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Kaleva

(36,151 posts)
Mon May 28, 2012, 02:11 AM May 2012

Military stories

While on my first ship, I was assigned to be compartment cleaner for a week with a good friend of mine. Our daily task was to clean the weapons berthing and present to the XO (Executive Officer-second in command) when he made his daily inspection of all the living spaces. Everybody who lived in that compartment was supposed to make up his rack (bed) by the time ships work began.

Most everyone did that except for an Electricians Mate with the nickname of "Lights Out". He got that nick because one time when we out in the Atlantic, he killed the electrical power to the ship and we were DIW (Dead In Water) for awhile until power was restored.

One morning Lights Out once again didn't make up his rack so my friend and I decided to teach him a lesson. We dug thru the dirty laundry and put the shittiest skivvies (underwear) in one of the laundry bags. I then called up the EM shop and asked that Lights Out be sent to Weps Berthing to make up his rack. In a few minutes, he comes down to the compartment and bitches while he does what he's supposed to do. After he's done, my friend and I grab him and try to stuff him in the laundry bag. Lights Out didn't want to go in there and he put up a big fight. He's punching and kicking us while we beat him but finally we get him in the bag and tie it up.

We drag the bag and put it with the other full laundry bags while Lights Out is swearing and saying he's going to kill us both when he gets out and at that moment, the XO comes down the ladder into the compartment. My friend kicks Lights Out and tells him to shut up because the XO is here.

We present the space to the XO and as we follow him, he walks by the pile of laundry bags and notices there is movement in one of them. He stands there looking at the bag for a bit then looks at my friend and I and says he doesn't want to know whats going on and then leaves the compartment.

We then untie the laundry bag and get ready for a fight but Lights Out was just happy to be free of the dirty underwear, crawls out of the bad and leaves the compartment calling us every name he could think off.

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Military stories (Original Post) Kaleva May 2012 OP
My dear Kaleva! CaliforniaPeggy May 2012 #1
He ended up being a real good friend of mine. Kaleva May 2012 #2
Okay, I'll join in... jmowreader May 2012 #3
LOL! Kaleva May 2012 #4
I was in the Air Force but YankeyMCC May 2012 #5
That was very interesting! Thank you for posting it. Kaleva May 2012 #6
My sea story.... rppper May 2012 #7
Good one! Even officers (not all) are fond of practical jokes! Kaleva May 2012 #8
All of either the co's... rppper May 2012 #12
Starching or salting underwear was a favorite. Kaleva May 2012 #13
I was the Petty Officer of the Watch one evening in Norfolk... Kaleva May 2012 #9
Story from my Dad... Archae May 2012 #10
My father.... rppper May 2012 #11
I was a heavy equipment mechanic stationed in Nuremberg. bluesbassman May 2012 #14

CaliforniaPeggy

(149,310 posts)
1. My dear Kaleva!
Mon May 28, 2012, 02:33 AM
May 2012

What a great story, and you tell it well!



Lights Out really got what he deserved that day. I hope he reformed after that little incident...

jmowreader

(50,456 posts)
3. Okay, I'll join in...
Mon May 28, 2012, 04:01 AM
May 2012

Field Station Berlin doesn't exist anymore but when it did, the barracks the Operations Battalion people lived in was set up as four three-man rooms, each with its own latrine, surrounding a central living room. This was called a "mod"--short for module, naturlich.

The mod I lived in was apparently the Party Mod for many, many years. FSB soldiers enjoyed buying five-litre "party kegs," which have been available in Europe for decades, drinking the beer and saving the cans against one of the walls in my mod's living room. EVERYONE in the field station, including the colonel, used to go up there and do a few 5-centiliter curls on occasion. As you'd expect, we had quite a few of these cans.

Fast forward a few years and we had an upcoming visit from the Intelligence and Security Command commanding general. This one did his colonel-level command at Field Station Berlin, which meant he had participated in emptying at least a few of those cans.

We had an operations sergeant named David Hidalgo, who was a prick. (A little anecdote about Hidalgo: His ultimate dream was to be a Green Beret, so he got accepted to the Special Forces Assessment and Selection course and did a LOT of ruck marching to get in shape. He neglected a few other things, because we got a message from the Special Forces school about three days after he left Berlin, telling us he had been rejected for drowning during the water survival test. So, here's a word of warning for all you would-be warriors: if your first day at Special Forces school ends with you receiving CPR, you will not win the green beret.)

Hidalgo came up to the mod, pointed at the wall of cans and told us in no uncertain terms that when he brought the general up tomorrow morning, those cans would not be against that wall.

So we did the only thing we could: Moved them to a different wall.

YankeyMCC

(8,401 posts)
5. I was in the Air Force but
Tue May 29, 2012, 08:53 AM
May 2012

I don't have to many good stories. Instead I'll post my Dad's story, he was one of the sonar men on the USS Maddox during the Gulf of Tonkin incident. He was interviewed in 68 about it.

We recently found this article:


http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7D1HAAAAIBAJ&sjid=E_gMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1136%2C4048108

rppper

(2,952 posts)
7. My sea story....
Tue May 29, 2012, 10:43 AM
May 2012

Our captain on SSN 770 hated liver and onions....our chief cook loved it and frankly, made some of the best L&O I've ever tasted....that being said, the CO organized a trick to play on the chief after liver wound up on the dinner menu one night....

The radiomen typed up a very real looking message claiming to look out for
Certain lot numbers on liver due to the meat being tainted....to be shown to the chief after the meal....one of our more creative cooks mixed up veggies, canned meat and food colors to make very realistic vomit and the corpsman got saline bottles and shots ready to use on about ten of us who were also in on the joke....

Immediately after dinner, a few us came to the doc claiming stomach aches....within earshot of the chief cook.....and took mouthfuls of the "vomit".....we walked into the mess deck, where a Corpsman does examinations on a sub....and where the chief was sitting.....and proceeded to puke in front of the chief and collapse on the deck moaning....

After the 3rd or 4th sailor puked, he started to worry....and then the fake message got handed to him to sign! The chief had to go through the tdu cans....a 8 inch wide by 3 ft can that has trash packed into it via 4500 psi hydraulics....which had been pre-packed with some very, very nasty contents, as well as the liver boxes with the coordinating lot numbers....after unpacking 5 tdu cans containing some of the nastiest smelling stuff I've ever been around...the chief finally found the boxes....by that point the corpsman had 7 of us laid out on the mess decks, half of us with iv's in our arms, all of us faking illness....the chief knew he was about to
Be sent to leavensworth for poisoning a
Crew!

All at once , we on the mess decks got up, removed the Iv's and laughed at the now stuptified chief cook....the captain, who was chewing the chief out the entire time, started laughing out loud and thanked the chief for being a good sport......

Needless to say, our dinners and mid-rats meals sucked for the next week until we pulled back into pearl harbor....

rppper

(2,952 posts)
12. All of either the co's...
Tue May 29, 2012, 01:33 PM
May 2012

...or xo's on all of the boats I served on got the doors to their staterooms stolen....practical jokes and momma'/wife/kids jokes are pretty common....used to be anyhow...I'm 15 years out....you have to be thick skinned...you're in a underwater steel pipe...I'm glad it was the service I choose...it fit me....I fit it...

Kaleva

(36,151 posts)
13. Starching or salting underwear was a favorite.
Tue May 29, 2012, 02:04 PM
May 2012

We'd starch and iron the skivvies (underwear) till it was stiff like cardboard. Salting worked best in the Persian Gulf or Caribbean as the guy would be sweating and the salt began to do its work.

Kaleva

(36,151 posts)
9. I was the Petty Officer of the Watch one evening in Norfolk...
Tue May 29, 2012, 11:27 AM
May 2012

when a bad storm came in. The ships mooring lines were really being strained and the same was happening to the other ships tied up. At the next pier over, I could see a frigates mooring lines starting to snap and sailors were running around. The Petty Officer of the Watch of that frigate wasn't a cool cucumber as he started screaming "Abandon Ship! Abandon Ship!" over the 1MC.

Archae

(46,266 posts)
10. Story from my Dad...
Tue May 29, 2012, 12:04 PM
May 2012

He and his buddy were driving a truck with supplies in Korea, during that war.

His buddy was driving, they made a wrong turn and got lost.

Well...they both knew REAL quickly where they were when their truck started to get shot at!

They did a U-turn (on a single-lane dirt road no less!) and floored it all the way back.

rppper

(2,952 posts)
11. My father....
Tue May 29, 2012, 01:27 PM
May 2012

....didn't give up a lot about his time in 'nam...he was one of the last of the original Kennedy green berets sent in to train and advise the south Vietnam army...they used dogs to sniff out the VC.....while two miles out from base his platoon took fire from a sniper....the dog was the first casualty...along with two others wounded...my father carried a 150lb German Shepard back to camp, along with administering first aid to the other soldiers...I asked him why he carried the dog, which died instantly, all that way back...he very cooly answered " I didn't want those f'n cong to make a meal out of my dog....."

bluesbassman

(19,316 posts)
14. I was a heavy equipment mechanic stationed in Nuremberg.
Tue May 29, 2012, 02:23 PM
May 2012

Our platoon sergeant was not mechanical at all, one of the great mysteries of the military is how they manage to get the least qualified people to supervise technical units. But I digress...

One of our missions was rebuilding generators and part of the process was to paint the gas engines white using the old high pressure paint guns. One day a newbie was having trouble with his gun, and Sgt Jones decides to help him. He grabs the gun and after pulling the trigger a few times without getting any spray, he decides to start picking at the nozzle, thinking it was clogged. His second mistake was not uncoupling the air hose. Pretty soon enough pressure built up, and the bottle probably wasn't completely secured, then *BAM* the bottle blows off the gun, completely covering the sarge with a coat of white paint. He looked like Moe Howard after one of the other Stooges dropped a bag of flour on his head.

Anyway, as he's standing there, his blinking eyes looking like two Hershey's Kisses on a frosted cake, Hislope, our resident malingerer, walks up to him all deadpan and says; "can I get you anything from the snack bar Sgt Jones"? The entire shop, which had gone stone quiet, exploded in hysterical laughter.

I don't think I ever saw Sgt. Jones near the paint booth after that.

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