Fucking camo nets.  I have been the 3rd to 5th investigator on the second FLIPL on the same loss of camo nets.  I deploy.  I get back, someone calls me.  Hey, someone told me you had some info on these camo nets.  I'm doing a FLIPL...

Congrats, buddy - you're the 4th to SIXTH investigator, and a commander & a supply sergeant were already charged w/ the loss on the 1st FLIPL - and the nets were recovered, and never updated on the company property book...

2-2 FA Ft. Sill 1998

Battery XO for Bravo Battery supporting the school house. Normal day shooting a couple hundred rounds of 105mm for FAOBC learning CFF. The Instructor on the OP makes a CFF and we think nothing of it sending a 3 gun fire for effect down range. Couple of days later we get a call from Range Control asking for our FDC data. Apparently the Instructor committed career suicide showboating for the class. Called a fire mission on the protected elk that roam the impact area. If elk enter the box or impact area you have to go cold on the range until they pass which could be hours. He killed a couple of elk and because he was such an asshole the class turned him in. He was decertified, thrown out of Fire Support and moved to a dead end desk job in WIDD. My battery wanted to name my Humvee Elk Hunter 6

I lived on the 3rd deck corner room right across from the Chapel/SMP. Turn the corner and the ladder well was on the I-5 side. Del Mar was the best place to be. We moved to Los Flores in '94.

I'm still very familiar with Camp Pendleton as I live 1/2 way between the front gate and the San Luis Rey gate and usually at the PX and Commissary at least 1x a week.  I take my paddle board and kayak down to the boat basin sometimes.

Close... but not quite accurate.  

Yes, .50 cal from the commander's pos.

The coax is mounted solid to the main gun and there is no way for it to swing and shoot the thermal shroud.  I believe the tube sticking out in front of the coax simply acts as a flash hider.   I'm also of the opinion that it is a good reminder that there is a machinegun there, and you might not want to stand in front of it.

I don't know if he had open wounds. We did hear that he had to get all of his vaccinations again and was a good candidate for ending up with every hepatitis known to man.

LOL, we have a group text chat with some of the guys that were with me in the unit where the private filled the generator with 25 gallons of water.

They just brought up some other dumbshit he did.

We were at Miramar in the back 40 doing some training prior to going to Iraq. Got back to our bivouac after the day was done and the Marines had a cammie net up to rack out under and the 3 of us SNCOs from the platoon had a spot maybe 20 meters away.

So we had a little camp stove and were cooking up some ramen and talking about the plan for the following day and the Gunny notices someone lurking in the shadows.  

Gunny "Who the fuck is that!?"  

Private "Private dumb fuck gunny!" as he walks up to us. "Is this a ramen cooking party?"  

Gunny "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! GET THE FUCK AWAY!!!!!!!"

It took all my composure not to bust out laughing. Would not be the last time he almost caused the Gunny, or me, to have an aneurysm.

At Hood in '87, our supply Sgt. got busted for shoplifting at the PX.  The E-4 that assisted him became the defacto supply guy.   One day the E-4 went to the CO because he had some extended family problems and need to take emergency leave, which the CO denied.   In the ensuing argument, some how or another, the CO implied that the E-4 was dumber than he was because he was a Cpt. and the E-4 was of course, an E-4.

From that day forward, if you went to supply and asked for something the E-4 just pointed it out and said "There they are, take as many as you need".

Fast forward 6 or so months to the CO trying to clear everything and turn it over to the new incoming CO.   Let's just say that there were a lot of things missing from supply... all of which were still signed for by the outgoing CO with no record of the items being signed out by anyone else.

Moral of the story... don't fuck with supply, or anyone that has dominion over making sure you get paid.

TOW live fire range back in 1990 something, there were multiple armored vehicle carcasses staged from maybe 100m all the way out to 3 or 4 thousand meters ( max effective range of the TOW is 3750m) So me and all the other gunners who scored high enough on our gunnery exam to get to fire a live round are lined up, drawing our missile from the  back of a deuce and a half, inspecting and signing for them. We’re all going to fire from the same gun mounted on top of an m966. First guy heads over, they load the launcher, and start the commands. Squad leader......”Gunner, tank in open, right front, 1800 meters....identify.” Gunner repeats, followed by “Identified.....Back blast area clear, arming lever up.” Squad leader ....”fire.”Gunner.....”on the way.” POP, missile comes out of the tube, motor kicks in and off it goes......except the Gunner wasn’t looking at the same target as the Squad Leader. This guy sends his missile at 320 meters per second into the side of a 113 carcass thats maybe 100 meters away. I don’t think the fuckin missle even had a chance to arm itself. It hit the side if that 113 and pieces of tank and missle went flying hundreds of feet in the air and landed all over the fuckin place. Way closer to the humvee than anyone was comfortable with. Let the ass chewing begin....the rest of us were instructed to “not do what that fuckin idiot just did”. Good times...

One of the “gunships” in our TOW section hit a tank trap filled with water at an extremely high rate of speed. The water blew the hood open, broke all but two blades off the fan, and nearly impaled the gunner.  An epic ass chewing followed.

I've seen a sabot fly into Cussetta Georgia

Seen a .50 go off in a guys hands after he pulled the whole gun out of the mount with a round in the chamber and set it down right on the trigger

Seen a 6X6 Cougar stuck in a 4' pool of human shit

Woke up to an airdrop of palletized 55 gallon fuel drums crashing into the vehicles all around me

He did time for that? Sounds like a pretty harmless (and hilarious) joke.

were you trying to hit snow Mexicans or the just the lake? ..lol  probably wouldn't have made it to lake Michigan about but was a good college try..

The old saying was that you could lose a jeep but don't lose the log book.

I think it was just to hold him there while he got NJP'ed by the Corps or USAREUR commander.  

It freaked a lot of folks out who already thought it was reckless for the militant cowboy Reagan to place these dangerous weapons in Europe.

Is there 105 RAP?  'Cause it's probably like 25-30 miles to East Bay.

He probably means keys to the bike lock.

There’s no such thing as a prank when it comes to canned sunshine.

Explosives, absolutely.  Nukes, no way.

German's have their sense of humor removed at birth as well.

December 2008. US Marines 2/7 return from Afghanistan. Thousands of friends and family are waiting for them at 29 Palms. They dismount the buses around 8pm and are immediately detained because ONE PVS-7 was "missing". Fucking brass held everyone for about 4 hours as said thousands of loved ones waited in the desert cold. Women, kids, babies, old people. Finally it was announced that someone made a clerical error.

Btry had a M198 break free on the highway as they were doing occupations forgot the safety chains,  what resulted was something out of a cartoon as the howitzer came off the pintle and tore the air brake lines off the 5ton and made its way thru a corn field with the crew chasing after it... they were forever known as children of the corn.

different M198 convoy on return home from drum trailing the last gun, new tire, and torqued to spec blew the split ring, and other parts of the rim and  tire shot across a 4 lane interstate. Howitzer dug a 40ft furrow in the road, the shower of sparks were impressive.

.50 Cal is on hell of a round

LOL Yes the Range Control used to warn us all the time about the butterfly and owl people. Twas all fun and games until they popped up in front of a cannon tube.  

Mid-1980s, my ship was in port San Diego.  The missile techs were doing planned maintenance on our standard missile magazine.  It was a 40 cell magazine with 34 standard SM-1 missiles, 4 Harpoon, 1 test bird, and 1 empty cell.  The maintenance techs accidently left a tin can in the open cell.  When the magazine was operated, the tin can damaged the salt water flooding system, sending salt water into the magazine.  34 Standard SM1s, 4 Harpoon, and one test missile destroyed.
 
On Westpac, a gunners mate had just performed planned maintenance on 5 Model 1911a1s.  The pistols were placed in a closed ammo can.  When the gunners mate went to put the pistols back in the small arms locker, he found it locked, and he didn't have the key.  So, he put the ammo can, containing the pistols, down by the locker door, and he went to get the key.
 A hull tech saw this go down, and he took the ammo can of pistols.  Later, that day, he got nervous, and told a another unknowing hull tech to throw the can over the side, which he did.  The gunners mate assumed someone else put the pistols in the locker.  
 Later that month, 5 M1911a1s came up missing during inventory.  The whole story unraveled, and we had a courts material in Subic Bay for the first hull tech.

Screen name checks out.

pffft I thought it was 155 CHG 7 WB that would have been impressive, most impressive  

I think something to add to that which many folks might not know, is that when Pershing 2 missile units went to the field for an FTX and erected the missile, there was an actual warhead on the missile. That's how the nuclear MOS artillery men got their training as well. No point doing that with the warheads sitting back in Mutlangen.

As serious as 21Boom points out about the seriousness of handling of the actual "physics package" the U.S. is also somewhat cavalier in how they handle them as well.

Remember this? I remember a bunch of us watching this in the breakroom laughing our asses off. Of course if I would have been a Marine I would have been fucking pissed.

Operation Restore Hope Beach Landing

Elcope nails it.

This goes down as the worst. I was at Green Ramp 23MAR1994 when a F16 managed to hit a C130 in the air.

The F16 pilot ejected immediately and his plane hit a 141 on the ground.

The C130 was able to fly over empty training areas before making a safe emergency landing at Pope.

24 paratroopers were killed and over 80 injured out of the 500 of us that were getting ready for a jump.

Air Force gave an enlisted man in the Pope Tower an Article 15. Nothing happened to the fighter pilot. Officers looking out for their own.

I thought of a couple more spectacular failures of human waste.

The Wabash makes port at 32nd Street in San Diego for what I can't recall. Two FNGs who have been on the boat for just a few months decide to get shit faced. They have their fun and decide it would be great to stack a bunch of rocks and shit along with a manhole cover on the Trolley tracks and see what happens. The trolley hits it, some damage but the trolley is still functional and picks up the moron sailors at the stop. They start talking about how cool their stunt was. Other passengers overhear and report them. They are met at another stop by the police and carted off to jail. They never returned to the ship, were separated from the USN and were being prosecuted on the Federal level for trying to wreck a train. Never did hear how it turned out for them.

Joe the MM1 (E6) kind of committed career suicide. Joe reported to the Wabash with about 2 years left on his contract and had 15 years in. He absolutely hated duty on the Wabash and bitched that he was going to be on her for 5 years. Prior to reporting to the Wabash Joe had been a recruiter so he knew a few loop holes that could help him get another assignment. As he got closer to the end of his contract he tried to get the detailer to transfer him but he got nowhere. Joe decided that he was going to separate, 17 years and he was getting out. He chose to do this because he knew that he could actually reenlist within 30 days of separation,  not loose rank or sea time and get a new duty station.

While all of this is going on I start noticing stuff missing from the shop. Tools are disappearing regularly along with lots of other random stuff. I'm thinking the frikkin dopers are stealing it (MJ was a real problem at the time) but I haven't been able to catch them in the act. Well Joe's separation date is getting close and they are going to release him several days early because we will be underway when his actual EAOS arrives. Joe corrals a couple of my non rates and has them help him take his boxed up belongings off the boat. They get several boxes off and the OOD decides he needs to search the next load. The fun started as Joe had a SHIT LOAD of tools in the box. They brought all of Joes boxes back onto the boat and searched them. Joe had tools, light fixtures, wool blankets, linen, pillows, brass valves you name it Joe had probably stole it. I think the Capt. convened mast that very same day. Joe got 45x45 and half a months pay for two (that was suspended) and an RE-R4 reenlistment code. 17 years down the toilet for some shitty ass USN tools and crap.

yep I wonder if the Greenpeace'ers knew the crews were all armed with live ammo, to protect said "package".  Probably would have shot someone fucking with one.  

Bro, you just triggered my PTSD. Fucking FLIPL's.

Jesus goat fucking christ, fucking FLIPL's.

Oh God, how I loved it when some boot Lieutenant would come to me with clipboard in hand, wanting to know about some stupid shit that happened before I even joined the unit but was somehow now my fucking responsibility!

" No, LT Fuckwad, I don't know why Spc Schmuckatelli lost his NVG's on a field op two months before I got here. Can you please fuck off now so I can do this bullshit change of command inventory?"

Fuck, I need a God damn intervention.

The guy with me tried to go in to the snake pit of the engine room. I grabbed him, pulled him back in to DOPR, slammed the door to the engine room shut and went up the scuttle to start air room and out forward through the A-gang shop.

My LT ate a tuna sandwich at a restaurant in Tajikistan. I told him it was a horrible idea, he did it anyway.

Turned out to be a tremendous mistake.

I had a crusty Vietnam vet 13B back in the early 90s, tell me about this "one neat trick" of breaking part of a razor blade when seating a fuze on the Projs to scare the piss out of Charlie. Never seen it in practice though

Yeah they probably did, which is why the Polezei always rolled with us, to act as a civil government barrier between us & "them", they (the Polezei) knew our use of force rules and kept the hippies away from our "deadly force authorized" perimeter.

I met a dude who was a 12E Atomic Demolition Engineer from way back in the day.  He changed MOSs to work on Pershing’s after a bit.  He said he did it because he felt better knowing  he had at least half a chance to survive if things went hot.

ETA wish I’d gotten to pick his brain more about it, at the time I was a young feller and didn’t quite get the job he had.

I was in middle school when that happened.  The C 130 pilot was a friend of my dads.  If I remember correctly he left the Air Force soon after to fly for American.

-Prep

My nephew was in 2/7 then. Golf Company. I'm pretty sure I remember my SIL being super pissed about that.

They took a lot of casualties in A-stan.

Oh how I love the Army Officer Corps.


Just prior to our "deployment" to Kuwait for 9 months, we get a brand new 2LT.

Openly gay, married to a dude, has a degree in Orchestra from Kansas State University. Go Cats. I'm the Platoon Sergeant, so this is my boss. Fucking Yay!

NTC rotation prior to deployment. We are an FSC supporting an artillery unit so we're running logistics convoys to our batteries. ( for you civilian types, we drive trucks with big boomy things to the large gunny things that shoot real far.)

It's about 0300, we get an order to run ammo to the gun line half way across the desert. We haven't slept in like three days. We are fuckin beat, but off we go because.....mission first, or some shit.

So I go wake up LT. No shit, dude has one of those silk masks over his eyes. Ok, whatever, just get up so we can get this shit over with.

Off we go into the desert night.

This is 2012, we've got blue force tracker in every vehicle. You literally can't get lost. You can see the entire battle field and every friendly vehicle on your screen, it's fucking idiot proof.

Did I say idiot proof? Sorry, I guess that doesn't apply to flaming homo orchestra majors because this fucktard walked us right into an OPFOR battalion that was set up to ambush a tank company.

Let me explain this. This OPFOR BN was equipped to ambush an armored unit. We were a bunch of truck drivers  hauling ammo and fuel. Can you say slaughter? I think you can. Sometimes when I close my eyes to sleep, I can still see all the yellow MILES lights blinking in the darkness, like tears in the rain.

After the carnage, we're all sitting around shooting the shit and playing spades. LT Orchestra comes over and taps me on the shoulder. He's crying.....he's FUCKING CRYING IN FRONT OF MY TROOPS!

" I can't do this..sniff,sniff,...I'm sorry..sniff ,sniff...I need you to take command....sniff, sniff.."

Oh...oh God. I've never unloaded on an Officer in my entire career, but I obliterated that little faggot in front of the entire platoon and I'm not sorry.


He got sent to BDE for some bullshit assignment and I got a letter of reprimand. Still made the E-7 list.

Sometimes you just gotta nuke a bitch.

Well, I have seen so many screw-ups it is hard to choose, but I think the most expensive (and publicly notable) screw-up was the JLENS fiasco.  This project was a long line of fail, with nearly every failing of uncontrollable procurement, embodying  virtually everything wrong with the military procurement system.  The end result was two 75-meter long monstrosities that were about as mobile as a shopping mall.  During the procurement process, I and several other "green suiters" (most of whom were familiar with employment of smaller aerostats in SWA) asked the question of "what happens if the tether breaks and the deflation system doesn't work as advertised?" and were assured by the prime contractor that this scenario was almost impossible.  Sure as God made little green apples, one of the 75m aerostats broke loose from Aberdeen and terrorized northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania before it finally came down and had to be deflated by the Pennsylvania State Police using shotguns.  Needless to say, this fiasco finally killed the JLENS program.  Fortunately, this all happened long after my association with the program ended!

Let's not forget the USS Lake Erie launching several rounds of 20mm into the mountains near Camp Smith when they failed to clear it properly.

I was a contractor at the ammo station at West Loch and planned and supervised ship weapons loading at the time.  I called the Chief at SurfPac later in the morning after it happened and asked him if we needed to set up a CIWS resupply for CG-70......he didn't think I was funny.

The HQ CO and I almost shared a Statement of Charges, $8k each.  Some equipment for generating SOI for ANCD's.  I knew what it looked like and where it was, but nobody asked me.  They just came to me after they couldn't find it and told me that they were making up a Statement of Charges.

Drove out to cold storage, walked to where it was on the shelf, brought it back to the armory and showed them.  Then I convinced them to take it off my hand receipt and turn it in, since it had not been used in living memory.

In the early 90's a handful of us went down to a public boat ramp out in the country on the Edisto river. There was a bunch of locals down there that day. I had just bought a Desert Eagle .44, so me and a buddy decided to go down the road a ways to do some target practice.  When we got back we noticed a crowd of people over by the boat ramp. Then along came another buddy of ours walking over to us with a very serious face. He said way to go, one of your bullets strayed off and hit this guy in the head. Right after that I heard an ambulance in the distance. I can't explain the feeling of doom that swept over me that point and time. As I am watching one of the other guys that we were with trying to give the guy CPR and seeing the bloody air bubbles come out of this dudes ears the ambulance pulled up. I am standing there in shock trying to figure out how one of my bullets could have even made it over this way as I was at least a half mile down the road shooting in the opposite direction and into a berm. Finally Bob tells me he is just fucking with me and that the guy had hit a tree limb hanging over the river while riding his jet ski and had not been hit by a bullet. I could have killed him. The guy on the jet ski didn't make it that day. The other guy with us giving CPR ended up getting awarded a medal by our squadron commander for his efforts.

I am shocked not one Marine was heard threatening to feed on of the lights to the camera guys.

Most of the Gunnery Sergeants I have known would have said something about shining that bright light right in their face.

A large can of Folgers would get you almost anything you could imagine!

Casey and Red Cloud were both on my stopovers in Korea.

RCP in 2011. Escorting some Soldiers from 1 place to another in RC East Afghanistan. vehicle hits an IED (Sadly all three died as the cab was ejected pretty fucking far).

Comotion ensues, along with calling of the 9 nine line. Once birds are in the area LT (convoy commander) throws smoke....

throws CS. All of the people near the LZ are choking, people downwind etc.

It was a sad day. But this bitch LT is probably a major now as negligence only seems to apply to enlisted.

Oof.


I was working an IED in Kandahar city and this soldier on the cordon got pissed off that there was a line of Afghans watching us so he goes to throw smoke at them.  He throws HC, and somehow manages to get it to land right underneath an MRAP with an open top turret.  I can hear the gunner choking and gasping for air on the radio as he's yelling "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??"  The line of Afghans just sat there unfazed.

Perfect!