Military BS Stories or the last liar wins.

[KellyinAvon]

I once deployed to the Persian/Arabian Gulf with a complete set of Arctic cold-weather gear, including the Mickey Mouse boots, because the deployment order said so. I guess maybe there was a super secret plan to possibly redeploy us to Kyrgyzstan or something? It was certainly a PITA to haul around.

Deployed with a B-Bag? Kyrgystan is no joke with cold weather. When I went to Al Udeid in 05 I took a stash of cold weather gear in case I ended up there. I ended up working the OIF Plan ID so no Kyrgyzstan trips for me.

Being at an F-4 Wing (347th TFW at Moody AFB/Valdosta, Ga) in the Cold War? Man, we lived and died by mobility exercises. Thankfully the cold weather bags stayed on the shelf since our real-world deployment location was anything but cold.

If you've heard this one before don't stop me, I want to hear it again

Summer 1986: Young USAF mosquito-wing Airman KellyinAvon is a Supply Troop and Moody AFB, Ga. The 347th Tactical Fighter Wing had Operational Readiness Inspections (ORI) coming in September for Phase I (deployment) and in December for Phase II (operating in a deployed location/chemical environment) so every time we turned around, we were in an exercise.

I'm working night shift, hauling truckloads (International 1.5 ton trucks) of mobility bags up to the marshaling area where they were put on aircraft pallets. Deploying 72 F-4s to a forward location took a big chunk of people (3,300 military on the base, most would deploy, multiplied by 3 mobility bags for everyone deploying, that's a lot of bags!)

I pull up to the marshaling area where there was usually an NCO out in front, he'd tell us where to go to unload the bags. I see one guy, so I got out of the truck (think there were two more trucks with bags behind me) to ask where to drop them.

I get closer, this is a Captain. I figure Transportation Officer and the NCOs were busy elsewhere.

(Something like...) Evening sir, I'm Airman KellyinAvon from the Supply Squadron. We have XXX number of mo-bags for the chock your building. Just let us know where you need them.

After listening to everything I said, he looks straight at me and says, "I have no idea, I'm a Chaplain." We laughed, then I went and found someone who worked in the marshaling yard.

This Chaplain, had a very short yet very unique last name. Three letters, no vowels (Y is not a vowel.)

18 years later in 2004: Still young USAF MSgt KellyinAvon is at Langley AFB, Virginia. One day sitting in the barber shop (this was headquarters Air Combat Command, there was two 2-Stars, one 1-Star and 40 Colonels in my building) I noticed a Colonel, who was a Chaplain (the badge in the shape of a cross was my clue), with a very short yet unique name.

I asked if he was at Moody back in the 80s. Sure enough, he was. Then I asked if he remembered the one-striper asking him where to drop the mo-bags one night during a mobility exercise. He started laughing and asked, "That was you?"

 

[Nazgul]

Don't know if I said this before but ok here it is again.
MCRD Parris Island, recruit Don gets fitted with the wrong size boots and develops cellulitis. I am in the hospital, they cut open my feet, drained them, and soaked them 3 times daily. Can't walk. The middle of one night I am awakened by a commotion as they bring in a guy who looks dead. I mean grey and not moving.
In the morning they come around and give you fresh sheets, you have to change your own. Said dead looking Marine Recruit is holding his IV and trying to make his rack with one hand. I hobble over and do it for him. He nods thanks and immediately goes to sleep without a word.

Fast forward 9 months and I get assigned to Sea Duty on a carrier that is on deployment. I fly to Spain, hop to Italy and get a boat ride out to the ship. Find my way to MARDET and throw my seabag down the ladder. The Marine that catches it is the one armed dead guy from basic. Turns out he lived about 60 miles from me back home. We became good friends, he was the best man at my first wedding.

Don

 

[Nazgul]

My wife reminded me of one this morning. I had a 96 for a long weekend and was catching a hop home. Flights home were cheap and took maybe 2 hours. We had an honor guard for a function so I was in full Dress Blues, didn't have time to change. Boarding the flight the pilot sees me and his eyes widen. They seat my in first class and give me all the free drinks I want.

My mom meets me at the airport and I am so drunk I can hardly walk. They all get a good laugh at me. Had a great weekend.

Don

 

[actaeon277]

 

[actaeon277]

 

[Donovan48]

In 1994 my brother took our father to France for the 50 year anniversary of D-Day. Our father wasn't at the invasion himself (he had been wounded at Anzio earlier). My brother was an Air Force colonel, so he checked out a sedan from the motor pool. The license plates read "Air Force 1". When they got close to the ceremony the traffic was backed up for miles. They were stuck and going no where fast. Two French motorcycle cops buzzed past and did a quick turn around, pointing at the "Air Force 1" plates and excitedly waving to my brother and father in the car. They cleared traffic and escorted them all the way past the traffic jam with lights flashing and sirens blaring.

 

[Donovan48]

I was on KP during basic training at Fort Ord in 1968. The Mess Sergeant told me to go to a side room and peel potatoes. I entered the room and saw bags and bags of potatoes. I found a small knife and started peeling. After about twenty minutes I had a small bucket of peeled spuds when the cook walked in and started screaming at me, "NOT THAT WAY!! USE THE MACHINE!!" and pointed to a shiny cylinder in the center of the room that looked like a tall skinny washing machine.

He stormed out, and I stepped up to examine the machine. I discovered a foot pedal near the floor, and when I stepped on it the lid came up. Inside it looked like a washing machine. When I took my foot off the pedal the lid lowered and there was whirring noise and the sound of rushing water. I stepped on the pedal again and dropped in a few potatoes and lowered the lid.

I didn't know how long to let it run, so I let it run for a full minute and opened the lid. It was all shiny and clean and no potatoes anywhere. I thought to myself, "Neat. It peels the potatoes and delivers them to the cook (somehow)." I spent the next few hours dropping spuds into the machine and letting it run. I was just about done when the cook came in and asked, "Where are the potatoes?" I replied, "Don't you have them?" He didn't.

Turns out I was only supposed to run the machine a few seconds, stop it and pull out the freshly peeled potatoes. It worked like a giant garbage disposal to rub the jackets off and flush away the debris. I let it run too long and it completely devoured ALL the spuds. That evening there were no potatoes, and every time someone asked, "Where are the potatoes?" the cook glared at me.

 

[Alamo]

I was in a joint acquisition assignment where my boss was a full colonel, and the first tier of officers were majors like me, each heading up a different branch or as was the fad back then, “integrated product team”. Teamwork was a big thing, don’t just focus on your narrow niche, look at the whole program and see where things need to be done and work with others to make it happen.

The colonel had a GS-06 secretary, and each of us branch chiefs had a GS-05 secretary. Each branch or IPT was staffed with a variety of army, navy, Air Force, and civilian personnel. Engineers, logisticians, contract specialists, etc. Being a joint assignment with a lot of civilians involved, the place didn’t run exactly like a typical military unit.

There was a lot of TDY involved, and the secretaries generally looked after each other helping with TDY orders, hotel reservations, flights etc. although we had computers most of the process is still heavily dependent on paper, so there was a lot of shuffling for the secretaries to do. And with anywhere from 10 to 20 people on each team, That was a lot of paper shuffling just for TDY, never mind all the other bureaucratic crap the Air Force comes up with.

Except that the GS-06 secretary would not help anybody. She told the other secretaries she was the colonel’s secretary and that’s all she had to do. No teamwork for her. She was pretty smug about it. Since he was TDY most of the time, this meant that about every week she would type up a set of orders for him, and then sit on her large ass until he came back from TDY. The GS-05s had their hands full with all the people on our team, but if they got a slack spot, they would go check with another secretary to see if she needed help with her load. So they all hated the GS-06 for getting paid more and doing far less. It was a morale buster for them, and caused everyone else to lose respect for both the GS-06 and her boss.

I brought this up to the colonel and he didn’t give a rat‘s rear. “I’m running a $3 billion program, I don’t have time to manage a GS-06”. So she got play games on the computer while all the other secretaries worked their asses off. OK then.

So once the Colonel was off on one of his trips and I am the senior officer present, which makes me the de facto chief of the division. As I drive in the parking lot in the morning I noticed that the Colonel‘s reserved parking place has a vehicle in it, but it’s not his. When I get to my duty area I run into one of the GS-05 secretaries and say hello to her, tell her I will be div chief for the day, and I mentioned I saw a vehicle in the colonel’s parking spot. She gets pissed look on her face and tells me that that is the GS-06 secretary, she always parks in her boss‘s parking spot while he’s TDY. And apparently gloats about it.

So I tell her to casually mention to the GS6 secretary that she just saw Major Alamo come in really pissed because he is acting div chief today but couldn’t park in the div chief’s spot and was on his way to his office to call Security Forces and have that vehicle towed.

From my office door I could see the division chief‘s office door, so I stood mostly out of sight and watched, and about three minutes later I saw the GS-06 come flying out of her office and go charging down the hall to move her car before it got towed. I bet she hadn’t moved that fast in years.

It was a bit petty I suppose, but I got a huge laugh out of it, and so did the other GS five secretaries, and it raised my stock with them considerably. Anytime I needed some extra help I got it, which was a lot because my own secretary was already in the process of being fired when I arrived on station. That is a whole ‘nother story on how the government doesn’t really work, But I’ll save that for another day.

 

[actaeon277]

 

[KellyinAvon]

If I told this one before, don't stop me. I want to hear it again

Two-parter here.

Thanksgiving 1997: Young USAF TSgt KellyinAvon is stationed at Keflavik, NAS Iceland on an accompanied (2 year) tour. About 2/3 of the folks stationed in Iceland were on unaccompanied (1 year) tours. A tradition there was to have unaccompanied troops from your unit over to your house (base housing, it was a 1,400 SF apartment, bigger than our house on base in Florida, but that's another thread) over for Thanksgiving.

We had three young troops (early-mid 20s, Sheryl and I were early 30s at the time) came over, we were eating around Noon. Sheryl was worried about how much food we had and there would be a lot of leftovers. I told her these were young guys who ate horrible food at the chow hall, they'd come ready to eat. WOW did they! All three went to a different places for a later T-giving dinner; all three told me, "I'm glad I ate big at your place. The next one I went to were newlyweds and they didn't know how to cook!"

Part 2:

One of the young big eater troops was a kid who was 6' 4", might have went a buck-60. I've never seen anyone who could eat the way he did and still go a buck-60. Dude woulda looked like Hercules if he coulda gained weight.

So a Captain in my squadron had coordinated a big screen TV (they were really heavy in the late 90s) being transferred on equipment accounts between units, it was going into a building with three flights of stairs. He stops by my office (me and the buck-60 kid were the two Supply Troops in the squadron) it's on an equipment account so we can move it with a government vehicle, and if the young troop would help move it, he'd buy him lunch.

I busted out laughing! I said that if you wanted to buy him lunch, you were more than welcome to have him help you out.

Afterwards the Captain called me. They went to a place on base that had the standard burgers, chicken sandwiches, pizza, etc. They had recently started selling rotisserie chicken... whole chickens. The kid asks the Captain if he could get a chicken, Captain said yes. The kid sat down and ate a whole chicken.

I laughed and asked, "You mean he didn't hit you up for a slice of pizza too?"

 

[JAL]

I have half my unit out at the range for annual qualification (had to split it into two days). I turn it over to the First Sergeant to get the first group onto the firing line with the Range Safety NCOs. He does that and then turns to the remainder of the pair of platoons who are still in formation at "rest". As is customary, units using the firing ranges will perform maintenance tasks on the range itself while there. This trip was no different. My First Sergeant then addresses the assembled formation after bringing them to parade rest . . .

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I have some good news and some bad news while you await your turn on the firing line.
First the bad news: We have to fill sandbags today for range use.
Now for the good news: We have lots of sand and lots of bags."

I had to turn around so nobody would see me smirking. How he came up with stuff like this was beyond me.

 

[repeter1977]

I have half my unit out at the range for annual qualification (had to split it into two days). I turn it over to the First Sergeant to get the first group onto the firing line with the Range Safety NCOs. He does that and then turns to the remainder of the pair of platoons who are still in formation at "rest". As is customary, units using the firing ranges will perform maintenance tasks on the range itself while there. This trip was no different. My First Sergeant then addresses the assembled formation after bringing them to parade rest . . .

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I have some good news and some bad news while you await your turn on the firing line.
First the bad news: We have to fill sandbags today for range use.
Now for the good news: We have lots of sand and lots of bags."

I had to turn around so nobody would see me smirking. How he came up with stuff like this was beyond me.

At least there was good news lol. Filling sandbags in Iraq, even in Baghdad was easy because plenty of sand.

 

[actaeon277]

Better than being in Bastogne digging frozen earth

 

[2A_Tom]

What is this obsession you have with Bastogne?

Are you watching BoB again?

 

[actaeon277]

What is this obsession you have with Bastogne?

Are you watching BoB again?

YouTube reaction videos.
I'm watching other people watch it for the first time

 

[2A_Tom]

Many tears shed each time.

 

[actaeon277]

Many tears shed each time.

Ir being a miniseries of 10 episodes, people get to know the characters better

 

[Alamo]

Speaking of eating:

When I was stationed with NATO AWACS in Germany I was single. My supervisor was another American, married Lt Col, who invited me to his house for Thanksgiving. He also invited a German Luftwaffe Lt Col to join us.

The German military does not have the up-or-out mentality that the US does. Many of their Lt Colonels, Colonels, and even some Captains and Majors were in their 50s, and this time period I’m talking about this meant that they were kids at the end of World War II.

As we passed food around the table one of the dishes was corn. The German Lt Col remarked that at the end of “The War” when food was very short the “Amis” (German nickname for Americans) brought in corn for the German civilians to eat. He said in Germany corn is raised only for cattle feed, not for humans, so he thought being made to eat “cattle feed” was punishment for losing the war.

That was the first time I realized I had not seen corn at any of the German restaurants.

However Each year in Berlin the US Put on a big air show, I think partly to waive the flag at the Soviets. A tradition was that the US would bring in plane loads of corn on the cob and roast them. This was quite a novelty for the Berliners, and very popular.

 

[nonobaddog]

Speaking of eating:

When I was stationed with NATO AWACS in Germany I was single. My supervisor was another American, married Lt Col, who invited me to his house for Thanksgiving. He also invited a German Luftwaffe Lt Col to join us.

The German military does not have the up-or-out mentality that the US does. Many of their Lt Colonels, Colonels, and even some Captains and Majors were in their 50s, and this time period I’m talking about this meant that they were kids at the end of World War II.

As we passed food around the table one of the dishes was corn. The German Lt Col remarked that at the end of “The War” when food was very short the “Amis” (German nickname for Americans) brought in corn for the German civilians to eat. He said in Germany corn is raised only for cattle feed, not for humans, so he thought being made to eat “cattle feed” was punishment for losing the war.

That was the first time I realized I had not seen corn at any of the German restaurants.

However Each year in Berlin the US Put on a big air show, I think partly to waive the flag at the Soviets. A tradition was that the US would bring in plane loads of corn on the cob and roast them. This was quite a novelty for the Berliners, and very popular.

That makes for happy German cows.

 

[Alamo]

I am reading US Grant’s memoirs again. As a nearly brand new graduate of the US military academy, he was assigned to the United States infantry forces that were sent to the area of Matamoros and present day Brownsville, after the annexation of Texas to the United States. He was still so new that he went to Texas as a brevet second lieutenant, promoted to full second lieutenant only after being in Texas for a while, And if I recall correctly, this is at least a year after he graduated from West Point.

The commander of the US forces was brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor. In describing Taylor in his memoirs, Grant notes that Taylor was a very competent leader but not at all flamboyant. He says that Taylor never wore any rank identification in the field, but everybody in his army knew who he was. In fact, Grant can only recall two times in which Taylor actually wore a uniform at all. Given Grant’s reputation for “dressing down” and low key demeanor during the Civil War, I find this an interesting observation.

Anyway, Grant himself saw Taylor in uniform at a parade review of the troops held in Louisiana prior to the army crossing into Texas. Apparently General Taylor felt that if the troops were marching in review, he should wear his uniform to review them.

Grant says that he only heard about the other instance where Taylor wore a uniform while in the field, and he relates the following story which I’m quoting from his memoirs. It seems to fit the spirit of this thread.

The second occasion on which General Taylor was said to have donned his uniform, was in order to receive a visit from the Flag Officer of the naval squadron off the mouth of the Rio Grande. While the army was on that river the Flag Officer sent word that he would call on the General to pay his respects on a certain day. General Taylor, knowing that naval officers habitually wore all the uniform the “law allowed” on all occasions of ceremony, thought it would be only civil to receive his guest in the same style. His uniform was therefore got out, brushed up, and put on, in advance of the visit. The Flag Officer, knowing General Taylor’s aversion to the wearing of the uniform, and feeling that it would be regarded as a compliment should he meet him in civilian’s dress, left off his uniform for this occasion. The meeting was said to have been embarrassing to both, and the conversation was principally apologetic.

’All the uniform that the “law allowed”’ is a great piece of writing.

BTW Brownsville takes its name from Fort Brown (originally Fort Texas) which was named after Major Jacob Brown, commanding officer of the 7th Infantry Regiment that was part of General Taylor’s army. Fort Texas was the first US military post in the new state of Texas, and right across the river from Matamoros. The Mexicans besieged the fort in 1846 but were driven back, at the cost of two Americans killed. One was Major Brown, and General Taylor subsequently renamed the fort in his honor.

Elon Musk’s Starbase at Boca Chica is not very far away.