There were quite a few in the early 70s.

We had a Catholic Chaplain that was a real fire pisser. Airborne-Ranger type that carried his own M-16 every chance he had in the field. The guy actually took a straight razor awway from a pimp and beat the hell out of him for not keeping his stable cleaned up.


Then we had a 1SG that was a TINY little guy that feared nothing. One time he actually put a milk crate down in front of a tall recaltricent soldier, stood up on it and slapped the shit out of him.

Another 1Sg coulden't read very well, so he'd memorize the battery roster. When he got to the end, he'd say 'Sum Total' and somebody would yell "Here!" Story was, if nobody answered, he'd run around looking for Private Sum Total all day.(It was bullshit.)

One day old Top came out to formation and said: "Last night one a you guys shit in the corner of the motor pool, and I'm gonna find out who did it. Now some a you guys are gonna try tell me some dog did it, but you can't fool Old Top because I ain't never heard of no dog usin' no toilet paper!"

God, we had some real characters back then.

One guy in my shop never showered.  Ever.  He also ate nothing but Popeyes chicken and microwaveable popcorn (no joke, no one EVER saw him eat anything else, even his roomate).  

my God, and I thought we had some caracters in college...

when I was at FT there was an NCO at the CATM range who looked like dave chapelle, except he was no shit 4'5 while wearing high heels.  this guy was SHORT.  I was taller than him when i was in 2nd grade.  Anyway, he had the extreme pleasure of demoralizing the future officers of the USAF every time they remotely fucked up on the firing line.... he had a special tallent for making you feel much shorter than he was, and you could tell he took great joy in it.

In my regiment we had a firearms instructor who would sometimes stand by the targets at 100 meters while soldiers were shooting, and yell back at the firing line. He also had a reputation for having killed a private, but the story had grown in the telling - a private did die at his hands during training (when he was making the guy do pushups or something), but it turned out the kid had an undetected heart condition, so it's not like this guy actually "killed him" - but he was certainly famous throughout the regiment.

My first Platoon Sergeant.

He ALWAYS had a little smile on his face.
Granted, there were times the smile almost disappeared, but there was always something there.  As he was in Viet Nam with the 5th Infantry Division, and the fact that he often (about once a month) checked out with a shrink had something to do with it.

In boot camp one of our CC's also had a twin brother that was stationed at a nearby unit. He would come over sometimes and dress just like his brother. For example, the CC would walk in a building's door, leaving us alone for a few seconds then his twin brother would "magically" be standing behind us a few seconds later. It was kind of rattling at the time, nobody thought of him having a twin brother, we just thought he was real fast. They didn't tell us until after graduation.  

We had a CO that used to always talk about doing the "king's work" when he was addressing the crew and talked about how we should be "good subjects", everybody thought that was kinda strange.

No question...old Marine Corps Warrant Officers are the strangest thing in the military that go on two legs.

My old OC was one of the last true "Gunners" (bursting grenade collar rank insignia). He met up with an old Vietnam buddy, got shitfaced, then they had an arguement about who had the biggest intestines. They settled the issue by both taking craps in the woods.

Quoted: One guy in my shop never showered.  Ever.  He also ate nothing but Popeyes chicken and microwaveable popcorn (no joke, no one EVER saw him eat anything else, even his roomate).

Man, too many stories here.

One guy in Nuke school was known for stinking like ass.  I walked on by his advisor's office one day when I caught a tirade - something like, " I can't order you to shower every morning, but I can order you to wear a clean uniform.  You will drop your drawers for a uniform inspection at 0715 every morning before class."

19 year old guys on comrats - Buying thier own food instead of Mom or the Navy making it for them.  A few cases of malnutrition here.

Another guy lived on cigarettes, Diet Coke, and whatever scraps of food he managed to bum.  Really cool guy, one of our little crowd.  We usually made a PB&J for him at the mess hall and brought him other munchies.  Some folks would rather starve then *buy* food.  

Oh yeah, Phast Phreddie, our engineer, was another odd fellow.  He was a leutenant, wearing lt. commander leaves while in that billet.

I got out, and heard he was the senior officer investigating that sub sinking the Japanese school trawler at Pearl Harbor.  

The guy had 3 stars on his shoulder by then.