No shit there I was, Ramadi, Iraq. We got the call for additional support from one of our OPs (observation posts). My outfit was on the hook to lead EOD to outpost in case of need.

Just south of our outpost was a section of palm trees and reeds (along the banks of the Euphrates river). We had taken small arms, mortar, and RPG fire from that area in the past. We had taken to posting signs in that area that stated locals were not allowed there and could be shot on sight.

On this particular afternoon there was an Iraqi Military Aged Male (MAM) walking through the reeds of “no-mans land”. The OP tried to get the MAM to come to the OP through their loudspeaker, but the MAM wouldn’t come closer and he wouldn’t leave. So the SFC on site raised his M4 and shot the MAM in the side. The MAM then laid down just on the outskirts of reeds.

With EOD now on site, and our outfit also having robots, we sent our robots out to inspect the MAM, to insure that he was not strapped with explosives. When the robots got to the MAM he got up and started kicking them. We brought our robots back to keep them from getting damaged.

The next thing that we did was take EOD’s IED clearing/blast-proof vehicle: The Buffalo (they had one in the film Transformers) and we proceeded to put a large stick in the Buffalo’s retractable arm, so as to lift up the MAM’s man-skirt and see if he was packing explosives. When the Buffalo got to the man and started to lift his skirt the MAM got up, took the stick off of the Buffalo and started beating the Buffalo with the stick.

My First sergeant, who you may or may not remember from the Backscratcher story, suggested that we set up a Pop and Drop (A block of C-4 primed with a remote detonated electronic blasting cap) and have the robot lay it down by the MAM. As the SFC on site started to set up the Pop and Drop, our gunner Young Specialist Janelle started yelling, “I don’t think that’s legal, I don’t think that’s legal”, and therefore Top dropped that idea.

That is when the young E-5 EOD tech said, “this guy ain’t packing, I’m gonna drag his ass back here before he bleeds out.” Before any one could stop him he ran at the MAM, the MAM got up and started to run, The EOD tech tackled him, and subdued him.

Upon closer inspection it turned out that the MAM was Corky from Life Goes On retarded.

The SIGACT the following day read “The ___ Engineers shot a MAM around OP ___. The ___ EN and ___ EOD sent robots to check on the MAM’s status, the MAM fought off the robots. The ___ EOD sent their buffalo to check the MAM’s status, the MAM beat the Buffalo with a stick. The ___ EOD tackled and subdued the MAM. The MAM was questioned, treated, and released.”

This poor retarded bastard was just walking through the reeds and gets yelled at, shot, attacked with robots, poked with a stick from a Buffalo, almost blown to bits, and then tackled.

You just can’t make this shit up.

This story was related to me by one of my NCO’s, and as such I felt obliged to share it with you all. As told to me by SGT S.

No shit there I was, Fort Benning, Georgia 1990-something. My buddies and I were reading through our various sources of adult entertainment when we came along the topic of Penis Pumps. As it turned out, none of us had ever tried one, and after reading about how well they worked to increase the size of our man-parts, my squad made a pact to buy one for each of us.

Later that month 12 pumps arrived, and the only sounds one could hear late at night was akin to 12 bicycle tires being pumped manually.

Only one week later our brand new First Sergeant joined our outfit, and of course he was set to inspect the barracks. I was first to be inspected, and upon finding my manhood enhancer he got hot. “I know what this is, we had these in Nam! You are in some serious trouble! Though this one is kinda strange? Where do you inhale out of?”

That is when my LT stepped in, “Um, Top. That’s not a bong? That’s SGT S’s Penis pump?” Top got a disgusted look on his face and threw my pump across the room. Upon inspecting the rest of my squad mates and finding another, and yet another, Top put his hands on his hips and announced that “I must have the most well hung squad on this post, you buncha sick bastards.”

One day, back when I was still enlisted, I returned from leave to discover a new NCO in our office. For purposes of this site, I will call him SSG Figurine.

The first thing I noticed is about him is that he sat apart from all of the other soldiers in the room, and just kind of watched us. Is was kind of disconcerting. Occasionally, he would jot something down in a notebook. But even when he was writing, his attention would remain on us as we went about our work.

It was like he was the Jane Goodall of PSYOP troopers. Which, when you consider,the mentality of the average soldier, is a surprisingly good analogy.

So after a few days of this, I started asking questions. What’s the deal with the new guy? Does he actually do anything? Why is he taking notes on us?

Nobody had any real idea. Officially, he was a new senior illustrator for the Product Development Detachment that I worked in. But no-one ever saw him go near a computer, or draw anything. Rumors where beginning to circulate that he was a CID plant. (For non-Army that’s Criminal Investigation. Internal affairs for the Army. Speculation began to spread about who he was investigating, and for what.

If anyone attempted to speak directly with SSG Figurine he would be polite, but would pretty evade or ignore any questions about his previous units, or anything related to our job. And no one was allowed anywhere near his notebook.

After about a week of this he took to wandering around the office. He’d look over your shoulder while you were working, and ask odd questions. Sometimes he’d take notes off of what you told him.

“What are you working on today Specialist?”

“I’m making a poster for the anti-mine campaign in Mozambique.”

“I see.” scribble “And why are you using that photograph?”

“Ummm…because it’s a picture of the kind of landmine that is being used over there.”

“I see” scribble scribble “So what do you think about SGT German?”

“What? The guy in Headquarters?”

“Yeah him.” scribble

“Ummm he’s okay I guess. Why are you writing this down?”

“No reason. Just mind your own business Specialist.” scribble scribble

So as you can imagine after about a month everybody was really skitish about him. Some people were downright terrified of him.

And right when everybody was at their most paranoid, there was some kind of meeting with all of the E-5’s on up, at company headquarters. And SSG Figurines strange conduct was brought up, along the idea that he was a CID plant.

“Oh, I’m not CID” he revealed. “I was just bored, and had a notebook.”

There was a chill in the air as the soldiers of the 876^th EN BN loaded up for their logistical ground assault convoy. The weather here in Iraq had dipped down from the 140 degrees that most soldiers experienced when they had first arrived, to a frosty 65. Our mission was a night move, our purpose logistics, and the reason was to gain some of the excellent equipment being left for us by our state’s outgoing Guard units: Task Force Dragoon.

The final pre-combat checks and inspections were complete; everyone was talking via the radios, weapons were given their functions checks, and the route was deemed clear according to the latest intelligence. I gave the final safety brief, reminding all of the participants of the places that we would travel past during our trip. Upon leaving the gate it was ”Go Time”. Our crew-served weapons gunners scanned their sectors, the drivers focused on the road laid out ahead of them, the passengers scanned the sides of the road for possible IEDs, and I kept constant communications flowing with our air support who was watching our progress from the sky.

We were making great time as we passed by Fallujah, one of the apexes of the Sunni Triangle. You could see the walls and towers of the Abu Gharaib prison complex as we passed Abu Gharaib. Once we reached Baghdad we got turned around on an onramp, but quickly righted ourselves. We were passing through the second of the Sunni triangle cities.

As we passed by Camp Taji and its high walls my thoughts passed to my brother who is stationed there, and reflected momentarily that even though I am thousands of miles from my home, that a person with whom I had lived under the same roof with for fourteen years of my life was only a mile away. My thoughts quickly returned to the duty at hand as a call came up on my radio. A convoy ahead had been hit with an IED. This served as a grim reminder to maintain my focus. EOD was on the scene, and the area would be cleared by the time we made it to that area.

A quick stop by Camp Anaconda for fuel allowed us to stretch our legs and prepare for the final leg of our journey. We would bypass Balad next, and then Sumeria. Coming up to Tekrit we saw that the road was blocked off entering into the city of Saddam Hussein’s birth. We knew that this was coming and took the detour around the third corner of the Sunni Triangle. Soon we were able to take the bypass of Bayji, where we were warned not to go because “there are bad people there”. Eventually we arrived at our final destination; Camp Sumeral. I looked at my Global Positioning System (GPS), and noticed that we were very close to the city of Mosul, and the countries of Turkey and Azerbaijan.

We had made great time, arriving two hours ahead of schedule. With the exception of the Baghdad turnaround, it was a flawless convoy.

On the way back we were also making great time. Because of this I allowed my soldiers time for Pizza Hut or Burger King at Camp Anaconda. They had performed exceptionally and this was a reward that they could not receive at any post near Ramadi.

This turned out to be a good choice because as we prepared to depart Anaconda I was informed over the radio that an IED had been initiated on a convoy just south of Anaconda on the route that we were to take. Had we not allowed the extra time for pizza it would have been our convoy hit with that IED. The return trip back was thankfully uneventful.

Thank God for lifesaving Pizza.

Here it is, you Monday morning list of things you should probably not do.

(Submitted by Kennes Hendrickson)

• Not allowed to send soldiers to the motor pool for a can of air.
• Not allowed to send soldiers to the 1sg to ask for the pricky-8 for the radio
• Even if the platoon sergeant thought it would be funny
• Must not remove a soldiers canister from their gas mask
• Even if they are sleeping on duty
• Not allowed to send soldiers to range control to get keys to the drop zone
• There is no such duty to paint the flight lines
• Not allowed to refer to subordinates as my minions
• Not allowed to refer to subordinates as my little bastards
• Not allowed to tape corporals to chairs with 100 mile hour tape during lunch hour
• Nor allowed during duty hours
• Not even if they flunked out of jump master school twice
• Can not order soldiers to throw rocks at the same corporal
• Can not set up trip wires in the scif at Ft. Bragg in order to make the roving gaurds trip
• Not supposed to laugh at the NCOIC when she trips over the trip wire
• Not allowed to sell TA-50 on e-bay
• Not even if it is your annoying room mates TA-50
• Not allowed to call your 1sg a LEG even if he is one
• Can not laugh at your 1sg for being a reservist, because they have feeling too
• Must not tell locals in Hawaii that your MOS is Sub-terrain Pineapple growers, even if you work under a pineapple field and can not say what you do
• Not supposed to tell people they hate me because I am black, especially if I am white
• On Sicily drop zone at 0100 when the platoon sergeant is looking for his poncho, not supposed to take the token Mexican kid to him
• Can not hide your platoon sergeants poncho from him on jumps
• Not allowed to ask the battalion CSM why you always have to remind him he is a sergeant major
• Can not inject the “Army, it’s so easy a caveman can do it” picture into a power point presentation intended for the battalion commander
• Even if he thinks it is funny
• Can not even attempt to DX my neighbor
• Not allowed to have an EPW camp of field mice in an MRE box
• Not allowed to execute mice that were captured during time of war
• Birth certificate and high school diploma do not count for promotion points
• During war fighters can not brief the ACE chief on enemy activity in Rhode Island
• Even if you believe they are communist
• Can not fuel a generator while smoking a cigarette
• Not allowed to ask your CO for beef jerky, even if he did horde it on the show Survivor
• Not allowed to put a bumper sticker on a religious soldiers car that reads “WWSD” with small print reading “What would Scooby Doo”
• Not allowed to link all laptops together to play 2 vs. 2 command and conquer generals
• Not allowed to take the CO’s proxima projector to make a movie theater inside the t-scif
• It is frowned upon to teach a private MP that is 4th general order is to guard his post from flank to flank and take no shit from any rank
• Even if the MP NCOIC taught it to you
• Not allowed to hide in shelter halves to avoid work
• Can not perform an L shaped ambush on your SGL at PLDC with blank rounds
• During a brass shake down can not tell the drill sergeant “Your ass, my ammo”
• While as a drill sergeant can not give your soldiers ecstasy

story by Donny, written with help by skippy

One bright spring day our platoon was tasked with some combat training. specifically we were assigned to attack a fake village that would be populated with other soldiers pretending to be third world residents. Our goal was to neutralize HVTs. For the benefit of the non-military readers an HVT is a High Value Target. In other words the guys that we want to do bad things to.

The training village was a cluster of six buildings, ranging is size from a small single room dwelling to a large 2 story house. This building was practically a mansion by the standards of the other buildings, with several interconnected rooms. There was even an escape tunnel leading out of the village.

These buildings, like all urban combat simulators were constructed with thick slabs of concrete, to create a maximum of durabilty with a minimum of cost. Which are two desirable features for a building if you plan on letting soldiers run amok without any serious adult supervision.

My squad was the main effort, and so the large two story building was our target. We dismounted our Bradleys, sprinted to the building, and entered through a window. As we climbed the stairs we encountered light enemy resistance, which we quickly and professionally put down.

Once on the second floor, we began clearing all of the rooms. Within a short period of time we had swept through the area, and had already captured or killed every HVT except for one. And we only had one room left to check.

So my squad stacked up and I got the be the breacher. Again for the non-military types here, a breacher is the guy who gets the break the door down. As soon as he does that everyone else runs in, the goal being to put as many soldiers through the door as quickly as possible.

So I forced the door and watched my squad storm in to the sound of gunfire. As I tried to join them in the assault I collided with a team-mate who was standing in the doorway laughing. Despite the clear presence of an armed hostile my squad instead of opening fire, was doubling over with laughter. Feeling disgruntled I shoved my way into the room while shouting “What the hell is so funny?”

And then I saw.

Remember how I mentioned the nice thick walls in this place? Well aside from being durable thick cement also blocks sounds. And so the nice Sergeant who was playing the role of enemy combatant had not heard the raid starting. And having been left with some privacy for a while, he decided to conduct a private “weapons inspection”.

He was in fact rather enthusiastically in the middle of said inspection when my squad, rather rudely, broke the door down and barged in.

Now to his credit, he was able to change gears, and weapons, rather quickly. He dropped his gun, grabbed his rifle, and began what could under the circumstance only be referred to as a valiant last stand.

Unfortunately for him he had been caught with his pants down, red handed as it were.

While I was in Bosnia I got to witness some truly awe inspiring disregard for appropriate conduct.

Now to preface, many of the rules and regulations the military inflicts on its soldiers are ridiculous. And a silly regulation should probably be mocked. But you should still follow it, especially if you are a leader. And if you are going to ignore it and just do what you want, you should at least have the courtesy to attempt to hide it from your soldiers.

So while I was deployed in Bosnia I got to work with Reservists for the first time. In fact, about half of the PSYOP forces in Sarajevo were deployed from the Reserves. My section lucked out, in that the most senior of the illustrators in country, a man who I will call Specialist Dart, had extensive training and experience with graphic design from his civilian job. So he taught me all about Photoshop, vector graphics, and Quark.

Unfortunately not all of the Reservists had similar amounts of applicable job experience. But most of them where willing to sit down and learn their way around the software and other job requirements.

But the video productions section had an NCO who I will call SGT Screecher. Now SGT Screecher was a very nice lady who had a few issues. The first is that she had absolutely no idea how any of the equipment in here section worked. She had transfered from some other area and received on the job training for her current assignment. Her on the job training more or less consisted of someone waving a pencil and shouting: “Abracadabra….you’re now qualified to lead video production!” And unfortunately for everyone, she didn’t want to learn. Basically, she had too much of an ego to allow a bunch of lower enlisted types to teach her how the equipment worked. So she just sat around her section being annoying until a higher ranking NCO kicked her out.

So she was now banished from being in the same office as the soldiers she was technically “leading”.

Which was no big deal to me, because I was in another section entirely.

Which leads nicely into my problem. My section leader was a man I will call SGT Horndog.

As you may guess from the name, SGT Horndog took one look at SGT Screecher and decided:

“I’m going to hit that so hard, whoever can pull me out again will be the next King of England!”

As nearly any soldier who has deployed can tell you, these “deployed romances” happen from time to time. And by “time to time”, I mean “near constantly”. In this particular case it was notable because weren’t particularly good at hiding it. But that special kind of “not hiding it” where they act like they are concealing their real actions with an almost ninja-like ability.

I named her SGT Screecher for a reason.

So besides keeping other soldiers up at odd hours, she would hang around my office making goo-goo eyes at Horndog and basically acting like an infatuated teenager. Seriously, she usually referred to him as “Honey” or by his first name while in uniform and on duty. (For purposes of this story I will say that his first name is Pookie.)

You know those people who are going through the nauseating “Yay I just started dating someone” phase? That was her. Except that she had rank and wasn’t above throwing it around if someone was mean to her “Honey”. I actually got chewed out once for trying to demonstrate a better way to make a layout to SGT Horndog. (Please note: I was an illustrator. This was my job.)

Aside from clogging up our space, and giving us a serious case of cooties induced diabetes, she also made an email account on every computer in our office.

Now this was in the mid-nineties before computers had multi-gig hard drives. We did graphic production and had itty-bitty drives to store it on. We had to use external storage media, such as Jazz and Zip disks, simply because we couldn’t fit all of the material we were working with onto our system at the same time.

So we had a special (read: crappy) computer just for email accounts, in the back.

Unfortunately for us, SGT Screecher didn’t like that computer. So she would just help herself to the workstations. She would even try to kick soldiers who were working off of the workstations so she could spend her afternoons sending emails to every person she ever knew.

And our NCOIC wouldn’t do a damn thing about it because he wanted to keep getting some.

One day SPC Dart (remember him?) had enough.

“SGT you can’t keep using these workstations for personal email. There’s no room for files we need already, plus we need the system to get the next magazine print set-up.”

She gave him a petulant pout, “Well Pookie would give me access to this system whenever I want!”

“SGT, would you like a quick rundown of all the things that SGT Horndog will give you whenever you want that I won’t? Because orgasms are pretty close to the top of that list.”

And with that she turned red, and ran away, never to bother us about email again. And my section lived happily ever after, except for SGT Horndog.