Ironically, it turns out the reason the butterflies were there was because nobody fucked with them inside the impact areas.  Then they stop training to "protect" them...

HHC, 122nd Sig BN, Camp Casey.
E5 busted to E1, lost his TS clearance,
could no longer work his MOS, believe it was 31S Comsec Equipment Repairer, booted out of the company for selling cheese off-post.
Large black market in the 80s for lots of items from the PX, especially cheese and pretty much anything from the class 6 store.
No playing dumb either, it was drummed into your head, get caught selling cheese or booze downtown, you’re going pay the piper.

I ended up becoming the 1sgt and chaptering him out of the Army, he would constantly snitch on everybody, whine about having to work. He took a few beatings from his crew and still wouldnt square himself away. He came whining to me about an ass kicking he took in the barracks I looked at him and asked if he had any witnesses that would vouge for his so called assault and he said yeah the guys who beat me

Ah yes we had one at Fort Riley called Camp Forsythe, totally old school, they slept in WWII barracks with no A/C and took drill sergeants fresh off the trail and put them back in drill status and pay. They took the biggest and meanest drill sergeants and put them there, you had a choice 45 and 45 or 30 days at camp blood. No one and I mean no one came back from there with an attitude, fat bodys got sent there also, they came back PT studs

Ah yes we had one at Fort Riley called Camp Forsythe, totally old school, they slept in WWII barracks with no A/C and took drill sergeants fresh off the trail and put them back in drill status and pay. They took the biggest and meanest drill sergeants and put them there, you had a choice 45 and 45 or 30 days at camp blood. No one and I mean no one came back from there with an attitude, fat bodys got sent there also, they came back PT studs

Korea 89-  I was flying Medivac out of Casey w/ 377th.  Memory is foggy but I believe it was a 2nd LT who decided it was a good time to teach a PVT how to drive a M113 at night, in the rain and on the side of a mountain. PVT rolled it down the side of that mountain, I want to say 2 or 3 dead.

Korea 89. Korean farmers were illegally farming a  field up by DMZ they had found, Well that field happened to be impact area on Arty range.  Well eventually some 155 came in when they were out in the field and we had to go fly out the injured survivors. I know several died but the ROK army took them out of there.

Hunter AAF - Conducting STABO qualification at night in Blackhawks. They always got some poor enlisted kid to be the Ginny pig and be flown around in the harness. Kind of a right of passage for the new PVTs to the unit to take a trip on the end of the rope. As part of the trip they were usually dunked them in the River for lol's.

So when you are hooked in to the harness and secured you give a wave to the Crewchief in the bird hovering over you that you are ready to go. On this night just as the rope starts to come tight the poor PVT on the end of the rope starts waving his arms franticly. Crew chief figures he is just being dramatic and gives the go ahead to pilots to make the short flight and the dunk in the river. Crew Chief noticed the kid kind of go limp shortly after leaving the ground but doesn't think much of it. Well turns out this guy had somehow gotten one of his balls stuck under the strap of his harness (must of had some big balls) and he was waving his hands to signal a problem as his ball was being squished from his own weight, before blacking out from the pain. Medics asked why he was soaking wet when they got to him and that was the end of the dunks in the river.



 

Bro Riley was wild, I was there twice...I know that post like the wrinkles on my nutsack..killed alot of deer on that post.
One winter gunnery at MPRC my company 1st Sgt is pissed because we will be at gunnery during the rut, he clears it with the Bn Co and BN CSM to go bowhunt during our down time at the range. A couple other company Tops join it, being I was the Company Senior medic and a bowhunter I got to take all the first shirts to their perspective hunting areas and then pick them up later in the day. One evening they were all at the BN BUB so I had my driver take me out in the HMMV and drop me off at my treestand I had set up I ended up shooting 3 does that night. I put them in the Bn walk in reefer, we were standing around watching the cooks start to cut them up for chow the next day when the Bn CO comes in and congratulates the 1st Sgts on a great hunt, my top said he shot them all and points at me...the BC laughed his ass off and told him he was slipping. After the BC leaves the BN XO walks in and absolutely loses his shit, threatens everybody with dereliction of duty. The poor CSM get yelled at for not controlling his NCOs ...that was it not more hunting in the field...still hate that cocksucker..

I brain farted. I've legitimately never seen an Air Force Humvee locked up like that. The percentage of AF folks who do not know how to start a Humvee is probably shockingly high, outside of a handful of careerfields.

The Number one Killer of soldiers at Fort Riley is Fort Riley

This is the way

I know that farmer, he also owns the christmas tree farm on wildcat creek road. yes his cornfield gets plowed more by the gun bunies at riley that the hookers at the titty bars in JC

Walking into a minefield that my unit didn't know about but neighboring units did.

Honestly though, it was worth it to not have to deal with obamacare and get free vehicle registration

There was a Marine hold-under waiting for classes at DLI (Defense Language Institute) for Pashto. So he was the duty van driver. Bored 19 year old, with keys to a 15 passenger van.

So in no time he is out joy riding in the van, and gets to doing doughnuts in the parking lots. His zest for adventure got the better of him, and he wrapped the van around a light pole.

So an investigation commences, a lieutenant with clipboard is dispatched to take down the information and facts of the case to determine liability. The kid states everything matter of factly, without emotion or remorse, which ticked off the investigator, who got fed up and said, "Didn't you think that you could've gotten hurt doing that!!?"

Kid replied, "no, I can't get hurt"

Lieutenant pauses, "come again son?"

"I can't get hurt", and then proceeds to explain that he is a "daywalker", and that you cannot hurt or kill vampires. Kid was serious as a heart attack.

Kid was no longer employed by the Marine Corps.

While I was providing security escort duties to a Pershing 2 missile unit FTX (which was also always accompanied by German Polezei because we were always followed by several hundred Greenpeace protesters and hippies) one of the artillery men working the TEL (transporter, Erector, Launcher) decided to fuck with the protestors and took the huge CO2 fire extinguisher on the other side of the TEL, as the missile reached vertical, discharged the CO2 fire extinguisher under the missile exhaust nozzle to make it look like the (nuclear) missile was about to launch.

Greenpeace hippies, Polezei and everyone else not in the know goes running franticly. It was one of those huge extinguishers on a wheeled cart, not one of the 20 pounders you use to chill a six pack.

He spent some time in Mannheim for that international incident.

Back on Okinawa around 1977 our duty driver, after making a run to Camp Zukeran, stopped off out in town to see his girlfriend at a bar not to far from our base.  As he was just leaving, a road master noticed him and turned around.   Our knuckle head decided to try and outrun him.  He ended up getting caught after getting the van stuck between two buildings on a narrow path.

USAF E4 totaled one of the Kia rentals by hitting one of trees on the perimeter road at Kuwait International.  Hit a tree in the desert.

The best part was the horn blaring in the background while he radioed that in.

He spent a lot of time giving vehicle safety briefings after that.

Worth it.

Air dropping a jeep trailer on a training mission in the middle of the night, somewhere in bumfuck Louisiana.

We're within 30 seconds of TOT. Looking out the back, I can't see shit. Dark as hell, no moon, and no lights on the ground.

Navigator says, "Nav's timing. 5...4...3...2...1...GREEN LIGHT!"

As I watch the extraction chute swing down and head out the back, I hear the Nav yell, "NO! WAIT!"

Sorry Nav, but once that extraction chute starts to swing down, shit is happening and there ain't no stopping it.

To this day I have no idea where we the Navigator dropped that trailer.

He gave up a TS clearance to become a stolen cheese vendor?

Small post in ROK in 1995 as best I can recall. MOUT training in a former dry cleaners on a closed camp resulted in the discovery of some rope that was basically clothesline.

Fast forward back to our little, one infantry company, post and some bored and aspiring assault climbers. Some privates tried rappelling from a retaining wall, about a story or more height. Clothesline breaks as do both wrists on the troop. I loved this kid, super nice and he loved having a good time. Well, off to Crippler for quite awhile.

The ensuing investigation involved the big question of who taught them how to tie a Swiss seat and a medic getting jammed up. The medic allegedly said it was his day off when he was summoned.

When it was all over, some smart ass drew a crime scene chalk outline of a body where the incident happened.

Desert Storm 82nd.
Just befor deploying we got a new BC.
Came from SF to command troops to get his eagle .
We thought he would be a good BC being SF but found out he was one of those officers who spent all his time on staff avoiding troop time.
In Saudia Arabia he and his diversity
hire SMG made life unbearable.
 The entire BN was crammed in a building big enough for a company nerves were frayed.
We were then sent out to the desert to live in tents for another month and pretty much just fuvked with.

So one day mr SF gets a brain storm to rally the troops. We were to have a sunrise formation so at 0400 were up 0500 we are put in a square BN formation by our lovely SMG and we wait and wait.
Just as the sun comes up mr SF comes
Bouncing out of his tent and starts the big ra ra speach "we are gonna kill Saddam" "The road home is thru Bagdad" he's waving his arms and jumping about and the BN doesn't say one word just stoic we stare at him.
The SMG walking around behind the company's telling us to cheer.
The BN just stares at him silently.
After 5 min he realized we ain't buying it. Called us to attention and dismissed us. I guess it sounded better in his head.
During this time the BN XO losses a GPS out of his vehicle they were brand new technology at the time and I was told cost 10k. The BC said it's okay we will wait for the war to start then claim it a combat loss. Then coming out of Iraq we stop at a shower facility take a much needed shower. One of the pvt had a bayonet stolen off his LBE, BC goes ape shit Ar 15 loss of pay reduction in rank thru the book at him for a $50. Bayonet.
Soon as we got back to Bragg he ran back to SF .

Another one, we went to the field for a week and had all of our water in the plastic Jerry cans. The whole platoon had been drinking it all day when one of our dark green Marines took a sip and said "Daaayumm yo, dat shit is SPICY!"

Turned out the platoon that used them before us had filled them with JP8 and almost everyone got sick and was sent back.

@leatherpuke 1/187th IN. We would have been there until October 08

Every Air Force Humvee that I have ever seen or driven was secured with that steel cable and the small brass padlock with the chain on it, the kind of lock that retained the key when it was unlocked.

We had CCF or Charlie's Chicken Farm.  Those guys did about 4,000 pushups a day and their issued weapons were shovels and rakes.  I knew a guy that was a two time graduate.

Okay, who are you and what shop? The engine or airframe shop?

An Army affirmative action hire showed up at the range in the lane next to me and couldn’t remember how to operate her 92FS. Had to give her a refresher.

Good thing she never needed it, it would have been a really small club.

Not a vendor, just for selling a relatively small amount to a local off-post.
The Army had / has a hard time keeping exchange store items off the black market.
At that time they let it be known play the game and get caught you're going down.

I remember that.  Our small group (responsible for the water purification and fuel point) was housed in the building next door. Shared the building with the Marine EOD team, Fire Fighters, and a few others.

Attached File

Lone Star Texas NG shot one of their searchlight tanks in the summer of '87 at Hood.  They also crashed a loaded UH-1 during the same training cycle killing many of those onboard.   I decided right then that one weekend a month and two weeks a year was not enough training.

Some things never change I guess. Late January or early February 2003. We are sitting in Kuwait. Living in crappy tents. Eating crappy food. No mail. No news. Half of our gear was stolen, and the other half is broken. The pessimists think we are just a dog and pony show for some UN resolution, and we are going to sit in the desert for months and then go home without doing anything. The optimists think we are going to get slimed with chemical weapons.

Morale not exactly the highest I ever saw.

Just before we flew over, they implement stop loss. Two of my guys are out on terminal leave. Pack their families up and start a dity move up to Alaska. They are up around Oregon or someplace, and the first sergeant has to call and tell them to park their wives, kids, and all their worldly possessions on the side of the road and beat feet back to Pendleton.

Right up there on the list of the most rotten things I ever saw happen to anybody.

Good men though. They showed up, drew their gear, and fell in.

The CO of the unit we were reinforcing is not happy about things in camp, so he decides he is going to motivate us. Whole reinforced battalion assembled around this truck, with him standing on the hood. Lots of nonsense I have forgotten. Totally unbecoming for an officer of his position. He ends with “if you don’t want to be here, there’s the road” with a big dramatic sweeping gesture off into the desert.

Probably sounded better in his head too. Doubt he was thinking about all of the stop loss guys when he planned that out.

I knew a kid that was a deserter from the Navy who got bread and water.

He got caught smoking marijuana on ship (he was a cook, said it was easy to sneak on board). Rather than face the consequences, he deserted and went on Dead tour for two years. He finally got arrested for drug possession and was handed back to the Navy covered in new tattoos, a long beard, and long dreads full of beads and bells. His grandmother came to see him and asked, “Are you gay?”

The Captain (or whoever was handling him) made a big show of having his face and head shaved then put him in the brig on bread and water. He said the shaving incident was pretty humiliating because they handcuffed him to a chair and made a bunch of other sailors watch and mock him.

Bad Conduct Discharge and they sent him on his way. I met him about a year later when he was working as a chef at a local restaurant. He had a good sense of humor about it.

Made me lol.

Ha!

We were putting a stick of STS onto the infield of a runway to control the field for C-17’s carrying helicopters as part of a mission rehearsal.  The first 2 guys go out followed by a bike. One more guy, but the next bike to go out got hung up in the door.  The jump master went to call a ‘no jump’ just as the bike cleared the door immediately followed by the rest of the team.  Instead of a tight group coming in to the approach end of the runway, there were chutes the entire length of the runway.  To add insult to injury, the wind did a 90 degree shift and was suddenly blowing across the runway... at 20 knots.  The second bike ended up next to the tower and 5 guys were scattered across a monster parking ramp, but somehow missed the concertina wire that was strung up everywhere.  One poor guy ended up running the length of the runway carrying all his gear to get into position.

At the end of the day, no broken bones, mission was completed, and the only damage was to one of the bikes that got drug through a gap in a concrete barrier.

@TarzanT

Was this at Holland DZ?

Spent a little time in that barracks myself. Iirc room 214. Facing the (now SMP), north/eastern half closer to I5. I believe about 10 years ago the chapel got converted to the SMP. There's some new(er?) barracks to the north now. Damn AAS Bn was always locked down for some dumb shit, no drinking for us. We were the 2nd or 3rd cycle to be in the above mentioned barracks, after the squadbay normally used finally began being condemned.

On firewatch I'd sweep the bottom of 3rd deck catwalk, then the walls, finally the actual 2nd deck catwalk. Then sweep the catwalk again. Usually watch was over by then.

Somewhere in my pics from KAF in 2004, I've got the ones showing where a 240 gunner put several rounds through the side rails of the LMTV she was in while maneuvering through a live fire range at Tarnak Farms.

@Strike6

It was at a lovely little spot of hell nicknamed ‘Fly City’.  We staged from there in ‘03 for OIF, but used it as a remote facility until the SF guys were killed by the rogue gate guard.  

Since we are telling stories about how various branches fuck up by enlisting or commissioning total fuckin losers I will relate the tale of a real waste of human flesh.

Stan is his name and fucking up and generally pissing off the command structure was his primary goal in life. He spent 285 days on restriction and extra duty in a one year time frame. I believe they were consecutive but here may have been a day or two between fuckups that had him at mast getting 45x45 and half pay for two months.

Stan was a Quartermaster and spent many watches on the bridge. He had access to the ships 1MC and did routine time checks from the Pilot House. He often stood watch with the OPS Officer that was a VERY portly fellow. I was sitting in the Liquid Cargo Control Room waiting to start an UNREP and hear the following announcement over the 1MC " Stand by for heavy rolls as MR. Cxxxxxxxs paces the Pilot House. I recognized Stan's' voice right away and nearly fell out of my chair laughing. He never got jammed up for that one.

Later on the cruise he thought it would be a good idea to fuck with the XO over the 1MC. Once again I'm in Cargo and hear over the 1MC ' I'll say it fast, I'll Say it quick. The WABASH XO CAN SUCK MY DICK." He got caught and went to mast once again and got 45x45 and half pay for two months.

His Swan song took place in the middle of the Indian Ocean. He had been to mast once again and the CO being very tired of Stan's shit gave him three days in the brig with bread and water. This would be Stan's second time visiting the Kitty Hawks brig. Apparently he didn't enjoy the first visit much. The Master at Arms escorted Stan to the helo deck for transport to the Kitty Hawk. Stan bolted from the escort and jumped into the ocean from the helo deck. Having a "man overboard" is never a good thing. Having a man overboard in a full battle group formation is even worse. The battle formation has to break up and now they need to launch the helo with the rescue swimmer. The rescue swimmer was just out of school and had never performed an actual rescue. Stan being the douche bag that he was nearly drowned the rescue swimmer. They finally get Stan back aboard the Wabash and he is placed under 24 hour guard in the infirmary to prevent him from hurting himself. He also was on IV fluids because he was pissing blood due to the impact his balls received from landing legs first in the ocean. The impact split his legs like a nut cracker.

After a few days recovery they sent Stan to a Navy head shinker in Subic Bay to evaluate his mental state. The shink decided that there was no mental defect and Stan was just a douche bag POS. He was slated to return to the Battle group and serve his brig time. Stan escapes from custody at Subic and for a final act of stupidity he does a swan dive into shit river. The Navy had finally decided they had had enough. Stan got a BCD and a ticket back to the states. He later did prison time in California.

Gulf War 1.
Guys had a dud LAW so they decided to take it apart with a leather-man to see how it worked.
It went boom, several guys got shrapnel in their asses.
Then they actually tried to get purple hearts for it (they didn't).

Probably not needed, but if you ever notice military people gravitate to each other. There is shared experience. I can't help trying to connect to my past.

Seriously? With open, or relatively recent open wounds?

m

Bravo company was performing table XII gunnery with the bradleys. One was 180 Deg off and shot in the wrong direction. Hit a Longbow that was on the ground refueling. Everything was shut down and no movement.
A berm was built so it couldn't happen again, its called banshee berm.

Another was a LT, the commander of a bradley told the driver to cross a flooded creek. It was too deep and the brad flipped. The gunner and the LT got out, the driver drowned.

I've posted this on here before, but here you go..

Had a SSG in our platoon.  He got promoted to SFC, and with that became the platoon sergeant.  One day on his way home from work he sees a car broke down on the side of the road.  Decides he likes the car stereo in it.  While in the process of taking it out the Fayetteville police pull up and ask him what's going on.  He gets busted back to E-6.  Bigger hit though was getting a bar to reenlistment that was going to put him out at around year 17.

Another one..  We got a new Platoon Leader.  2LT right out of training.  Nice guy.  After about 8 months he gets notice that due to a reduction in force they are discharging him in like 30 days.  He couldn't believe it.  He was planning on a career.  His dad was still in as an O-6.  He told me he had a degree in music and no idea what he was going to do.  And here's the kicker.  Apparently when he first came to the platoon they got him to sign for some stuff that no longer existed when he started to out process.  They hit him with a $1500 bill for some camo nets.

I was at Stewart with my dad in the early '80s when a Cobra who was doing instrument only flying at night flew into the rear of a Chinook. There was pieces of the two birds all over where the range control building is. Both crews were killed. This happened whatever year Haley's comet came through as I remember us climbing up some big fire watch tower trying to see the comet.

When I was stationed at Stewart we had two accidents on the same night. I think our battalion started the move around midnight. A transfer truck blew through the road guards when a Bradley was crossing the hardball and the truck T-boned the Bradley. Only the trucker was seriously hurt.

The second accident that night was when one of the Bradley's went off the side of a bridge when the driver's night sight went out. It landed upside down in the water and mud. It took two M88s to drag it out. They got the door open in the ramp and got everyone out. All injured. They then flipped it back upright and drug it back into the motor pool. The main gun was bent pretty good. I've got pictures somewhere of it when they drug it in.

There were a lot of officer RIFs in the early 90s drawdowns.  HQDA held retention boards looking for 2LTs and 1LTs to throw out before promotion just to make numbers.

D Company 1/9th IN, Korea

Company FSO supporting the worst platoon in the company going through Table XI. My FIST-V was abreast of Dragon 6 behind the platoon watching them prepare to breech a obstacle. I can’t remember whether they called the PL’s Bradley a mobility kill or he had a comms issue but he dismounts and starts running towards another Bradley to continue through the table. On the Company net, a Bradley crew calls out “Dismounts in the open!” and no shit slewed the turret to engage. The CO and the RSO immediately called cease fire and endex. The BN CO comes down from the tower and I was expecting him to chew everyone’s ass for almost shooting their PL. Surprisingly he talked to them like a disgusted dad and than threw the entire platoon off the range.