The SAS story
Soldiers typically have things showing on their uniform. Their names, their ranks, their unit, and sometimes even their country of origin. This is done so that you can instantly tell vital information about the other people around you such as who’s in charge, who possesses specialized skills, and who can be safely turned into a scapegoat for anything that happens to go wrong.
In the US Army, rank goes on the collar. And only the lowest of the lower enlisted, the buck private, has no rank symbol to display. Buck privates are generally considered to be slightly less valuable than dirt, receive absolutely no respect, and basically spend their time hoping that no one notices them long enough to make them go and clean something.
Please remember this, because it is important later.
So one evening right after we got to Bosnia a bunch of soldiers were drinking in the barracks. Because this was during a multinational task force we had several different uniforms present. And as it usually goes when you have a bunch of soldiers, alcohol, and no serious adult supervision there is a variety of good-natured smack-talking going around. Generally along the lines of who beat up whom in a previous war, or which countries military could get France to surrender the quickest, that sort of thing. It was fun and I got to meet foreign soldiers for the first time. But then out of nowhere we had that guy.
If you’ve ever been at a place with young men and alcohol, chances are you’ve met that guy. Too loud, too aggressive, and probably too drunk. Instead of good-natured ribbing he’s offering personal insults. He’s yelling and generally making a tremendous ass out of himself. Normally when someone behaves this way he gets shouted down, or one of his friends takes him away to go sleep it off. But in the case of this one particular British soldier no one did anything. Everybody just let him keep on acting like an ass and ruining our night.
So I looked a little closer at him and noticed that he didn’t have any rank on his collar. (Note: Where I went looking for it was important.) This guy is a buck private and everybody is taking crap from him. This makes absolutely no sense; the world has gone crazy. So I did what any PFC whose judgment was seriously impaired by alcohol would do when a guy twice his size was acting up.
“Hey asshole! Why don’t you shut the hell up?!” I was, as always, a master of witty banter.
All conversation halted. Several soldiers near me began to edge way slowly.
“What did you say, Yank?”, he asked me in a very incredulous tone of voice.
“I’m sorry do I need to put that into British for you? I said: “Be quiet you bloody wanker”.”
He stood up and asked very quietly, “Do you want to go outside and talk about this?”
I glanced up to see one of my Sergeants standing behind him clearly signaling through hand gestures: “You can take him and I’ve got your back.” Which to sober people might have actually appeared to be: “Are you insane? This guy is going to murder you!”. But I had consumed enough alcohol to know what he really meant.
So I looked this guy square in the general direction of his head, weaved a little, and boldly announced, “I sure would. Let’s go.”
He looks stunned for a few seconds, and then just starts laughing. Crisis averted, he decided that I was his friend now. He shared some strange licorice tasting booze with me and acted decently for the rest of the evening.
The next morning my sergeant sat down with me in the chow hall.
“What on earth made you think you should start a fight with that guy last night?”
“You saw his collar Sergeant, he was a buck private, and I’m not gonna let a private talk to us like that.”
“British uniforms are different than ours. He’s not a private. He’s an NCO and he’s in the SAS. You’re only alive because he thought you were funny.”
“Oh.”
And if you’ve read the list, you can pretty much guess what the next two instructions were.
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December 20th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Wow, knowing the story behind those two makes them both seem that much more awesome.
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December 20th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
LMAO! I remember helping out as an “EPW” handler at NATO SERE school when the Brits were running it, we got to drink in the canteen with them after it was all over with. I learned three valuable lessons about life from that experience;
1. Never, under any circumstances, tell a Scotsman that your 19 year old frame can drink him under the table, and then let him pick the drinks…….(I didn’t know they wouldn’t give you light duty for “I think I am dying”).
2. SAS instructors wear civilian clothing at the school, so even if the “civilians technical instructors” say it isn’t a good idea, then the Sergeant Major or actual Major is probably being polite to the “incredibly innebriated Yank”.
3. The jump suits/coveralls they make the EPWs/students wear are loose fitting, and they may not have undergarments on beneath them, so when you “yank them to their feet” by grabbing the fabric on top of their shoulders, the crotch has a tendency to climb into places it shouldn’t be. They can also recognize your voice after it is all said and done, when you are drunk in the canteen and the students get to mingle with the staff………..
Hangover lasted for 2 weeks.
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December 21st, 2007 at 12:29 am
From Wiki:
The SAS Foundations thought up in 1941:
* Engage in the never ending pursuit of excellence.
* Maintain the highest standards of self discipline in all aspects of daily life.
* Tolerate no sense of class, all ranks in the SAS belong to one company.
* All ranks to possess humility and humour.
I’m guessing the last is what saved your butt that night?
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December 21st, 2007 at 3:25 am
I know I’m probabally a bigger nerd than you for saying this, but something a lot like that happened to an RPG character (Werewolf the Apocalypse, if anyone’s interested).
The character’s a werewolf in a modern fantasy game. He needs a little extra cash, really quick, and is utterly lacking in self-confidence, so he decides to shake down a little old lady.
Normally, when a guy with muscles nothing strictly human should have asks you for money and explicitly states that he’ll resort to violence if he doesn’t get it, you’d hand over whatever you had on hand, right? Well, that’s not what happened.
What happened was that said little old lady takes one look at him, yells something about “demon spawn”, pulls a flaming sword out of nothing, and proceeds to whale on him.
If you see the similarity, good. If you don’t, I apologize.
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December 21st, 2007 at 9:28 am
Theres actually no similarity in the situations whatsoever. You see the story told happened in REAL LIFE. The story that you told happened in a basement somewhere with no alcohol, guns, or people serving their countries. I dont know where your from but that is a really insulting comparison in my book.
A buddy of mine is in Israeli special forces and gets the weekend off after a month, so were drinking and talking and hes telling us some of what he did that month, as hes getting to some really interesting stuff when a a 19yo at the next who heard goes “that happened to me in call of duty 4!” My friend looks at him, looks at his beer, looks at his fist and than decides its not worth it , so as were about to get back to the conversation the kid goes “so what did u do?” Like there they could exchange notes and see who’s solution was better. My finally speaks and says to the kid “It def wasnt the same thing because my M-16 only has one button on it” at this point the stupid kids friends who were laughing to hard to stop him finally point out the symbol on my friends T-shirt was basiclly hebrew for “i could fuckin kill you and get away with it”
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Snyarhedir reply on January 27th, 2011 1:50 am:
There is a difference between saying, “This happened to me in a video game,” and, “This happens in a video game.” And a basement? Seriously? Do you two know eachother?
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December 21st, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I witnessed something along those lines in basic. We had a rather young, small framed drill sgt. One day in the chow line as we were talking to said DS when two privates tried to squeeze through the line for some reason. Mind you we are inside, he has no hat on and his back is to the privates in question. After a few choice words and threats from the privates that they would move us if we didn’t, the DS turns around. The look of terror on their faces was classic! I was inside for good half hour and when I came out those two were still pushing. It was classic.
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December 23rd, 2007 at 5:19 am
You missed the new ACUs. Rank is on the chest. So, now, men have to stare at a female’s chest, just to see what rank they are.
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December 24th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
I had a similiar situation happen with an Air Force buddy of mine, but he was up against a SF troop. Evidently our guys are not so well mannered because this current Leavenworth resident went and knifed my buddy in the back. Fortunately he was too drunk to do it right so my buddy survived the ordeal. For some reason the whole incident cut back his drinking severely….
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December 24th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Speaking of stabbings, back a few years ago while I was reclassing to 25B (had my fun as a Scout already) a guy in the barracks stabbed his roommate with a chef’s knife for leaving a pizza box on his bed.
Obviously, that wasn’t the only reason, but the final straw. Apparently, they had gang ties, and one was asian, the other black, and it had built up to a head. Thanks to the guys who were there, he didn’t manage to do the whole job, but it was still a soldier out of commission for several months.
Another incident was that a soldier who had just arrived died in his shower over the weekend and nobody knew until around tuesday or so.
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December 27th, 2007 at 5:59 am
Wow . . . just wow . . . Fantasy and reality do not, I repeat do not have any comparison to one and another. sidhe3141, please go back to masturbating in your parent’s basement playing your RPGs and do not ever try to compare and contrast SAS, NCO vs. 37F E-4 drinking story to a gay little werewolf, vs. decrepid old lady RPG. Your analogy is not only way off but HORRIBLE! On a side note: ‘whale?’ Nouns and verbs, or nouns and adjectives, learn the difference.
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Snyarhedir reply on January 27th, 2011 1:48 am:
You are extremely rude and you assume too much about some people.
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December 27th, 2007 at 6:18 am
I’ve found SF guys to be some of the nicest and most humble people around . . . until provoked. Man, you’re lucky!
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December 27th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Heh, I work with SF’s. They’re pretty cool guys, and having been at Robin Sage once already, I can say that I myself don’t really want to do what they do. But they do need commo support no matter where they go.
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December 28th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Hmm, that’s funny considering another PFC from our BN got dropped to E-1 for mouthing off to a British E-8 in Germany. Apparently British enlisted don’t like “yanks” expressing their fondness for attractive, female English officers. Especially when said attraction was due to her resemblance of Princess Di.
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December 28th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Did it ever occur to anyone that Skippy might not like people insulting his basement-masturbating customer base? He DOES make video games for a living now..
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December 29th, 2007 at 4:16 am
veaudaux: Quit slandering my people (gamers). It’s only a small number that fit that group you described. And a good 90% of soldiers, at least, are gamers of some sort.
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December 29th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I’ve been on a exercises along side the SAS before up in Whales in November. When you wake up to find half your section tied up and hanging by their feet from the tree’s (including the one’s that were on stag) after the first night, youknow your screwd……………….. =/
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December 29th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
(This comment posted from on top of the bank in Orgrimmar)
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December 30th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
veaudaux: You dirty Horde bastard.
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December 31st, 2007 at 2:57 am
I’ve done that, and was only saved by being six-foot-six and built along the lines of a grizzly. I think that was the night I realised drinking was not so good for me.
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December 31st, 2007 at 5:48 am
Sigh… It would seem that nobody understands my analogies.
1. Character/person A picks fight with character/person B
2. Character/person A finds out exactly what character/person B is.
By the way, “whale” actually can be used as a verb. “To whale” originally meant to hunt whales, and “to whale upon” something is an idiom essentially meaning to attempt to beat it into oblivion. I’m sure the OED will agree with me on this point.
Furthermore, as for reality and fantasy not mixing, I never said they did. I simply stated that there were SOME paralells between the two situations. Or that’s what I meant, anyway.
While we’re on the subject, I’m not gay, but what’s wrong with it anyway?
So there.
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December 31st, 2007 at 8:58 am
Buddy, nobody understands your analogies b/c A) they ARE way off, and B)People in the military tend to take their jobs very seriously, so when someone compares their jobs (which are highly dangerous) and experiences (which are very unique) to that of a video game they will get pissed off. Especially when a majority of soldiers, sailors, marines, and . . . . well, some airmen are on their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tours in iraq or afghanistan (yes, proper nouns should be capitalized, I know). They are combat zones, people get hurt and die everyday. So, in the future consider using other means of relating experiences. Just a little bit of info for soldier etiquette I would like to relate to you. BTW, Skippy was also a soldier, so gamers, ‘who gives a sh*t? It’s all fair game when you post. Grow some thicker skin.
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December 31st, 2007 at 9:02 am
Skippy: Rock on brother. Your smart-ass list makes everyone crack up! Especially haircuts and tampering with Samson like powers.
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January 1st, 2008 at 10:12 am
I agree with TOP, your missing the point, yes in fact your analogy does make sense when you sit in your parents basement all day and dont have a life. But you compared a real dangerous job to something any retard can do. Walk away and don’t defend your comment b/c it was just stupid and annoying.
(When did this article become a grammar forum?)
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January 2nd, 2008 at 2:59 am
…………….When some one’s with too much time on their hands? =)
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January 2nd, 2008 at 1:47 pm
You know, Dwayne’s comment reminded me of the time I went to Scotland. I rented a car and drove from Huntingdon to Edinburgh. Took me all day. Ended up I was driving alone in Edinburgh, at midnight. Probably not a good idea, but I was in search of a guesthouse or B&B. I pull up in front of a pub and go in there asking for directions and met up with the keeper of a guesthouse that was right next door. Right next to where I parked. At any rate, I found the Scots to be very accomodating and very well adjusted to drinking the mass quantities of beer that guy consumed. It was then that I learned that valuable lesson 1 that Dwayne wrote. No, I never challenged that guy… Didn’t need to.
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January 2nd, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I witnessed something almost exactly like what Tony said, except the DS was female, and I was the idiot to say something. I didn’t get smoked because, apparently, a 6’4″ male terrified of a 5 foot nothing woman was funny to our 1Sgt. I’d still be pushing if he hadn’t.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 12:47 am
I spent some time last night thinking on whether or not I should comment on the disagreement that has sprung up here. I’d just as soon nip this in the bud before it becomes a flame-war.
It’s cool to disagree, and to argue, but there is no need to go to personal attacks, at least not here.
I get how some people consider the analogy to be insulting. But I don’t think it was meant that way.
Now everyone play nice or I will call you all Nazis, invoke Godwin, and close the comments on this.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Skippy, your stories and list are so funny, me and my Guard buddy got a lot of laughs outta this, keep it up buddy!
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January 5th, 2008 at 8:19 am
I have a story like that but it was vise versa me and some of my mates were down in T.J. and we’re drinking having a blast. When some fresh cut ranger comes up and tells me to take off my coat, I’m trying to be cool but he thinks that I look to young to be U.S.M.C he keeps pushing and pushing. Then all the sudden freaks the fuck out and pulls a knife on me. I just say he probably didn’t get to report back to base for a while.
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January 7th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Thanks, Skippy. I seriously didn’t mean it to be insulting, I was just relating something that I thought was a bit similar. I would never DREAM of insulting you unless you insulted me personally. You are an inspiration to tricksters and deviants everywhere, and I love your stories.
All of that was completely serious, by the way, and I personally consider “trickster” and “deviant” to be high praise, for those of you who feel like insisting that I was trying to be insulting.
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Snyarhedir reply on January 27th, 2011 1:58 am:
Considering that I may associate the word “deviant” with “Deviant Art”, that makes sense.
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January 11th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
…and I thought I take risks as an EOD tech!!! Way to dodge that bullet Skippy. Have you ever heard the story about the bear in the cave? It’s very simple…DON’T POKE THE (SAS) BEAR!!! Great story though.
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January 12th, 2008 at 2:37 am
Hey “Top”, sidhe3141 wasn’t playing a video game, he was playing Werewolf the Apocalypse…. that’s as bad as dungeons and dragons. Nowhere near as cool as a video game.
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January 15th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
And who exactly are you, Kristian? Although I am not a fan of White Wolf games, pen and paper is definately a “cool” thing for me. It takes much more creativity than nearly all video games; probably the reason you aren’t into them. Either way, I wouldn’t classify gaming of any sort as “cool”–fun would be a better term. Nothin’ wrong with D&D (except the system is for kids, the world is interesting though).
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January 18th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I so have a similer story to that. I had just arrived to my first unit and figured why not get aquainted by drinking with the boys. Then someone pops in Jarhead and I go running off at the mouth about how stupid the movie is. Then I ended up in a brawl with 2 former Marines who had switched to the Army. I don’t recall the details of the fight, but from the swollen bump on my head the next morning (and the fact that the other guys had not so much as a scatch) I think it was safe to assume….I lost.
Oh yeah, and I also wanted to say you should never staple a copy of skippys list to the back of widely distributed command policy letters. :-)
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January 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 am
A friend of mine once told me a story like silver2501. Except it was German paratroopers vs the KSK (quite similar to the SAS). His paras had to defend some wood of “tactical importance” against the KSK. My friend, who considered himself well trained, said that he was in the middle of trees when someone tipped on his shoulders and said “You are dead.” grinning from ear to ear. One of the privates was suddenly surrounded by four men of the KSK who asked if they really needed to fire or if he would like to give up. The whole “fight” ended with very little to no resistance. And no those paras were no loosers.
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Signalist reply on August 15th, 2011 4:57 am:
last autum I was in a voluntary exercise for reservists (this being Finland) where we established “an important HQ” and started guarding it with a Sissi -squad (in short Sissi translates as ‘guerrilla’ or ‘insurgent’, which means that they are expert in LRRP, guerrilla warfare and sabotage missions deep inside enemy territory, though they are not special forces, which I actually find pretty scary) as our enemy, though we had a squad of “counter -sissis” (I call them ‘squads’, but they were both more like ‘half-platoons’) patrolling and trying to catch the enemy before they could get in our base.
After the first day when it was already dark I accompanied my platoon commander to a hut that was used as the HQ, suddenly I see shadows and next I hear my platoon commander shrieking as the enemy sissis carry her out of the hut, and I myself did not see a thing at that point, those sissis must have used their noses to navigate.
Before that I had sometimes joked that sissis could, if they wanted, to sneak in to Kremlin, steal Medvedev’s underwear while he’s sitting in his office, and return unnoticed.
Now I know better, it’s not a joke.
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January 22nd, 2008 at 10:18 am
Curse my bad english. Please read forest instead of wood … wood indeed … defend wood … I’m going to drown myself in the toilett …
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February 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
But if you were speaking to a Brit, you would be quite correct to use wood in that sentence. A wood is a forest, so no drowning for you … !
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February 11th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I was an AF troop learning my new trade in the service {allied trades if you give a toss} on Aberdeen Proving Grounds. At the time we were the last flight I ever heard of that got issued the Dreaded Pickle Suit for a uniform. We were expected to purchace our new BDU’s at our first duity station. Every one else there had an issue of BDU’s. Counting permanent party there were exactly 32 of us there at the time. Not only was it lonely we kinda stood out. One day at the chow hall from WAAAaaaay in the back I hear the call “At ease!” Everybody but me locks it/cocks it, and takes a step to the Rt. Not my service, not my procedure, but I see no reason to be rude. So I take one to the Rt, but DON’T lock it. Sure enough it’s not long before I have a tickling at my hairline and breathing down my neck. I hear, “PVT! WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION!!” So I streighten up, face about, look this DS in the eyes and politely inquire “Hello, Drill Seargent, may I help you?” At this point, somthing registers that one of these things is not the same. He looks at my Lt pocket, Sez *Urk* “Air Force?” Takes three steps, picks a Pvt at apparent random and starts chewing him out. I never got a chance to apologise.
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February 22nd, 2008 at 5:17 am
i was army, (eng,ord,sig)was by a sf bragging bout how tuff he was, looked at him and asked – and who clears your lz’s? he left.
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February 25th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Anyone dumb enough to challenge a Scot, or Irishman, or Englishman for that matter, deserves all the week long hangover they deserve ( yeah, I’m that guy). Hey, when in Rome…. God Bless the Royal Mile and all the Scotch factories along its streets :) :) :)
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February 28th, 2008 at 11:42 am
I’ve got some pretty special friends, about as hardcore as you can get while being non-criminal civilians. One of them, lets call him “Irish”, (whom I have outdrunk more than once. To be fair he outdrank me once) is a theater tech. Specifically, he’s a lighting tech, which means he rivals spiderman in climbing skills. He also can move over broken rubble like a mountain goat on meth. Very impressive for someone over 300 pounds. When the local theater tech business is down, he works part time as a bouncer at the local clubs. A few months back, he was on the door with his face in his clipboard scrutinizing IDs, when some punks started some trouble with the other doorman. One of them tried to sucker punch Irish, and so Irish put him on the ground, with some haste and prejudice. All of a sudden the rowdies stop making trouble, and start claiming they don’t want any trouble. When they scoop up their friend Irish is informed he just took out a Marine, thus spooking his companions…
Another fx tech I know, who fancies himself a swordsman, has a habit of going after a local fight choreographer any time there is any kind of (blunt) blade for him to pick up. Even with a weapon, years of (hobby-level) training with said weapon, youth, good physical conditioning, and the element of surprise, he has yet to beat this particular overweight senior citizen. The advantage of psychology, and training.
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March 31st, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Kind of related: There was a little barroom dustup back in the early 1990s between some British Army Gurkhas in the Second Para Regiment and a couple of locals in Belize a few years back, in which a 14-year-old boy took a punch and died from it. It also turned out that one of the other locals with whom he’d been drinking was the son of the country’s prime minister. Oops. Details here for the further interested: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2069092.stm
Likewise: in a previous [enlisted] life as a treadhead, we used to refer to the infantrymen accompanying our tanks as *crunchies.* Until on one cold dark and snowy night, one of their guys detailed as a road guard got overlooked for pickup, and finally rolled his sleeping bag out on a nearby path and zonked out. Had he been able to see a little better, he might have figured out that the parallel path about eight feet away was more than coincidence- he’d gone to sleep on a tank trail. The good news was that the first tank that came along had a guy out in front with a flashlight; the bad news was that the guy was in the path of the other track, and with the snow on the ground, completely missed the sleeping lump on the other side. After the first tank rolled over him, the guy ground guiding the next tank in line was on that side and found the body, but way to late to do the guy inside any good.
After that the comments about *crunchies* cooled WAY down for a while…and were a reasonable cause for a punchout when loosely thrown around by rookies/idiots.
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March 31st, 2008 at 10:48 pm
***Anyone dumb enough to challenge a Scot, or Irishman, or Englishman for that matter, deserves all the week long hangover they deserve ( yeah, I’m that guy).***
Even better: to put on your best honest face, and tell the assembled Scots/Irish/Welshmen that *You English people are the nicest folks I’ve ever met.*
Then, run like ‘ell!
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February 9th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
I remember when I was serving in Finnish army and we were participating in a war game, one night we were sleeping in our tent (I had the worst possible place, next to the doorway), and people kept stepping on me when they came to the tent or went out, when someone yet again stepped on me I barked “watch where you’re going moron!” As a reply I heard the sound of my platoon’s officer cadet say “sorry.” There I was, a private barking at a **cking officer cadet, luckily ours was a fair guy, otherwise I’d had been chopping firewood for the rest of the night, and it was raining then.
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May 8th, 2013 at 9:22 pm
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March 28th, 2015 at 7:12 am
And of course Presidents are also accountable to their peoples representatives. (in Russia’s case the State Duma, the U.S. Presidents case House of Congress etc, etc)
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