I was on the Suribachi and AE, I was the editor of the 'underground' plan of the day, usually a one page humor filled pot shots at life aboard the Bachi boat...I was the "Phantom Growler" call up to the X.O. I would go from office to office and crank that old growler right off the wall until the X.O. picked it up,usually, then tell him"Go back to sleep,it's a bad dream"---this was actually an old tradition handed down to us from the original sinners in the Deck department...

An old one was take a card board box turned upside down that kept "moving". The old salts were explaining to the guys standing around that there was a Sea Bat in it. What made it move was the piece of rubber band or string that was being pulled by someone who was hidden from the crowd.

Then there was the mail watch duty where we'd send up newbie to stand on the flight deck with a saftey vest and a hook and tell him to wait for the mail helicopter and hook the mail bag.

wed give a newbie a shoval and tell him to pick up the class one(our chow), or make a newbie jump up and down "REAL HARD" on top of a track to do a suspension test.

We would booby trap and trip wire places and objects. We used smoke or CS grenade striker heads from training and put shotgun shell primers in them. Then booby trap someones refridgerator or othe objects. Like the CQ's typewriter ( As it scrolled it would put more tension on the paper clip we used as a pin, until it pulled free.), or his chair.

We also trip wired the path to the flag pole in the mornings. Scared the pee-pee outta people on the detail. Another flag detail prank was to place some form of citrus fruit in the cannon. Amazing what a 10gauge blank will do to an orange or grapefruit. Not to mention the mess on the parade field.

In the winter time we would take spray bottles of water to the flagpole and ice the ropes and cleat together.

Range policing at Grafenweir we found a case of artillery simulators that didn't make it in the dumper.  I took 2 and wired them together on the end of about a 1/4 mile of commo wire. That night I placed them in the CO's pit that held the fuel cans, just out side his tent, for winter heat in tent city (this was summer).  We ran our wire to an uninhabited portion of tent city and stuck the to wires into an out let.

SHBOOM, SHBOOM!

Run like hell, pissing my pants because I was laughing so hard.

One of the gun (105mm towed howitzer) sections decided to get our new supply sargeant, as he was new to Artillery, and hardly ever came to the field.  As a gesture of "friendship" they offered to let him pull the lanyard during a fire mission.

Beforehand, they told him that the only serious problem that could happen was a misfire, and if that happened he had better run like hell !!

Of course they didn't load a round, so when he pulled the lanyard nothing happened.  They made a HUGE deal of getting away from the gun-line, and he tripped all over himself and the camo netting trying to get out of there.  The look of terror on his face was f'ing hilarious !!  Had some of the guys rolling on the ground...

Where is a video camera when you need one ?

Post#3, Am Embassy London was at the consular section...we would spray a little mace through a hole in the floor that went directly above the pisser in the mens room when a rude or otherwise objectionabls ahole went to relieve himself....then standby to watch the inevitable...very funny.

Heh heh.  So many stories...

One of my favorites is watching the grunts help "push start" a CH-46.

Send the Cherries to:

Get a can of riser grease
Get some canopy lights
Get a box of grid squares
etc...

On the other hand, whe I was at the JFK Special Warfare Center, some guys in G co. "Created" a phantom E-4 Corporal named "Lance Faygor", with a made up SSN and everything. I believe they even faked up his record jacket! I shit you not!

Just prior to afternoon formation, these guys would call the CQ desk from a pay phone, and leave a message that:
His mom called,
They were a merchant on Yadkin Rd, and Faygor had written a bad check,
Once called in and played Provost Marshal about same check...

Needless to say, the 1SG was PISSED every freakin' day at final formation, would rant & rave at the platoon sgts about this AWOL character (whom the platoon sgts knew nothing)!!!

THAT was the funniest one.

A buddy of mine who was Field Arty said that another Field Arty bat. had put a dead cat in their water buffalo while on an FTE.

They didn't realize what was happening until a lot of the guys started feeling "not so well" after drinking out of the buffalo.

Yummy!

D.

Damn!  You people are WEIRD!

All we ever did was mess with the MP's - you know, create havoc on one end of the post, get them responding, then boobytrap their barracks while they were gone.  Once, the night I PCS'd, we threw a yellow smoke into the back of one of their squad cars.

Other than that, we would "ambush" REMF's with paintball guns from time to time.  Maybe that's why our CO kept us in the field so much.

I pulled the “sea bat” routine once when I was OOD on a slow watch. Told the crew over the 1MC how this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see an animal that is on the endangered species list. Told them that sea bats were ferocious so for safety reasons, only one person could see it at a time.  Also told them that we had to make this a quick evolution to give everyone an opportunity to see it and because we had to release it back into the wild quickly if it was expected to survive.  Must have had half of the crew come up to see it. Had them line up on the starboard side just aft of the starboard break, and the MAA would let only one person on the focsle at a time to see it.  We had a large cardboard box with the BM1 holding it down so the sea bat couldn’t get out.   He shook the box frequently for a good show.  We also had several people holding sweepers in the general area.  When the person bent over to look in the box, the guys with the brooms would smack him on the ass.  Pretty funny.  I had a great view from the bridge.  After the “sucker” received the beating, we sent him back through the port side break so he couldn’t spill the beans. We also piped it over CCTV so others on the ship could watch.

Oh yeah. I forgot all sea stories are supposed to begin with “This is a no shitter…”

Other standbys to send newbies to fetch:
-Keys to the sea chest
-10 feet of waterline
-SM (or rating of your choice) punch
-Can of relative bearing grease
-A bleed air sample (on gas turbine ships)
-Bucket of steam
-etc.

One time I witnessed a female midshipman come into CIC and request permission to “blow the TAO tube”

I was a prankster in the Army. many stories.
One that I dont think I have posted yet is..
My CSM was on my butt for a while and one morning I got pissed and casualy threw a dozen eggs out of my 4th story window and across the street onto CSM Bosheers VWRabbit. That was no big deal but have you ever tried to remove a frozen egg from paint? Did I mention there was 10" of snow on the car?
He wished aids on the persons mother that egged his car. Of course it would have been marginaly funny without his comment to the formation. After his comment I was the hero of the barrcks for a bit.

Well, I never served, but my father was Air Force for 23 years.  Was USAFA co 68.  He told me about when he was there, his class covered the planetarium (that's the little white dome shaped building for those who don't know)with sheets of tar (or something... not sure if my memory serves), but left a big '8' on one side, so it was a huge 8 ball!

(I know, kinda cheesy, but it's the USAFA!)

Then there was the time I found out that one of the pilots on our ship’s air det was very afraid of snakes.  We were in the Persian Gulf (with lots of sea snakes).  He knew they were poisonous, and I told him that we had to watch out when we were at anchor because they could climb the anchor chain and get on the ship. The anchor watch would usually keep them knocked off, but occasionally one would slip through and make it into the living quarters at night.  He had a rack on the bottom so he really needed to watch out.  I got some help to corroborate my story to keep him adequately paranoid.  Eventually we did anchor off of Quatar (sp?). Rigged his rack with a rubber snake between the mattress and the bulkhead with some fishing line tied to it and routed so the snake could be pulled over him.  That night, just after he went to sleep, we had several people run down the passageway making all kinds of commotion about a sea snake being loose on the ship.  Just as he woke up and realized what was happening, we pulled the snake over his chest.  He slept in the top rack after that.

Here`s another.
We had a captain that hated down time, he had us doing all sorts of mundane stuff.
One of his favorite things was to combine team sports and mop4. Gas mask, booties everything.
One day he had us play soccer. Now there was this platoon sargent of mine that hated me and would give me continual greif. We even had a talk out back.
So there we wre, total anonymity cause of the mask, just a peice of tape around our arm to distinguish the two teams.
I stuck another peice of tape to said pltn sgt, and waited till the ball came within a couple of feet before I gave a solid kick to the midsection of hid innards, missed the ball by 4 feet.
Everyone walked away from the mad ssgt on the ground and I was able to melt away. He didnt pick me for police call for a long time. He eventually was brought up on rape charges on a german female, statutory type, when I left he was awaiting trail.
It may not sound funny but eeveryone on that soccer field thought so after the Cpt gave us a talking to about gamemanship, then said 'play ball' as ssgt C was still in the fetal position.
--------------------

Pranks....on a slow cruise to hawaii on the USS New Jersey  I had a couple of newbies in my section and i had some navy frieds who had thw same. We posted 1 Marine and 1 salior on Mail bouy watch.... lasted all day. And thier was B1RD watch, and for the new 2d lts we had bos of grid squares, night vision liquid and the famous hand held grendade launcher. But my favorit.....  late one night my recon team was getting back from the field and i found a duty NCO sleeping at his post... soooo we rigged a arty similator and boby trapped him....BANG.... HEHEHE woke up with a bank. I guess that it was better that NJP. lucky he was not one of my Marines.

I was offpost with a budy at his place.  We took his air rifle out to the pond and shot a duck for dinner.  Instead of just plucking and gutting, he skinned it.  Later that night when I returned to the barracks, I hung the duckskin feathers on a guys door, and put the guts on his bed.

I guess it freaked him out.  Maybe he was messing with a freaky crowd.

I still remember standing before top and him asking me, "what's with the chicken?"

I've been in on many of the pranks described by [b]ScottA[/b]; rolls of flight quarters, requests to blow the MPA, requests to blow fallopian tubes, sound-powered phone batteries, etc. Most of my stuff bordered on criminal acts. We would make "bilge wine," get the engineering mess cranks to steal from the wardroom mess and have shrimp boils or steak dinners in the pit, impersonate the XO or CHENG and order the bridge to do all kinds of crazy stuff on the 1MC, ask for a special wake up call for the XO (they thought it was him asking). "Bluing" was always fun. Put a spot of bluing on a WTD dog, or somewhere else inconspicuous and the next thing you know everyone has it smeared all over themselves and and evrything else. We'd get various JOs in the pit trying to get their PQS done for their SWO pin and have them trace out the cooling water system for the hand rails. I used to derive particular pleasure in abusing the quarterdeck via the Dimension 2000 telephone system. There's a particular code that can be dialed, *54 if my memory is correct, that will make the telephones ring like it's an outside call. I'd then proceed to tell some deck ape how I was Lieutenant so-and-so with PWC and how they as quarterdeck watch needed to flush the commodes aboard ship in order to remove the sea water that was contaminating our sewage system on base. On my first boat, we would shut off the flushing main which came off a reducer in the pit. The valves leaked by enough so that the engineering/supply head would still receive enough pressure to function. Everyone above us did not and this included deck berthing, OPS/XNAV berthing, CPO berthing, and the wardroom. You can pretty well imagine what would happen next. Lastly, we'd hardass the messdecks if we were denied midrats or something else chickenshit happened. The safeties for the steam system that they used were right in the galley. We'd head back into the pit and jack up the pressure (or cut it off if it'd put them in a bind) and cause the galley to be cleared. Those were the days.

we would send the new guys in the shops to the line shack to get thier mail, when they did the line guys would dog pile them and tape them to the chairs. actually hauled one guy up to the flight deck like that. we got in pretty good trouble though, the air boss didn't like us doing that during flight ops. also once took a can of scrubbing bubbles and sprayed it on a guy that was sleeping during the night shift in the line shack, covered him from chest to feet..lit it on fire then woke him up. funny as sh*t to see him jumping up and running around. the fumes would burn but it would never burn the person.

Lots of AX-Quals!!

Tell the boot he needs
to qualify with the ax (from a HMMWV).
Place a quarter on a stump,
tell him if he can hit
the quarter blindfolded,
he will be qualified
and will get a 72.

So, you have him remove his cover,
place the blindfold on him,
then place his cover over the stump.

Now just hold in your laughter as
the boot begins madly hacking
up his cover as you prod him on
"You missed keep trying."
And of course,
he must wear the sliced and
diced cover for the rest of the day.

I would have thought some former Navy snipes would be posting on this thread as one of the "traditions" of being a snipe is getting "greased" - never had the pleasure myself...  Oh yeah, don't know if this would count as a "prank" but crossing the equator and being a wog is definitely not fun[;)]

In boot camp all we would do is "short sheet" their rack.
GG

TRIM PARTY!!!  Only performed on a new DO (Diving Officer).  First, get every off-watch swinging dick you can find and head forward.  30-40 guys at ~150# each can add up over 5000#.  DO's often transfer amounts in the hundreds of pounds to get a good trim.  After 5 minutes or so (long enough for the DO to have to pump aft to keep a trim) everyone heads aft for shaft alley.  Now the DO has the trim party back there AND the 2-5K# of seawater he just pumped back there to maintain the trim.  "Wow, gotta pump forward now!"  Another 5 minutes or so and everyone heads forward again.  Do the math.  Usually, we'd hear over the 1MC "Secure the Trim Party aft.  This IS NOT a drill" spoken by a party-pooping Chief of the Watch after he got tired of all the pumping evolutions the DO ordered.  Still, they were fun.  The skipper absolutely LOVED them as he called a few himself.

CB

Cherries are fun, you can send them for all sorts of stuff
Grid squares, someone already mentioned
.50 cal magazines
"Run down to supply and get us some spotted paint"
Give a new guy a hammer and a piece of chalk. Have him walk down the side of the APC, Bradley, M1 (whatever armored vehicles you got)looking for soft and hard spots. Tell him to tap the side of the vehicle with the hammer and "draw little circles for soft spots and little "x" 's for the hard spots. That ones one of the best
Check track tension. Tell the cherry to jump up and down on the tracked vehicle while you watch from a distance....."No, higher! You have to jump higher" Good enough for the whole motor pool to roll on the ground laughing. When they're done jumping up and down on the vehicle, shake your head no and get real serious. "Damn, that's no good, run down and ask the chief for a can of track tension, this one's had it"
Damn, there were some good times. It's too bad that all the bad ones are the ones I remember most, the ones that helped me to get out last week.

MRE Bombs were great too. Almost forgot.
Take an MRE heater, crumble it up and put it into an empty 1 liter soda bottle. Dump some water in, replace the cap and toss it to wherever you want to wake somebody up in a HURRY. The 1 liter bottles worked the best. They were worth saving at home and bringing to the field.
Were coming out of the field once in the 82nd, and when some joker tossed an MRE bomb, the SHTF with the 1SG. Threats of UCMJ action were heard and understood

1968 - old hands had convinced FNG that gekos,(those little lizzards they use in auto ins. adds) were more deadly than a step and 1/2 snake.  You guessed it, little sh$t had put 5 holes thru hooch cover before we could shut him down.-- Made him tell LT it was an AD or we would drown him.  Ahhh to be young and dumb and full of c$%. -Good Shootin- ALLONS11

NAVY DENTAL CORPS:

My favorite was having a room full of Jarhead patients and a new female dental assistant fresh out of "C" school...

We'd put fake names on the sign in sheet for her to call out:  Seaman Samples, Captain Crunch, Major Minor.

We use different restorative materials in Dentistry... composite resin (comes in shades) and amalgam alloy (no shades), we'd often tell a new assistant to go and get the Amalgam shade guide from Lt. So and so...

Sometimes in Oral Surgery when we sedated a patient, before they woke up, we'd take a dusty boot and make a boot print on their chest!

If we had a Jarhead who thought he was Rambo Badd Ass, when cleaning teeth we use a red dye to disclose/stain plaque on the teeth... well Mr. Badass got a little extra on his lips (looks like lipstick).

I once saw an Oral Surgeon about to remove a tooth on a young guy fresh outta boot camp... he told him it was gonna be a tough extraction and that he'd have to use "Dental Dynamite"... the Surgeon took a cotton roll with some floss stuck in it, put it in the guys mouth and lit the floss on fire and then ran out of the room shouting "fire in the hole"!  Mr. Bootcamp came running out of the operatory crying!

Bwahahaha.... the good 'ol days!

M.

"... and this one time when I was EOD camp..."

[img]http://www.tromix.com/2001_images/Bombsquad_2.gif[/img]

Ones I did (or participated in):

Started several wild and often malicious rumors. Rumor Intelligence (RUMINT)is the other form of intelligence. The best place to do this is in the mess hall when you are eating with your friends and someone at a nearby table is obviously listening to your conversation. The best one was the rumor that our Battallion was deploying to Thailand for an exercise, we would be staying in a four star hotel, and that we would have a full week of tourist-type PR duties. That one tokk off so fast that our First Sergeant was briefing us on it at morning formation the next day.

For formal military ceremonies, put ping pong balls (anything heavier is potentially lethal) in the bore of the 75mm pack howitizer used for the salute during parades and such. Hilarity ensues.

Duck tape the heavy sleeper a**hole Platoon Sergeant to their cot and drag them out into a nearby road. Extra points if a high-ranking officer finds him before anyone in your company.

Sprinkle CS powder on the floorboards of a truck or Hum-vee. This is the gift that keeps on giving and takes weeks to get out. I was on the victim end of this at first, and was so impressed by the brialliance and ongoing misery that I shared it with the world for the next several years.

Add unauthorized, homemade map symbols to the map overlay when an unpopular coworker is scheduled to brief a General.
3-Star: "What is that unit by the coastline?"
Intel Analyst: What, sir?"
3-Star: "That green blob by the Capitol Mech Division?"
Intel Analyst: "Uhhhh...."
3-Star: "What the hell is it, Specialist?"
Intel Analyst: "It appears to be Godzilla, sir."
3-Star storms out, briefing unfininshed.

Find someone sleeping on guard duty. Take a chem light that has been popped a few hours before. The contents will be under pressure. Carefully make a hole in the chem light, pointing away from you and at the guard's back. Spray their back with the glowing fluid. Wait for them to show up at the CP after they have been relieved. Make sure your buddies and Platoon Sergeant are on hand to ask pointed questions.

More:

My personal favorite. This only works when you ae the TC on an M113 or M577. Your unit has to be really hard core about the "React to an Anti-Armor Ambush" drill, which is for the track to manuver wildly and the TC to lay down supressive fire at the missile launch site.

Throw a smoke grenade or shoot a 40mm smoke into the treeline to the left (the track is so loud that the driver can't hear a 40mm being fired).

Let the driver know that you are being attacked.

Start your "supressive fire." This is best performed by using an M16 on full auto or burst, and holding the ejection port directly over the driver's head and slightly to the rear.

Dump 30 rounds of hot brass down the driver's shirt/coveralls.

When he stops driving and starts screaming, trying to get the brass out of his shirt, kick him in the back, head or wherever he is exposed, yelling "Drive, you maggot! You'll kill us all!"

Repeat as often as you have smoke grenades and blanks.

Even more:

In classified spaces, the access badge is required at all times and is rigidly enforced. Sometimes, your slacker, irratating cowrokers will get "hot" during their exertions to avoid real work, and will remove their BDU shirt, forgeting to secure their access badge.

Subtly "secure" the badge for them. What happens next is only limited by your imagination. They have to have a badge before they can even go down the hallway to get a drink or use the bathroom. Failure to wear a badge will lead to immediate arrest and possible disciplinary action.

Some uses for your "new" badge:
-Hide it (not very imaginative, but a classic).
-Put it out in plain sight, but where it is still unavailable. Jam the first 1/4 of an inch or so into the ubiquitous shredders and reverse the blades. The badge can't be removed without taking the shredder apart, a 2-3 hour operation.
-Put the badges in the "high voltage" area of the various items of dangerous electronic equipment.
-Clip it to the ceiling just out of reach.
-Put it on the boss's desk.
-Switch it with other slacker's badges. Then all of them will get arrested by the MPs when they try to go to lunch.
-Alter it. My personal favorite is glueing a picture of a nice, well known person (like Stalin, Hitler, Kim-il-Sung, Mickey Mouse, a porn star or the CG) over the person's picture, and then return it to their shirt. Even if they don't get arrested, if an NCO or officer spots it, the slacker is screwed.

We used to go around to the other guns in the battery position and steal the M2s off their turrets until "smoke" chewed our ass about it. Made midnight "parts runs" on enemy (2AD) motor pools, also. In Germany, on a newbie's first monthly alert(which noone ever told them about, btw) we would be loading up the guns and sh*t getting ready to roll out, and newbie would always ask what was going on. We'd tell him that the Czechs had crossed the border, and we were heading to defensive positions. LMAO, you shoulda seen the color drain from their faces. They got me on this one, too

On a submarine, we in the engineroom used to keep our bitch book called the "atta-boy log."  This was often a running cutting rant against Naval stupidity and the command in general.

This book was kept under better control than nuclear codes by the junior enlisted.  Once in a while an officer would find it and write in it too - morale was that bad.  There was once a command sponsored hunt for it.  Damn, noone could find it.

Mr. Brown, a LT lifer wannabee, found it and signed it.

Mr "Tyau the EEOW," found it in a desk drawer oneday when security was lax.  He opened it up and started transcribing long passages on his own notebook.  We looked at each other and started sweating about a Captain's Mast about slanderous words that we all directed towards teh officers appointed over us and all that BS.    

It turns out he was writing a command counseling chit on our hated E-7 LPO.
 

Ft. Sill during AIT, we were doing an FTX and the challenge and password for the FP was "boy scout."  A drill sergeant drove up and I challenged him with:

"Do you like little boys?"

His face was priceless.

Way too many stories to tell. Heres a couple:
Remember who your best friend is (your M-16) in the Army. Remember how the Cadre would threaten you with Article 15's if you were caught without your Rifle when they were signed out for training. Remember sleeping with your M-16 when you were bivouaced, hugging it real tight so that the cadre could not sneak up on you and try to steal it from you. Had one try sneaking up on me one night. When he tried feeling around in the dark for my rifle I butt-stroked him along side the head with it. He was laying on the ground a couple minutes trying to decide wether to pass out or not. For some reason this Drill Instructor did not like me too well the rest of the basic training cycle.
On another bivouac I sneaked into the cadres
GP medium tent and took all their M-16's. I hid them and did not give them up until the whole battalion was going to have to physically pay
for my prank.
I was a Blackhawk Crewchief. There seems to always be an ongoing rivalry between the guys who do maintenance and the Crewchiefs. Have had my share of time doing both. When I was in a maintenance platoon our favorite thing to do to the Crewchiefs on overnight exercises were to sneak into there GP medium after dark and zip tie them to their cots and just leave them there.
One time our maintenance and flight platoons were so pissed off at each other about something that I can not even remember. We were flying out on a overnight exercise. When we reached our destination, as soon as the first helicopter was about to touch down maintenance and the crewchiefs were jumping off them and having a mass fight on the ground leaving the pilots sitting in their birds enjoying every minute of it. They and the Lt. Colonel just let us go at it for about half an hour. You never saw so many black eyes, bloody noses and fat lips.