silver bullet“ for whoever at the Pentagon leaked it. But of course that would never happen. it was someone way above his pay grade.

This was a lesson for us butter bars has to “how things really work”. People far down the totem pole got their careers executed for relatively minor security breaches. Really big security breaches at the top just kind of “happened”.

Yup.
Our Dry Deck Shelters and SEAL Delivery Vehicles were Secret. We were just supposed to be another sub. (Which was funny, cause every other submarine in Norfolk was an attack sub, and we were a boomer, so we stood out).
And then there was a story, I can't remember if it was the New York Times.
Nothing done about it.

 

[actaeon277]

If you want to go back far enough.. anyone know why subs are called the "silent service"?


In WWII, our subs could go deeper than the Japanese thought.
So, they consistently dropped depth charges too shallow.

A Senator (or maybe a Representative) was trying to allay worries to his base, since subs were one of the major ability to hit back in the early part of the war, and he told everyone that the Japs were dropping too shallow cause our subs were better than they thought.

I guess they read the papers.
They started dropping deeper.

How a Congressman's press conference killed 800 US sailors

Loose lips sink ships, the old saying goes. Nothing could be more true. And the combination of an international audience with highly classified intelligence along with a complete lack of understanding for what's important and what's not can be dis…

www.wearethemighty.com

The Balao-class submarines of the time could dive to depths of some 400 feet, much deeper than the depth Japanese ships set their depth charges to explode. Congressman May was informed of this during his visit, along with a ton of other sensitive war-related information. Upon returning from his junket in the war zone, May held a press conference where he revealed this fact to the world, informing the press wires that American sailors were surviving in incredible numbers because the charges were set too shallow. The press reported his quotes, and eventually, it got back to the Japanese.


Who promptly changed their depth charge fuses.

Vice-Admiral Charles Lockwood was understandably livid when he heard the news, not just because a Congressman had leaked sensitive information to the press for seemingly no reason, but because he knew what the tactical outcome of the reveal would be. And Admiral Lockwood was right. When the Japanese changed their fuses, it began to take its toll on American submarines, which might have normally survived such an attack. He estimated the slip cost ten submarines and 800 crewmen killed in action.

"I hear Congressman May said the Jap depth charges are not set deep enough," Lockwood reportedly told the press. "He would be pleased to know that the Japs set them deeper now."

When the time came for May's re-election campaign after the war in 1946, the reveal (which became known as The May Incident) along with corruption allegations became too much for the Kentucky voters, and May lost his seat in the House of Representatives. May served nine months in a federal prison for corruption.

 

[KellyinAvon]

This was a lesson for us butter bars has to “how things really work”. People far down the totem pole got their careers executed for relatively minor security breaches. Really big security breaches at the top just kind of “happened”.

Kind of like when (Air Force Chief of Staff) General Ryan outed the super-cruise on the F-22? Over Mach 1 without afterburner... nobody knew how much over Mach 1 until CSAF said, "I was there in an F-16 and the Raptor was pulling away. I was doing Mach 1. ..."

 

[2A_Tom]

View attachment 297481

What's worse is you wake up and you actually have.