I was wondering if those of you who have served have any funny antidotes you would like to share? We have all had goofy things happen to us in the field or garrison, so I thought it might add some comedy to the ladder.
If you would like to post a war story go ahead. Here are one or two to get started:
While deployed to Germany the RCD's (Royal Canadian Dragoons) had a certain major in charge of a Leopard squadron. Well during one advance in Germany this major decided to advance the entire squadron (18 tanks) across a farmers corn field, flattening it. It goes without saying that the farmer was incredibly mad but in the end made off better, for the Cdn gov't paid him the crop value. This effectively ended this majors rise through the ranks, and since then anyone serving in his squadron is known as "CHILDREN OF THE CORN".
It was also on this exercise that this same major became very frustrated with the WGer "enemy force". It seems the enemy force refused to play the game and die when reported hit and destroyed by their Cdn opponents. To solve this problem this major parked his Leopard between two houses and loaded a blank 105mm round in the spout. Then as a marder drove by he fired the gun, blowing the crews headphones and helmets off and giving them all good nose bleeds. There was no doubt, this enemy unit was "dead". Boy did he get crap for that, but it was pretty damn funny and solved the problem.
Anyone else have anything to share?
Great stories Chris !!!
While i was in OCS doing my training, we had our airforce Iroquios in at our base doing some training. It was about 1630 and we just went over and watched them landing. We got to talking with the pilots and they asked us if we wanted to go for a ride later on in the night.
So we said yeah and turned back up at about 1900. Off we went and were flying round inside the training area. This particular training area is split down the middle by the desert highway, also known as State Highway 1. As we were flying down it the pilots turned off the anti-collision lights and flew down low over it. As cars approached towards us the pilots would turn on their spot lights and scare the crap out of the cars. It was quite funny to see some of them give a little wiggle as wary drivers thought they saw a UFO.
LOL - man I bet those boys got an ear full when they got home. Talk about getting the crap scared out of you!
Ok, one more from me:
While on a two month exercise in Meaford Ontario we were conducting battle runs using Cougar tank trainers. These are basically an apc with the scorpion turret mounted to it. Well anyway, we loaded our kit in the back of the vehicle and did battle runs for half the day. During lunch I climbed out of the drivers seat and went to the back of the vehicle to dig into my kit bag and get some rats. The rest of the day went by with more battle runs, fording rivers etc etc. At the end of the day we leagured in deep grass and brush and started to prepare for the night. Well Lt. Lepage (my crew commander) comes up to me and asks where his kit bag is? How the heck would I know, isn't it the back with everyone elses? Well we ripped the back of the vehicle apart but couldn't find his kit bag, and since I was the last one in the back it was my fault.
So being pissed and upset I went back to the front of the vehicle trying to figure out how I was going to pay for all his lost equipment when my gunner yelled out that he had found it. Apparently the kit bag had fallen out at lunch but the canvas strap on the bag wrapped around a towing hook. So all afternoon we dragged his kit back across Meaford and through the rivers. But everything was there, and it was all dry.
Just to make him more mad the next day I got the cougar stuck in a swamp, and that is when Lt Lepage utter those famous words to me "tanks ain't meant to go where the pussy willows grow".
I wonder if I was any cause of him quitting the forces and becoming a Calgary fire fighter?
We Finns have Reserve Officer School in the middle of city of Hamina about 100 km from Russian border and the training area is some 20 km east from the city. We packed our heavy trucks and towed our 155 mm guns out of the city and headed for some training in the woods. I was sitting shotgun in the second truck and started to wonder after an hour of driving why we haven't reached the area yet. It's a good sized area and I wasn't sure which part we were supposed to go so I wasn't too worried. After another hour I was starting to get worried and was thinking that I really need to stop the lead truck and ask if we have got lost. Right about then the leader stops and I immediately told my driver to stop, jump out of the truck and start walking to the front wanting to see what is wrong. First thing I notice beside the road is a large sign "Russian border" in 4-5 different languages. So we were a bit lost and it took us over an hour to get six long combinations 180 on a narrow dirt road. I wonder what the guys at the border would have said about our 155 mm custom free shoppings.
I can see it now.
The boarder guard says "Do you have anything to declare?"
Vesku "Just medical supplies" :boom3:
Holy crap, pretty funny. That reminds me of the movie STRIPES with Bill Murray taking his urban assault RV into Czechoslovakia.
Finland declared war on Russia today when a battery of 155s invaded the......
Russia surrendered two hours later.
I have a civilian war story...
A few years ago when JimVKrieg(yes, the big cheese here) and Baron von Beergut (he truly has a beer gut..) met with my family and I at Aberdeen, MD to check out the museum, I had an interesting adventure.
This was post 9-11 so the base was under more guard than normal and the concrete vehicle barriers were staged ziggy zagged across the entrance road. We made it past them and started up towards the main museum area, there were a few tanks situated along this road so we pulled over and piled out taking pictures and checking them out.
I noticed this camouflaged MG post about 250 yards away guarding the road we just came up. It was pretty well hidden from the road way, but our angle at the tank display exposed it.
So.. like a dumbass, I raised my camcorder, zoomed onto the nest and noticed the neat M60 with a guard. I was filming this and noticed his partner looking at me with binoculars.. then he reached for a phone...
A few seconds of this and I moved on to taking a picture of my son posing on the tank. Within 1 minute however, as we all started to return to our cars to continue on, we were suddenly surrounded by several MP vehicles with flashing lights and heavily armed personnel....
The officer in charge tells everyone to stay put and motions for the guy in the yellow shirt (that's ME) to come to him with the camera. I had to show him the pictures I took of the MG nest on my camera (it was digital) and I deleted them for him right there, when he was convinced there were no more pictures, he gave it back to me with the warning not to take any pictures of installations/posts or buildings while I was there...
All of my pictures were of tanks and museum pieces thereafter :)
As a side note, when we were leaving, BvB decided to lead the way and goes barreling down the road, around the corner and promptly into a radar trap going 40+ in a 25 zone...
APG was one of my home bases. I was stationed there for 5 years, then they sent me to Korea for a year, and back to APG for 3 more years. You came in on "Tank Road," there are some very interesting pieces there and at the museum, some you won't see anywhere else. Hope you liked the Ordnance Museum, I recommend that to anyone who's close to that area.
Well, I was never in the military.. but I have a Boy Scout story that involves a military experience:
In 1964 (seems so LOOONG ago) I was a fledging scout.. our Scout Master worked for what used to be Rocketdyne in southern California - so he had some special connections. He set us up as a troop to go visit Edwards and later in the day George Airforce base in southern california. Just oustide George is a weapons range.. we were to visit the range and collect used parachutes from flares and empty brass and whatever other bits and pieces might interest us - as well as have a tour of the facility.
As we drove up the dirt road, we saw sitting outside the gate (only fence at the time was around the admin buildings) the very shredded and blackend remains of a civilian car..
when we asked about what had happened, the airman grinned and related the following..
Seems that a local from Barstow had a few too many.. and got onto the wrong road out in the middle of the desert.. and got himself stuck in the sand out in the middle of nowhere. He saw lights some distance away on some sort of tall building and set off looking for help.. about 2am this guy walks up to the gate at the admin compound looking for a phone to call out a tow truck.. gate guard asked him where his car was.. and was suprised when the guy pointed in the direction of the middle of the weapons range and said - 'out there somewhere'. What the car owner didn't know was that a Phantom squadron was on the way for some live-fire practice.. the Phantoms arrived about the same time the gate guard called the control tower to warn off the Phantoms.. needless to say, the Pilots were tickled to find a vehicle on the firing range apparantly placed there for their use and enjoyment.. which they did with much enthusiasm. They were even more pleased when the 'target' responded with secondary explosions (fuel tank ignition) after the first pilot hit it with 20mm cannon fire.. all the pilots in the flight joined in the party..
a few 1000 rounds later the car was barely recongnizable as a car..
I'm sure the owner had an interesting time trying to explain to the insurance company how his car became a total loss
Greybeard