Most Popular Story Suggestion
The Winner is Lord Enigma who suggested list item 198. Not allowed to lead a “Coup” during training missions.
At first I wasn’t sure if I should tell this story here. I’ve always had a policy of not telling telling any stories that could easily be traced back to people who might reasonably still be in service. And I definitely don’t want to tell any stories that might implicate someone in some sort of extra-legal shenanigans. (Which is, coincidentally, why many of the submitted stories don’t go up on the site. I don’t care how funny you think the felony assault turned out. I don’t want to get involved.)
But I did promise that I would tell the whichever story got the most votes. And this one was the clear winner.
So here it goes. In Script Format.
The setting: Ft Drum, NY during the summer. A training mission is in progress.
(Humvee Interior)
Skippy: Hey SGT. Think we could get away with starting a coup during the exercise?
NCOIC: No probably not.
Skippy: Want to try anyways?
NCOIC: (Appears to think about it) Naw, we’d better not. It would probably make the Commander mad.
Commander: It might look bad on my OER.
Skippy: I never get to have any fun.
I never said it was a good story.
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March 11th, 2009 at 12:07 am
made ME chuckle, anyway.
‘course, I’m easily amused. :)
Captcha: grant Lytle
I doubt Lytle would get away with a coup, either.
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March 11th, 2009 at 5:56 am
I don’t know if it counts as a coup, be we did take over our battalion HQ once. It was the end of two weeks in Graf and we were bored and had lots of extra blanks leftover. We loaded about 20 people into the back of the maintenance hummer, all cammoed up, and went to battalion to “get parts.” As soon as we got in the gate 12 APCs rolled over the crest of the hill and opened up with their .50s. We all jumped out of the back of the hummer and started shooting up everything, knocking down tents, and generally raising hell. We got the HHC guidon, the DS maintenance guidon, and the LTC’s sleeping bag, and tore out of there as fast as we could. needless to say we were on the BC’s S#@^ list for the rest of the FTX. However the officers and senior ncos did chip in and buy steaks to celebrate our “victory.”
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SCAlexD reply on March 11th, 2009 6:36 am:
DUDE! LOL! THAT SOUNDS AWESOME! I WOULD OF LOVED TO BE THERE TO HELP!
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Grayson reply on March 11th, 2009 12:33 pm:
Someone once said that money is the root of all evil….but it’s a good bet there’s a few senior officers who would swear that extra blanks, combined with boredom and initiative, are a close second. Bloody well done, Jock!
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Andrew reply on March 13th, 2009 3:22 am:
money is the root of all evil
sure but heres the complete calculation
http://rhydian.250free.com/Pictures/GirlsEvil.jpg
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March 11th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Indeed. A chuckle out of me as well.
On another random, unrelated note, I noticed that you were working on Stargate: Worlds. I had the pleasure of being in the beta for that. Small world.
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March 11th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Wow. I kinda feel cheated. And a little used. Is there at least money on the dresser?
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March 11th, 2009 at 9:39 am
YES!!!!! Great story Skippy, great story.
And no Twan, I’m not being a kiss-ass, it appeals to my highly sophisticated (strange) sense of humor.
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Scurvy reply on March 11th, 2009 1:42 pm:
Highly sophisticated MY ass.
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Sequoia reply on March 12th, 2009 9:01 am:
I’m pretty sure it’s my ass, not yours.
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March 11th, 2009 at 11:17 am
It’s funny because you didn’t see that coming. Remember the marriage list? Although it would have been cool if there was some serious attempt at a coup like M578Jockey. Ah well…
Captcha- Gunning 1964: just let me get the time machine…
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March 12th, 2009 at 7:37 am
So the commander was in the back seat of the hummer? Heh-heh.
We had a commander who made himself a (fictional) casualty during a field exercise (FTX). I assume that it was so the XO (executive officer) would get some more experience. I read his dog tags (OK, like my platoon sergeant said, I’m not that old, but my uncles were, but that’s another story) — ID tags that is. We didn’t have the right forms to fill out; the next time we went to the field, we did.
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Andrew reply on March 12th, 2009 9:43 am:
im sorry but i can’t make that sentence make sense
“I read his dog tags (OK, like my platoon sergeant said, I’m not that old, but my uncles were, but that’s another story) — ID tags that is. We didn’t have the right forms to fill out; the next time we went to the field, we did.”
huh ?
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ArchaicDome reply on March 12th, 2009 10:40 am:
I had the same problem. I thought it was me.
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CCO reply on March 13th, 2009 9:46 am:
You are right; that is a poorly constructed pair of sentences. OK, let me edit for clarity.
As the commander was “pretend dead” (“notionally dead” in Army speak), I read his ID tags to get his information (and to gently pull his chain). I was the unit supply clerk, so this would be part of my job in wartime. (My supply sergeant, who had gone through Basic with Saint Peter — well, she was one of the few former WACs left– had a commander to die for real in the field when she was at Fort Polk.) It turned out that we didn’t have the casualty forms with us; the forms have spaces for time and place of death, if the death was the result of enemy action, and other stuff that I forgot since I’m happy to say I never had occasion to use them in my peace time service.
I had three uncles and a great uncle that served in World War II and my dad was stationed in South Korea after he was drafted in the late 1950’s. I picked up the older lingo of referring to the metal tags that have your name, blood type, and religious affiliation as “dog tags” from one of them. I used the term dog tags in front of my last platoon sergeant at Fort McClellan. SFC V said I wasn’t old enough to call them dog tags.
Oh, WAC means Women’s Army Corps which was a separate organization for women in the Army from WWII until the 1970s.
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M578Jockey reply on March 13th, 2009 9:50 am:
I was in 1981-2001 and never heard anybody call them anything but dog tags.
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CCO reply on March 13th, 2009 10:01 am:
I can’t remember what other people called them. The official supply nomenclature was ID tag necklace. It was at Fort McClellan from 1993 to 1995, which was all my active duty time. I think they said ID tags.
CCO
March 16th, 2009 at 6:08 am
im not even american or been in the army and i would call them dog tags
probably picked it up from PC games and Films
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March 17th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Yerp… gotta say, even in my time in the navy, we called them dog tags. Granted, I lost mine about four weeks out of bootcamp and never bothered to get them replaced, but whatever.
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