Your Funniest/ Favorite War Stories

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I posted this a long time ago but here it is again. We were firing in Otterburn, England and started some pretty good grass fires. Anyone who has been there knows what the ground can be like. Anyway we are all stuffed in the back of a large english vehichle and come to a sudden stop. The very new and very KEEN lt. comes running around the back of the truck and yells "follow me men!". He then steps off the road and promptly sinks waist deep into a solid-looking bog complete with arm still pointing the way for us to follow. Needless to say our good Sgt. declined the offer and we went another way. CHEERS

 

[Franko]

So I understand that everyone is having a good time. So am I. Gimmie some freakin‘ votes (good) will ya? I don‘t care ‘bout that stuff. Anyway on with the stories......

Has anyone sent a newbie for a metric adjustable...or sent them to pick up laser dots off the IMR floor, or retrieve the road wheel repair kit?

Speaking of which...had a new guy in and he wanted to help us work on the M548s. We looked at each other and said "Sure but wait until after lunch". He went off and I went with a bud and saw the guy working the tool crib. He went by the name of "Groovie" Kean, a Queens Cpl with 32 years service...a good man. So he put toether a "road whell repair kit". It consisted of chunks of road wheel rubber torn from the tanks, rubber cement, a blow torch, and some knives and files.

We told the new guy the chips and chunks in the road wheels HAD to be fixed or the track could be thrown. He asked where he could get such a kit and we sent him to Groovie.

He came back with the kit...with a puzzeled look on his face. He then got to work...cleaning the tears...applying the rubber cement...heating the rubber with the torch...carving the chunks to fit..etc.

He worked well past after we left...he‘s a darn good worker.

We all come in the next day for a good laugh...the 548 is DONE!

The patches held so well that when we had to change the road wheels months later the patches were STILL there...

Needless to say the guy was in...as for the patch kit we got rid of it in case someone thought it was a good idea

Regards

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Here‘s another qiuck one... We were on a full blown combat team attack, complete with 80 or so vehicles from M113‘s to Leopards. Probably don‘t see too many of those these days...

Anyway, our OC was a fairly stern man, could make a seasoned soldier break a sweat just by tearing a strip off him.

The attack is going in fairly well (down the Lawfield, as I recall) and we‘re screaming towards the objective like madmen. Doesn‘t take long before we‘re almost there, just another 500-600m or so before we dismount to put in the attack.

Some joker in the hull decides he‘d play a trick and goes on the intercom (not the company net) and yells "DISMOUNT! DISMOUNT! DISMOUNT!" Well the driver thinks it‘s the OC‘s word of command and jams the binders on. We come to a screeching halt, the latches let go and the ramp begins to drop. Meanwhile, the rest of the combat team is zooming past us, towards the objective.

Well joker realizes what the OC will do to him if he throws a wrench into the attack, and doesn‘t think it‘s so funny any more. He scrambles to tell driver and crew commander what happened before people start bailing out.

Somehow we managed to get the ramp up and get going again before anyone too important noticed, but we were all sweating bullets over that one!

 

[Franko]

What year was that Mike?

CTCC courses was a complete wate of time for the troops in my sqn, we knew every nook and crannie of that training area. BORING

Seriously though...what year?

Regards

 

[Garry]

Groovie- he‘s still around? Excellent guy...

General is in to inspect the C-Force panzers. We‘re all at attention, inside the hangar behind the tanks, and my Bud immediately across from me is waving his arm, telling me to sneak across and see something. Inspection party is still at the Sqn HQ Tanks, so I have time. Over I go. He‘s glued valve stems to the roadwheels!!!

Note: we‘d been having some road wheel problems, and trial on new types were ongoing.

General, CO, and asorted hangers on arrived, and my Bud and his crew are at attention. General notices the valve stems, and asks what‘s up with these. Bud answers "New Inflatable Road Wheel trials, Sir!" General answers "very good. Major, keep me informed"...Major, BC, et al are losing it, as are all the rest of us. Funny, but the SSM seemed upset.....

It‘s the people that make a Regiment.

 

[Spr.Earl]

This happened yonk‘s ago.
The man who did this ended up in the US. S.F.

Only seen him once since he left Van.
May still be US S.F.

Every year we used to a full dress Annule Inspection by the Area Commander.

Well old Spr. Bloggin‘s made up a name tag of S@$thead and wore it on parade!
Not even the Gen., C.O. or S.Sgt/Maj caught it.

Yup old ShitHead passed muster!

 

[muskrat89]

I haven‘t seen too many stories involving fecal matter....

How about the time the lads saw so-and-so headed off to the woods with shovel and roll of bumwipe. His plan being obvious, some creative thinkers scampered off to the woods, cautiously snuck up behind him, caught everything with a long-handled shovel, and retreated. Don‘t know if you‘ve noticed, but when you poop in the woods, it‘s almost a sub-conscious compulsion to turn around and admire you handiwork, before leaving. So-and-so returned, looking kind of sheepish. Curiously, he wouldn‘t tell anyone what was bothering him....


A hearsay, which I know is verboten.. but from a reliable source. Maybe Gunner or RCA have heard of this one. This good friend of mine, while in another Unit, told me of the day they were moving the Regiment‘s Guns, via Chinook. Sgt So-and-So (a different one, than above) had finished with the recce at a new Gun Position, and decided to take advantage of one of the porta-potties located nearby. Seems he was in there, enjoying a comfortable moment, when one of the Chinooks decided to settle in with the first Gun. Seems it was close enough that the propwash caused said pottie to tumble, end for end, almost the entire length of the Gun Position. Buddy was beat up pretty good, but apparently not good enough for the medics to let him ride IN the ambulance, on the way back to camp. Covered as he was with the chemical concoction, the back of a 5/4 cargo had to suffice...

On a winter warfare ex, a good friend of mine showed up at an O group looking somewhat bedraggled, and sans his winter white covers. Upon questioning, it seems that nature called in a hurry. He ran over to the trench-latrine, quickly dumped his webbing and rifle, and with no further time to shed clothing, dropped his drawers, and took up position. As he was standing there, straddled, the sides of the trench caved in, and down he went, into the pit. He became quite animated while telling me all this, exclaiming that the harder he struggled to get out, the more he seemd to flounder. The biggest casualty it seems, other than his pride, was his winter whites....

 

[Foxhound]

This one was told to me by my father. Dad was an R.C.A.F. Photo Tech. in the early fifties where he met Mom, also a Photo Tech. and between them they could tell some tales, so here goes.

During his recruit trg., I believe at the time it was at St. Hubert, he had an especially crusty and cantankerous Sr. NCO. Dad and his buddies were kind of a group of class clowns and Sgt. Krusty had a sense of humor about equivalent to that of a .50 cal. The kind of humor that Dad's clique were into was apparently not for the squeamish and they used to pick mercilessly on this one chap who had rather a weak stomach. Y'know, the kind of stuff like cramming mashed potatoes into their mouths at the mess, then going: â Å“Hey look George, I'm a pimple!â ? then squeezing their cheeks. Reportedly, young George lost his lunch every time.

Anyhow, they were due for an OC's inspection at one point, so there was much scrubbing of, well everything. Sgt. Krusty had been riding Dad's *** for about week and there was no possible way to have his station job cleaned to Sgt. Krusty's satisfaction. Dad decided to get even, a pretty dangerous thing for a recruit, but that's Dad.

After breakfast on the morning of the inspection, Dad put a glob of peanut butter on a piece of wax paper and brought it back to barracks in his pocket. Dad's station job that week was the toilets, and was very proud at how extremely clean he thought they were. He also knew that they weren't going to be clean enough for Sgt. Krusty. So, the inspection chain-of-command begins with Sgt. Krusty going through first. The bed & locker inspection goes about as well as can be expected with Sgt. Krusty picking over everything. Then the section is told to make ready for station job inspection and immediately they all double-time it over to their areas. Sgt. Krusty goes through the crappers and calls Dad in to correct various gross deficiencies in cleanliness. Sgt. Krusty then re-inspects and pronounces it passable then leaves. Now the fun begins.

As soon as Sgt. Krusty is out the door, Dad digs the peanut butter out of his pocket and puts the glob under the edge of one of the toilet bowls, stuffs the wax paper back into his pocket and resumes his position. They are called back to their racks to wait for the next inspection which was the Group Sgt's. (Any Air Force types should correct me on the rank, I mean the equivalent to a Company Sgt. Major.) Group Sgt. goes through the sleeping area and pronounces it up to standard, then heads off to the squad areas followed closely by Sgt. Krusty. There is silence throughout the barracks because the troopies are trying to hear if anything's being said in the areas now being inspected.

Suddenly the silence is broken by an earth-shattering scream. You know the scream when an NCO blows it and his voice goes straight into the John Cleese Sergeant-Major voice? The scream is one word: my last name, coincidentally, the same as my father's. Dad doubles into the crapper and comes up to the chow in front of Sgt. Krusty who is absolutely LIVID! The Group Sgt. is standing over to the side with a concerned look on his face. Dad guessed he was probably thinking how he was going to get Sgt. Krusty out of a murder charge. Sgt. Krusty is pointing to the peanut butter and can barely get out the words: â Å“What ... is ... THAT!!!â ?

Dad, with a puzzled look on his innocent puss, marches two paces over to the toilet,

bends over,

sticks his finger into the blob,

stands up straight,

about-turns,

puts his finger in his mouth and says,

â Å“It's S**T, Sir!â ?

Thank the Gods of little green privates that the Group Sgt. did have a sense of humor and after he laughed for about ten minutes straight, he convinced Sgt. Krusty that it really was a great prank and he wished he had thought of it. He had Dad clean up the peanut butter before the OC came through and had a little â Å“chatâ ? with him later.

Per Ardua Ad Astra
(Through adversity, the stars. â “ Air Force motto)

 

[muskrat89]

On my CLC course, the evil instructors (like Danajnou) had assured us that we were done for the day. We had gone into relax mode for the evening, cleaning, polishing, yada yada yada. Well, the Agents of Satan had decided some more games were in order, and we had found ourselves, once again standing by our beds, having crap flung out of the lockers, etc. There was a RNFLDR Sergeant that we had dubbed the "Gargoyle". He seemed to have a knack at being particularly melodramatic with his attempts at degrading us. Anyway, I‘m by my bed, and across from me is Bdr Smith, also from my Regiment. While trying to keep eyes front, I‘m watching him endure Sgt _____‘s inspection. The Sgt has one of his parade boots, and is making a big show of holding it up and closely examining the welts for dust specks. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, the boot had been freshly filled with foot powder, which is now pouring all over the front of his uniform. I‘m trying not to laugh; Bdr Smith is silently freaking out. Sgt _____ looks down, turns about 3 shades of crimson, and absolutely goes beserk on poor ol Smith.....

 

[kosstro]

i‘m back with another story about the russian, whom i‘ll call ‘boris‘
-no, he is not in the ggfg‘s that was another incident
-yes, korus, this is exactly who you think it is, and he has done things you wouldn‘t believe.

anyway, this another boris story, which happened the weekend after the first story i mentioned. We were at the armoury friday night before heading out to the training area, and were getting kitted out, weapons, imps, etc. The staff told us it was very cold, and we should wear lots of warm kit, and bring extra civvy kit if necessary, as long as it was green or black.

so, boris takes this advice to heart. at the armoury friday night, he is on the ground clearing a C6, when i happen to notice he has jeans sticking out of his pants where they are supposed to be bloused. i burst out laughing and tell a few other people, who just shake their heads, knowing it‘s gonna be another long weekend, with boris.

so, we get to the training area, and everyone sets up the tents and starts to bed down. Except boris. he won‘t move, cause when he takes his pants off to go to sleep the sergeant will see his jeans, and we have informed him of the consequences of his wearing jeans.

so, the sergeant says‘boris, you‘re pretty eager tonight, you wanna take the first stove watch?‘
he agrees, and everyone snickers quietly. The sergeant notices this immediately(like any good nco) and asks ‘what‘s so funny troops?‘ no one wants to blade boris, but the sergeant threatens them with some snowshoe pt at 3am, so someone just blurts out, "boris is wearing jeans"

The sergeant looks confused, so he asks "boris, are you wearing jeans?" boris says no. the sergeant says "stand up, and drop your pants"
boris does, and he is definitely wearing jeans. The sergeant and master corporal just stare at him, shaking their heading. then the sergeant gets and idea: "boris, drop those pants, too."
boris does, and it shows he is wearing purple and blue striped pyjama pants. the sergeants jaw drops. after that, he asks to see what is under those pants, and he is wearing longjohn‘s, thankfully.

after the sergeant regains his ability to think, he says"boris, this is what i want you to do: go to the officers tent, walk in, and say ‘sir, sergeant _____ said to show you this, and drop your pants" boris left, and the sergeant and master corporal discussed this event, saying stuff like "15 years, dumbest troop i‘ve ever seen, by far", etc.

so, boris changes into military clothing, and the staff decide to deal with him later.

However, boris still has some stupidity up his sleeve.

Later that weekend, we are at the grenade range, and are instructed to take off our parkas and put on flak jackets, despite the -30 cold, because we will only be outside for a few minutes. Pretty simple, except for boris. he is struggling to put the biggest size flak jacket on over his parka, stumbling around and knocking over piles of equipment while doing this. another sergeant sees this and starts jacking him up. It goes something like thissergeant)‘what the **** are you doing boris, take off your GD parka" boris does, and it turns out he is wearing his four season‘s jacket underneath his parka. "boris, for crying out loud, why the **** are you wearing two jackets, for **** sakes? it isn‘t that ****ing cold, for **** sake!" the jacket comes off quickly. boris puts on the previously too small jacket, which now overlaps on his chest "oh, fits now don‘t it boris?" boris, agrees, and the sergeant helps him by putting his helmet on his head. the helmet won‘t fit on his head. the sergeant, appearing puzzled, decides to pull off his toque, and then put the helmet on. when he pulls off the toque, he discovers that boris is wearing his white balaclava rolled up underneath. the sergeant loses it, the next few minutes are filled with expletives, and us troops trying not to fall over laughing, and culminates with the sergeant screaming at him: "you‘re from russia for cryin‘ out loud! you‘re supposed to be used to the cold! what‘s the matter with you?" (of course, with more swears) then the sergeant opens the door of the range hut, throws boris out and screams at him: "go throw your ****ing grenades, and get out of my sight!"

so, in the end, there was a decision not to charge boris on account of the jeans incident, as it would damage his ‘career‘ he was let off with a large amount of screaming and threats if he did anything stupid again.

true story, he did something stupid everyday on course, i‘ve got tons more stories, just about him

 

[Infanteer]

Alright my turn...

In Bosnia, we had to haul ALL of the company‘s ammunition out of the bunker in order to inspect the frags and build a special little spot for them ("like two sandbags thick would stop hundreds of grenades from going off...." we grumbled)...anyways everything from 9mm to Eryx was piled up outside of the bunker, with some Ammo tech going over all this ****.
So here I come along, looking at this neat pyramid of about 15 Eryx missiles ($$$)...cool, they don‘t let the infantry guys play with these, lets take a peak. I am trying to read the label, hmmm, what does this say. So I try and rotate the one to read the label and CRASH, the whole pile comes down like jenga blocks, and takes out a huge stack of Carl G rounds right beside it. I look around, no CSM, whew.... The rest of the work party is pointing at me and giving me the "Ooohhh" so I look at this ammo tech, whos eyes are bulging out her head, and say "It‘s not every day you can say you did THAT, eh."
Needless to say, I spent the next little while stacking this **** up again.

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Franko: The year was 1994. Can‘t remember the course serial, but 9401 seems likely...

Spr.Earl: Your story reminded me of another. Just before grad parade I managed to sneak a freshly minted "Numpty" name tag onto the CF tunic of a course-mate. This guy was the butt of many jokes throughout the course, but not a bad guy. Somehow he didn‘t notice as he was putting his tunic on, which allowed me to tell him as we were marching onto the square. A quick glance down confirmed it, but at this late stage, there was nothing left to do but accept the hand that was dealt.

He was beside himself the entire parade, just waiting for the inspecting officer or course DS to pick up on it and chew him out. He managed to get through the ordeal without attracting the attention and ire of anyone, though we all had a good chuckle over it.

I still have the name tag, for those special occasions...

 

[Franko]

Geeesh Mike...I probably gave you a hot coffee.... or saw ya running behind my panzer

Speaking of which...we had an idiot who thought he was Gen Patton attached to my troop for the puposes of intimite support during the final stages of a planned attack on the objective. He strutted around our troop of panzers in the hide saying things like "your slit trench isn‘t deep enough" and "what a horrible cam job"...etc. We tolerated him at best, the troop WO went over and threatened to beat him until "all the stupid was out". He left us alone.

We got up on the LOD for the final attack and started our manouver. We finally got up to the 200m mark when the call went out to swing fire and debus. I look behind our panzer and who do I see...that‘s right, Gen Patton. He grabs the tank phone and starts giving the driver a hard time immediatly(slow down or I‘ll charge you etc). The driver has had enough of this joker and runs over a tree, then gunns it. The officer runs trying to keep up. The tree cleared the hull and he gets nailed by it...sending him flying a good 20 ft, landing in a crumpled heap with his head spinning. His troops began to laugh so hard we had to stop the attack and do it again. He wasn‘t seen for the rest of the course.

Come to find out later that he was a reservist who was trying to make an impression on the OC of his company so he‘d get a letter of recomendation for his entry into the Regs. His OC said he never laughed so hard before...and refused(from what I heard) to give him his letter.

Score one for common sense

Regards

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Small world! Those combat team attacks were one of the most impressive things I‘ve ever seen. Besides the raw power of so many vehicles, the inter-arms cooperation was amazing...

 

[Franko]

So true...but back to the funnies

 

[Franko]

Alright. Here‘s one for the pyromaniacs out there.

In the sweltering heat of the now infamous Gagetown training area there was a course run...Phase 4 Armour. This course teaches young officers how to lead a troop of panzers into battle and how to set up a defensive position.

Anyway..for this course you require an enemy force to show the students the error of their ways. In between attacking the students there is a bit of down time, about 1-3 hours.

During this down time we would brew up, make coffee, get the BBQ going, dig into the cooler for some refreshments, get some sun, listen to some tunes...maybe even get a fire going for those cool nights. Sounds like a blast right?

Well, when you have a bit of time on your hands and LOTS of pyro...well you tend to play around.

So a friend of mine who we‘ll call "Doug" for the purposes of this story(just a name I pulled out of the air) got bored one day and decided to have some fun.

He decided to take 8 Arty-sims and tape them together, ensuring the pull cords were all facing up and securly fastened together as well.

:evil:

For those of you that don‘t know what these puppies are for they are simulating incomming arty fire. They let out a loud whistle for a few seconds then explode(they contain a 1/4 charge of gunpowder, equivelent to TNT).

So "Doug" takes his latest creation and walks over to a parked carrier containing a sleeping buddy we‘ll call"Serge". He‘s from the 12 RBC and is one great guy. "Doug" calmly places his device underneath "Serge‘s" carrier and pull the cords, ALL AT ONCE!

The whistles sound off at once and all you hear is "STOP TRYING TO BUG ME" followed by a humongous BOOM!!. The carrier lurched up a good foot from the concussion. "Serge" came out flying...his feet didn‘t touch the ground.....

"Serge" didn‘t take ANY naps for the rest of the course...unless he parked about 1 km away from the rest of us.

Regards

 

[Righty]

LOL Franko!!!

 

[Franko]

Well here‘s another........

Summer 98 in Gag town another(groan) Phase 4 Armour course.

I‘m Crew Comanding a Coyote for the enemy force, lieing in wait for the students to nail our coffins shut. The attack begins as planned.

I toss out some arty-sims and smoke grenades to sim hits and damage being done by the fire base. My driver has other ideas...

He leaps out of his hatch and runs 50m infront of my C/S, drops his drawers and, well you know....

The students panzers roll over the crest..... 100m from his white behind! He acts "startled/ surprised" by this.

The DS in the Panzers are laughing and rolling in the turrets....giving my driver the "thumbs up" as they roll though.

Best driver I ever had.

Regards

 

[Slim]

Originally posted by Mike Bobbitt:
[qb] Here‘s another qiuck one... We were on a full blown combat team attack, complete with 80 or so vehicles from M113‘s to Leopards. Probably don‘t see too many of those these days... [/qb]

Just an aside Mike...I think I was there for that!

Slim

 

[Franko]

Slim...you were there. Getting a bit forgetful are we?

Too much kordite

Regards