A friend of mine was a door gunner on a HU1B (HUEY) in Viet Nam. He told me of the time when he was new in country and was told to watch out for Charlie's GU11s (Gulls) and B1RDs (Birds). At first he was concerned until a Gu11 flew by and realized he been had...

Every now and then, you can catch a new Security Policeman at their first Guardmount not paying close attention.

Usually, a Sergeant runs up to the newbie flustered. Pointing down at the curb, he mutters "Colonel's gonna be here in a few minutes - quick Airman - run to the supply shed and get some yellow and black paint to touch-up that curb!"

Kinda hard to stifle the giggles when the Airman dashes off just as the Flight is called to attention...

The look when they realize the joke is beyond description...

Gunnie

Guilty as charged...I used to send the newbie corpsmen for neck tourniquets, never tried the fallopian tube line, but I did send a newbie to the tool crib for a left handed counterclockwise screwdriver.

I heard a few though no one ever pulled them on me when I was a newbie:

1. "go get me 'electricity powder' ".
2. in boot camp sometimes the sargents in the gunnery range will walk to the tagert before the trainee and stick a spare firing pin he had in his pocket in the target.
when the trainee closes in to check how was his shooting the sarge starts yelling: "I can't belive it! do you understand what you just did?! you shot the firing pin at the target!" :-)

We had a similar setup to this when I was active duty as a tanker in the US Army. We called it "sledge hammer qualification"

Much the same as you described, only we drew a circle on the motorpool concrete, complete with a bullseye. You had to get ten hits inside of the circle.

I know this one well, I fell victim to it my first week at my first unit out of basic. You should have seen the size of the hole in my cover.

Played it on many in my time afterward, I learned well. :-)

I'm sure some of my fellow Canadians have been sent to the CQ and QM looking for the BFA for the 84mm Karl Gustav.

I was in the Dutch Army for my National Service and we managed to confince the odd 'natte kont' that the grille covered air intake on the site of our Land-Rover was a Sidewind Corrector to automaticly adjust the steering when driving in strong sidewinds. Remember The Netherlands are rather flat and the wind can blow some. If all else fails you can always send somebody to the stores for a skirting (board) ladder

Cheers

Henk

I've had most of mine mentioned already, but will share a few more.

As a young soldier pulling supply duty many years back, I had three privates come to the arms room looking for a Blank Firing Adapter (BFA) for a M203. Thankfully, I figured out what was happening and replied, "Sorry, fresh out. But, when you get back to your platoon sargeant ask him about the Prick-E7 and his paperwork / handreceipt that's missing.

My boss chewed me out good for that one!

When I was a platoon leader during motor stables, I'd always ask the new drivers where their spare tire was for the HUMMV. Most would always look underneath where the pioneer tools and scratch their heads. Until one day a private replied "That would be on your vehicle sir!" I had to buy the refreshments for the whole platoon that night!

But, the best was related to me by US Air Force Security Forces (SF). On some bases that have nuclear weapons every now and then the Nuke Techs would test out a new SF guy by breaking several green chem lights and placing it inside of an empty nuclear casing that they would then procede to work on it. Eventually the SF guy would either notice the green and glowing puddle on the floor or the techs would run out of the room screaming. The reactions of the SF guy would vary a few messed themselves, one puked all over, but many were just too frightened to even move.

Thanks for the laughs!

Scott

ROFLMAO! I haven't heard of some of those in years! Great stuff! My favorite has to be the "Combat Box", while stationed in Germany we used to give the newfers an old MRE box loaded with old nasty socks. We'd seal it up and out an official looking label on it and tell them never to open it unless we were called on alert. (which happened every few months for drill purposes). When called up one of the senior squad leaders or the platoon sergeant himself would have the unfortunate new guys open the boxes and we would all have great fun at their expense.
Also never forget the TOW and Dragon missile blank adaptors. :-)

We always sent our green Lt's to battalion to pick up the keys for our travel locks. One of the Lt's a new West Point grad went to the LTC and asked him for them. We had a tradition in our battalion that when a new Lt does something stupid he got to wear a saber for a week. Well this Lt got the honors for this one. The LTC came to the motorpool and got all of us NCO's together and trying not to laugh told us not to do this prank anymore. So we just came up with something else. I sent my new loader to the maintance chief to get me a front slope file for my M60A3. I told him that we had to keep it sharp to take out trees when going through the woods

Mail Buoy Watch LMAO I forgot about that one, which reminded me of sending boots out on Submarine Watch while on float.

Oh I think I've heard of about all those others. All of them to funny .... oh the funny we have at the expense of the young and dumb.

Dave

I remember back in my early mililtia days as a PL4 private, a navy Petty Officer (defined by Webster's as:
petty = small, insignificant, little & officer = pig) telling me to go to QM and get 30 feet of shoreline. I told him to get stuffed, and have a sailor get it.

Okay, this one's an antique...

My father was in the King's Dragoon Guards (hint, it's from a time when Great Britain had a King, not a Queen...) waaaaaay back when they still had horses in the field, so we're talking 1930's here before what he described as the 'mechanisation rot' set in - old school cavalryman from way back, was my dad...

Anyhow, when they used to get 'remounts' in (remounts are fresh horses, a lttle wet behind the ears and not yet used to the life of a troop horse - the term also applies to new recruits...), one of the favourite japes was to hand one of them a brush and get them to 'go and whitewash the Last Post' (sundown trumpet/bugle call - you US types would call it Taps)...

Sure enough, the RSM would always find some new trooper counting the posts outside the barracks, can of whitewash in hand, trying to figure out which was the last one...

acav out

This one I really like. Thanks.

Lots of memories here!! In addition to the box of squelch and can of muzzle blast, as a brand new 2LT in an artillery battalion in Germany, I had the chief of section of one of the guns tell me one day that you had to be very careful when traversing the turret on the M109 Howitzers we had. Seems that they were "right hand rule" threaded, and if you traversed the turret 2 and a half times to the left, it would "unscrew" and fall off!

DAMN, I wish I had been smart enough to tell him not to traverse it to far to the right or it would "lock" up!!



Tom Hathaway

Had a young lad sent to me by the boys in QM for a "SKY HOOK". Told him I needed to know if it was a Left/Right hand one. He came back 5 min latter asking for a Right hand one. Told him I had given out the last one and I would have to order more. The lads in QM almost split a gut laughing, my OC (in same Office) had to leave. The young lad took it well enough!

Doug

There is sending them off to QM for prop wash. Also telling them to go back and exchange one snowshoe as they have two left footed ones, and also the ever popular go to Q for a box of frequencies for the radio....which if the CQ is on the ball will send them right back to ask if we want kilohertz to megahertz.

These are really great, and I find it awesome that its not just limited to just the US. Most of the ones I've tried have been mentioned, but here's a data-specific one that come to mind:

We were set up in the field, on a hillside, with units uphill and downhill from us. One day a young officer comes into our tent complaining about the slow email and internet he's getting. Now, first, its the field, everyone's connection is slow, but I determine that his unit is downhill from us, so I ponder this predicament and tell the good officer that the reason its so slow it that the electrons in the cable have to go uphill to get to our server, hence they slow down due to travelling uphill. If he were uphill from us, they would have a faster connection, due to the electrons speeding up as they come into the server. He seemed happy with this explanation and went about his business.

I've also had one of my Marines tell the XO that the faster he rolled his mouse, the faster the laptop would boot up. XO was a good sport once he knew he'd been had.

Good times.

The one time I remember the NCOs trying to pull a fast one on us second lieutenants was for my first trip to Grafenwohr.

We had to railhead from Mannheim to Grafenwohr. Our company had two new 2LTs, myself and a fellow named Hans Cooper. Very nice guy, but somone who had wanted to be branched into the Finance Corps but instead ended up as a tanker. Needless to say he was a garrison trooper.

The NCOs were trying to convince me that we had to hunt down the train meister and get tickets for our platoon and equipment. The senior platoon leader, a 1st lieutenant, went along with the joke saying he had already picked up his tickets.

Having been an enlisted man in a previous life and done a rail load before, I knew it was a joke but said, "OK, let me go find this guy and square my platoon away." As I walked out of sight, I pull out the strassenbahn (street car/trolley) weekly passes that I used to travel from my quarters off post to the barracks.

I then came back to the group with this small stack of tiny tickets and said my guys were good to go.

I got some puzzled looks from several of the NCOs and 2LT Cooper went into panic mode when I told him the train meister had just left the AO. When he left to ask the company commander for help, I let the NCOs in on my joke and told them I wasn't fooled by their joke.

Good old Hans Cooper returned a few minutes later with a red face but otherwise in good spirits knowing that he had been had.

BTW, welcome back to Armorama LemonJello!

The one I haven't seen is "Go see how deep is the motor pool".

John

The funniest story to me is when one backfired. They told this newbie in the Nam to go find a "skyhook". He knew what was up...and guess what his brother flew one of those Huge airlift copters that was nicknamed....what else the "SKYHOOK" He radioed his brother who flew it in. There were more than a few repercussions. Had another buddy who on his last night was taken out for his farewell by his platoon SGT. The old Sarge had gotten really plowed and went out side to barf. My bud walked up and asked him if he was OK. The sarge's reply...."No wonder I was sick, my stomach was full of puke".

I never fell for any of that, I guess because I had been a Boy Scout as a kid and had heard about half of them before

A small town in Germany, 1971.

Our Bn S2 was the prototype for Lt Fuzz.
One day he races into my office; "My wife is pregnant, we're so excited."

"Whoa, did you get permission to get her pregnant?"

"Permission, I never heard I had to get permission for that!!!" and now looking a bit nervous

So I promptly deliver the killing blow "Look, it is very simple. You had to get permission to bring your wife over here, right ? And isn't that called bringing a dependent into the command ? Well by getting your wife pregnant, you're bringing a dependent into the command without permission !!! You both could be in big trouble !!!" Adopting my best Very Serious Look.

Well, Fuzz turns, races out of my office, thru the XO's office, into the Bn Cdr & starts babbling. Bn Cdr goes ballistic (a) at Fuzz for barging in (b) at Fuzz for being a dummy (not for first or last time), and (c) at me for being a wise-ass (also not for first or last time).

One of my NCO's warned me the XO was coming down the hall with smoke coming out his ears & I went out the window & headed off to inspect part of my section across post ....

John

My first battalion commander in Germany no doubt probably felt that he DID have that authority. (Afterall, he did have to authorize the battalion "baby cup"! :-)

Tom

The battalion was scheduled for mass calesthenics on the parade square. The Regimental Sergeant Major (aka GOD) noticed a corporal clerk was missing and stormed off to find him behind his desk in the Bn orderly room. When he askes why the Cpl. wasn't out for mass calesthenics, the reply was, "But Sir, I'm protestant"

how about watching someone try to fit an L85 BFA to a LAW94?

he was puzzled for a good 10 minutes!

regards

joe