Monday Morning Military List

April 26th, 2009 by skippy

(Submitted by M578Jockey)

1. Do not try to lay a perimeter of powered CS around your bivouac site when the wind is blowing.
2. Especially not when the cooks are in the middle of making breakfast.
3. Do not steal the Battalion Commander’s sleeping bag.
4. When you are under a jeep and the third person trips over your feet, erectile make sure it’s not the Brigade Commander before you start cussing the person out.
5. An M113A2 does not have B.U.T.T. plug.
6. Do not tell the motor sergeant that the M113 is down because the Flux Capacitor is broken.
7. Even if he is dumb enough to believe you.
8. There is no such thing as a metric adjustable wrench.

9. Sending the cherry private to get a parts request signed by the Battalion Sergeant Major for a case of liquid squelch will come back and bite you in the ass.
10. Do not have 130 lb privates jump up and down on top of an 11 ton M113 to test the shocks.
11. Do not tell operators to take exhaust samples from their vehicles.
12. Do not try to trade C-Rats or MRE’s to local children in exchange for their sister.
13. Beware of German Jumping Trees!!!
14. The wet side of the confidence course is not a pool and you should not swim laps in it no matter how hot out it is.
15. You will not take the M578 to the lake, order traverse the boom, and use it as a diving board.
16. An M578 recovery vehicle can not swim.
17. When a mechanic sends a new private to the tool room to get a "5 Ton Metal Stretcher" it is wrong to have him come back in five minute so you can build one out of odd tools and lacing wire.
18. When the LTC brings three dry T-shirts to the missile away party in Crete, it is permissible to throw him into the Mediterranean four times.
19. When a LT who barely speaks English gets the grid coordinates wrong and drops a howitzer shell into the motor pool, the proper military response is to send him to a unit equipped with nuclear missiles.
20. When you fall out into formation wearing your trench coats, it is wrong to have the platoon flash the school commandant.
21. "Motivated! Dedicated! Sit on this and Rotate it!" While giving the finger is not an appropriate PLDC platoon motto and you will not be allowed to use it more than once.
22. When you live on a post where alcohol is not allowed by the post commander, it is probably a bad idea to name your bowling team for the brigade tournament the Alphaholics.
23. When you first get issued your new Kevlar helmet, do not get drunk and march up and down the hallway yelling "Seig Heil!"
24. If the CQ sergeant lets you and a girl use his room one night while he is on duty, it is wrong to leave a condom half filled with mayonnaise in his bunk.
25. Spray paint and German beer should not be mixed in an enclosed area.
26. Do not paint the Battalion Motor Officers M880 (Dodge Pick-up) in camouflage flames.
27. Do not make a snowman with a giant phallus and use it for a hood ornament on Chief’s newly painted M880.
28. It is not a good idea to throw rocks at a Brahma bull that lives in the bivouac area when 120 guys are sleeping on the ground, no matter how boring guard duty is.
29. Blowing your horn at the 2 ½ ton spare tire lying in the middle of the intersection will not make it move.
30. When you get caught sleeping in the hatch of the M113 by the BNCOC instructor, it is not a good idea to tell him that “you’re not fully qualified until you have slept on every vehicle in the wheeled vehicle department”. And yes I was the first person in my class to be fully qualified.
31. It is not funny to put Kiwi on the sweat band of XO’s helmet liner.
32. No going to the airfield and having hummer drag races when you are supposed to be picking up parts.
33. No going to the Main River and sunbathing when you are supposed to be picking up parts.
34. No going to the drivers training area and taking the hummer off-roading when you are supposed to be picking up parts.
35. When you are supposed to be picking up parts, then dammit go pick up parts and come right back!
36. The proper way to ask to speak to SSG Head on the phone is "May I please speak to speak to SSG Head?" not "Gimme Head!"
37. When you are on a recovery mission it is not polite to laugh uproariously and point at the driver who sank his Chaparral up to the top of the deck.
38. Don’t show up the commander who just missed the 30 yard target at the .45 range by dropping it 4 times in a row right after him.
39. It is even worse to then tell him that you have never fired a .45 before in your life.
40. If you have a commander you don’t like, do not cut a broom handle into foot long pieces, paint them red, and tie them to the bottom of his POV with det cord. The MP’s and EOD will get very upset.
41. If, as a squad leader, you get called to a domestic disturbance at one of your soldier’s quarters, let the MPs handle it. Trying to break it up yourself will just make the situation worse and cause the wife to start trying to kick the sh*t out of you instead of her husband.
42. I don’t care how tough you think you are, that little lady from Texas will kick you’re a$$, and cause much amusement among the MPs and your squad Monday morning.
43. Don’t go out drinking with a bunch of rodeo cowboys, you will regret it. On the bright side, at least nothing got broken when the bronco bucked me off and I won the bet.
44. A VII Corp Equal Opportunity inspection is not the proper time to observe that this is the only unit you have ever seen with two white male EO NCOs.
45. During a barracks inspection in January in Germany, leaving your windows open until just before the Brigade Commander gets to your room makes the inspection of your room very short.
46. It is not permissible to laugh repeatedly at the CO’s driver who keeps getting his jeep stuck because he always tries to start it in 3rd gear.
47. Nor is it permissible to kick his butt because you had to drive a 2 ½ ton truck (no power steering) 40 miles through the Bavarian mountains to get there.
48. When the CQ is known to be a nervous individual, you should not call him and tell him there is someone trying to commit suicide by jumping out a first floor window.
49. If 75% of your battery pisses hot, even if you are one of the other 25% you will get restricted to post for 60 days, no matter how much you plead and argue.
50. If you are on 60 days restriction and decide to sneak out of the barracks to go get drunk, trying to climb the outside of the building to sneak in your second story window is a bad idea.
51. Do not duct tape your driver to his bunk the morning he is supposed to fly home from Germany.
52. During ADA IFF tracking exercises with the Air Force, it is NOT funny to stand behind the guy with the Stinger missile, hold a fire extinguisher, and fire off the fire extinguisher as soon as the Stinger operator says he has a lock on the incoming aircraft. (Who knew an F104 could climb vertically?)
53. You can have a lot of fun with a MILES Viper anti-tank weapon sitting on a hill across the road from an infantry battalion that is setting up and testing their MILES gear.
54. During a convoy through town, do not use the exhaust from the M578 to turn umbrellas inside out, blow up girl’s skirts, or knock over small children.
55. No insulting Air Force Officers, no matter how raggedy their uniform is.
56. Moonshine and PT….Bad combination.
57. Playing music from "Alien Sex Fiend" and "Gay Bikers on Acid" will clear the motor pool office faster than a CS grenade.
58. Coming home from Juarez, slipping on the highly waxed barracks floor, and breaking 2 bottles of Mexican tequila will cause a grown sergeant to cry.
59. Don’t put unflavored Ex-Lax into the squad leaders coffee thermos the first day of a two week FTX.
60. Do not take the division commanders restored WWII half-track for a joyride.
61. Sliding your car through the front gate sideways and almost taking out a civilian gate guard because you are late for an Alert is not the way to impress your 1SG with your gung ho attitude.
62. When you are on gate guard, the long handled mirrors are to check for explosives under incoming vehicles, not to check under women’s skirts.
63. Drinking a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 before a GI party is a bad idea; taking turns riding the buffer only makes things worse.
64. Step one: partially fill condoms with mayo and toss them into the tree in front of the barracks. Step two: enjoy the next rain storm when condoms start falling on HQ platoon.

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Andy Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 3:03 am

36. The proper way to ask to speak to SSG Head on the phone is “May I please speak to speak to SSG Head?” not “Gimme Head!”

lmao

Eben Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 4:04 am

What happens with MILES gear?

SPC K reply on April 27th, 2009 4:30 am:

Army Lazer Tag….

steelcobra reply on April 27th, 2009 5:15 am:

Everyone has an annoying, high-pitched tone go off simultaneously that’s a pain in the ass to shut off.

Speed Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 4:57 am

#52! The’re all incredible, but that’s amazing! And I thought we we’re genuises using up the spare extinguishers down the back of SPC Chrissie’s overalls. I’m requesting my return to amateur status.

Compu-scout Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 5:55 am

#21 Neither is the theme to Sponge Bob Square Pants. Couple of my guys did that when they went through PLDC. I laughed for days about it.

laughing-in-class Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 6:02 am

I gotta ask…wtf is a German Jumping Tree?

Cris Picado reply on April 27th, 2009 9:18 am:

I don’t know either. Is that like the “Peligro” of Fort Carson or something I heard about at Fort Polk called a “wumpus cat”?

M578Jockey reply on April 27th, 2009 10:31 am:

There are two kinds of German jumping trees. The first is when you are sitting on guard duty in the middle of a very dark German forest and you hear someone get up and go take care of personal business. Suddenly you hear CRASH! “OH S$%T!” as the walk into a tree that jumped out in front of them.

The second type is when you hear the person go out into the woods then you quietly get between them and their tent, preferably by a tree, you stand very still and when they get right in front of you, you throw out your arms and yell TREE! and then run away very fast….

Arcanum Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 6:29 am

It’s kinda depressing, but #19 actually makes sense if you think about it. How many nuclear missiles have we ever fired?

#52: Wow. Just…wow.

SPC Hyle reply on April 27th, 2009 7:54 am:

Further @19:

How the living hell did that happen? When I was FA, we had to make safety T’s–it was impossible to shoot out of the impact area if anyone remotely bothered to check them. If that had happened in my battery, the BC, the XO, and the FDO would have been relieved, not to mention the FDC chief and whatever gun shot those rounds…

Jesus, do legs do everything fucked up?

CCO reply on April 27th, 2009 10:10 am:

Actually, I’m pretty sure the reference is to nuclear armed artillery, “very tactial” nuclear weapons!

SPC Hyle reply on April 27th, 2009 10:39 am:

I’m more curious as to how they dropped a round into someplace other than an impact area. I know it happens, but if an LT did it, it would mean that he either gave bad grids, and the FDC should have caught it, or was the FDO, but then the FDC chief and the gunline would have caught the fact that they were shooting out of the impact area.

It boggles the mind as to how the hell he could do that, given the story.

CCO reply on April 27th, 2009 11:55 am:

I get the feeling that whoever did that (1) was not following existing procedure and (2) caused additional procedures to be created, as in “The book is written in blood.” Like you said, it probably took more than one person to make that mistake.

Hey, I messed up a few times–not usually with live rounds (except that one time hunting with my father when I tracked a bird too far around) — I just usually got back stopped.

tanker reply on April 29th, 2009 1:15 pm:

oh, i don’t know. I know of an LT once who was shooting a live fire at ft hood. His ballistic sights was screwed up during the run. His gunner looked through the aux scope, said ‘I only see blue’, Lt says shoot it and lets see where it lands and adjust from there. Watching the tracer clear the top of the mesa (sabot) was pretty awe inspiring….

Arcanum reply on April 27th, 2009 4:33 pm:

He said “nuclear missiles”, so I assumed he meant the specific form of missiles, not the generic “projectile” definition.

CCO reply on April 27th, 2009 6:32 pm:

So he did. I forgot about Honest John Rockets & Pershings.

tgobg reply on May 1st, 2009 4:48 am:

Cruise Missiles (Tomahawk, ALCMS etc…) Can carry nuclear warheads, that was their original purpose

Eben Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 6:44 am

Ahh. Thanks. My dad had to help build a latrine for a military award ceremony. He added a speaker right under the seat and waited till a person(in this case a woman) entered the latrine. He waited about twenty seconds and yelled into the the mic “HEY LADY, CUT IT OUT! I’M PAINTING DOWN HERE.” He says she came out screaming. She was some higher ups wife and he wasn’t happy.

Alex Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 6:58 am

Number 52 is incorrect. That is very funny, and keeps pilots on their toes.

captcha: 3c pallet. Yeah, just put it in the back room.

AFP reply on August 3rd, 2009 12:37 pm:

I didn’t get #52 at first, even after some thought, but then I read your comment and went back to it, and now I’m LOLing at my desk at work. Awesome!

For some reason, I thought it was a reference to hosing the missileer down with CO2, rather than scaring the flight suit off of a fighter pilot XD

CCO Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 7:53 am

#52: An F-104?!!! Good training!

SFC TC reply on April 29th, 2009 8:59 am:

Yep, especially when the F104 completed phase out in 1975, 6 years before the stinger was introduced.

Then again they didn’t specify US Air Force, could have been joint training op.

cmdr. crashlander reply on May 7th, 2011 1:03 am:

The F104 was pushed along by 1 GE J-79 turbojet which puts out betwen 18 and 20 thousand pounds of thrust depending on how you tweak it. It could break Mach 2, The Starfighter was known as
“The missle with a man in it” I saw one have a melt down on the runway at the Arlington WA airport during an engine runup test due to a bad feedback cable. Borked half the hot section out the afterburner like a big glowing gopher on to the runway.
This actually was not a plane at this point. It had been converted into a car called the North Americab Eagle To try and retake the land speed record from the Brits by breaking 800 MPH. (see http://www.landspeed.com for more details)
I use one of the burned up tirbin blades as a paper weight :)

CCO Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 8:09 am

#30: Hey, wait a minute– M-113s are tracked vehicles, right?

M578Jockey reply on April 27th, 2009 10:38 am:

Light Wheel mechanics (63B) Heavy Wheel mechanics (63S) and Track Vehicle Mechanics (63Y) all merged at E-6 and became 63B’s, so BNCOC had everything from a jeep to an M-88 recovery wehicle in the course.

CCO reply on April 27th, 2009 11:47 am:

Sounds like how my supply sergeant had do grave’s registration & commissary stuff when she went to ANCOC.

(Good list!)

Jim A reply on April 28th, 2009 5:43 am:

Soylent olive drab?

Matt Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 9:08 am

#44

Is that even possible? Really?

CCO reply on April 27th, 2009 9:58 am:

Statistically it’s possible.

Politically, it’s umm… less than optimal.

SPC Hyle reply on April 27th, 2009 10:45 am:

Yes, it is possible. I mean, let’s be honest here–it’s the fucking Army. EO rep is sometimes a punishment assignment. Do the math.

CCO reply on April 27th, 2009 11:43 am:

And sometimes they just run out of bodies; as a specialist (E-4) I was made energy conservation NCO by my first sergeant.

SPC Hyle reply on April 27th, 2009 12:11 pm:

Man, you must have either pissed him off good, or were too damn smart for your own good.

CCO reply on April 27th, 2009 1:16 pm:

Beats me! I had forgotten about it until just then; there actually were two of us specialists; I may have been the assistant energy conservation NCO.

Viktim Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 12:16 pm

#52 is Abso-f’ing-lutely brillant!! ROFLMAO.

Though, yeah, F-104? Really?

Phantom Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 12:17 pm

55: Yeah, my trumpet instructor used to be Air Force. I’m afraid of what he could do if I play LAZER TONE! in lessons.

David Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 3:12 pm

Ahh, yes! The power of the powdered CS!

stunts physical – yeah, that it does!

jon spencer Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 4:21 pm

For number 8.
We used to have 300 mm adjustable wrenches, good gsa “quality” too.

Raven Prometheus Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 4:50 pm

#40: Well, I wouldn’t say upset, but when we’re called to testify in your court martial, we do have to tell the truth. It sucks putting a guy that did something just for a laugh away for a LONG time….

Lit Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 5:03 pm

Please tell me you have a picture of #26. I’m suddenly inspired to “work” in my unit’s motor pool for next couple of days.

CCO Says:
April 27th, 2009 at 6:36 pm

Re #40: Am I getting det cord and prima cord mixed up? Both are explosives right or is det cord just a fuse?

SPC Hyle reply on April 27th, 2009 8:04 pm:

Det cord is explosives, but is often used as a fuse for certain types of explosives. Most explosives are actually two-stage, a high-yield but insensitive compound, with a low-yield but sensitive compound to start it off. That’s how artillery shells work, as well as nuclear weapons.

TheShadowCat Says:
April 29th, 2009 at 7:42 am

#36 – almost spit my diet Coke all over my screen when I read that one.

Andrew Says:
April 29th, 2009 at 11:24 am

# 52. Ah… that reminds me of the old Japanese guy that used to live outside of Fort Irwin in Cali. His house was directly in line with the rotors approach for the air field. He was also a collector of military weaponry. One thing he had was a decomissioned anti-aircraft gun (115mm I think) with intact electronic tracking and lock-on. Nothing funier than watching an Apache coming in on low approach, the japanese guy flipping on the E.T.A.S., then watching the Apache go berserk as their alarms went off. I learned really quick there there are some things Apaches can do that no rotor should be able to do. And I think the pilots learned a few things about their craft too.

captcha: This nobility – I hope they aren’t talking about our govt.

Zep Says:
February 20th, 2011 at 4:37 pm

God I couldn’t stop laughing about #6, I wonder how long it took him to figure out what it was

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