I served in the United States Army for four years. I’m not going to say every minute was full of chuckles and whimsy, but it did have its moments. There were plenty of funny shenanigans I was a witness to or a participant in. Here are a few stories to try and earn me some internet dollars.
My Platoon Sergeant
When I got to my first unit as a shiny new Lieutenant, I knew better than to act like I knew better. I basically let my platoon sergeant run the show while I took care of all the paperwork and other mundane and boring things that officers make twice as much money for doing. In exchange, I am not allowed to be proud of my military service, because I was an officer and did mundane and boring things and got paid twice as much as enlisted people. Fair deal.
Anyway, SSG Tyrell Joseph was a phenomenal guy, if a tad insubordinate. I supposed I tacitly encouraged this behavior by trying to be friendly, and to be honest I didn’t really mind as long as it was behind closed doors and not in front of the soldiers. Anyway, he was from New Orleans and I was from the whitest town in America, so there was a fun dynamic between the nerdy suburban guy and the quiet inner city guy. This ended up going way too far when he discovered the following game one day:
We had been sitting quitely both processing paperwork for at least an hour at that point. He broke the silence. “Hey, sir. Come over here and take a look at these.”
“These what?” I said.
“DEEZ NUTZ!” he said out of nowhere, and then busted out laughing.
A week later, similar scenario.
“Sir, can you sign these?”
“These what?”
“DEEZ NUTS! Hahahaha.” I stewed at my desk, but I probably smiled.
Another couple weeks and my guard had dropped once again.
“Hey sir, I need your help over here with these?”
“These what?”
You get the drift… He was so proud of himself every time I walked into that. I swore to myself I would not fall for it again. Fast forward to a few weeks later.
“Hey sir, have you met the new soldier that showed up today?”
“New soldier? No I didn’t know we were getting a new soldier. Who is it?”
“Yes sir, Private Malong.”
“Malong?”
“My long brown d**k! Ahahaha got you AGAIN!”
Like I said, clear insubordination.
Meeting Shenanigans
I had this game I liked to play with some of the other people I was stuck in meetings with week after week to see who could work in the weirdest phrase and keep a straight face. I think I topped the charts when I said “let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater” during a very serious and tactical briefing. There were about 5 of us trying extremely hard not to burst out laughing.
Cell Phone Shenanigans
My boss was hooked on this Mexican song that had this really irritating trumpety type repeating part. He recorded himself … lip blowing it? … onto his cell phone and then made it his ring tone. He did it to be funny, and he loved showing off his clever ringtone. I got a hold of his phone and send the recording as a multimedia message to HIS boss. Without any context. So his boss opens this file and it’s my boss just lip trumpeting the melody from a Mexican reggae-ton song. This guy had zero sense of humor, so he got really angry about it and I actually ended up getting in trouble but it was hilarious so I really didn’t care.
Training Hilarity
I guess this one is less funny than morbid, but once we were out doing a live fire training exercise. It was a squad assault drill, so several people shoot at a bunker while several more head up and to the left to flank the bunker. You give the signal, and the assault team runs into the bunker, shooting into it. You couldn’t design a better recipe for friendly fire. Anyway, I was on the assault team and as we were just beside the bunker waiting for the signal to run out and assault it, someone shot the tree someone next to me was standing behind. That was the closest I ever came to getting shot, and it was by an American in the United States. I did not have a very dangerous time in the military.
Another time we had been out training for days and we were sick of the food. So we ordered pizza and asked the guy if he would deliver to GPS coordinates. He did. It was awesome.
Cadet Craziness
Once when I was just a cadet, I got to spend a few weeks at Fort Drum in upstate New York shadowing an aviation unit. I got into all kinds of stuff there and had a blast, but a couple days stand out.
One day, there was a Blackhawk unit that was going to do some training on escorting VIPs (which was their mission sometimes overseas – to fly Senators or other civilians around to tour Iraq and stuff). They already had people who had volunteered to be the bad guys (OpFor – opposing force), but they did not have a VIP. So I volunteered. As soon as the mission started and the pretend bullets started flying, I freaked out. Like, “I channeled Chris Tucker’s character Ruby Rhod from The Fifth Element” level freakout. I had a lot of fun with it. The people doing the training were caught totally off guard. I started crawling away from the helicopter until one of them grabbed me by the belt, dragged me back underneath the helicopter, and kneeled directly on me for the rest of the mission. The evaluators and the people running the training thought it was hilarious (and that it actually made for some decent training).
Also at Fort Drum, I got to fly on a Blackhawk all the way around New York City, which is as awesome and cool as it sounds. We flew right by the Statue of Liberty with guns hanging out the side. This mom with her kids looked up and saw us and I could see this look of sheer panic on her face as she grabbed her kids, turned around, and ran straight back into the monument. She must have thought we were under attack. Hilarious.
On the ride back, they flew much higher and they were in some clouds, so I just fell asleep in my seat. All of a sudden, I was jolted awake as we started going down. My stomach was up in my throat and it felt like we were in total freefall and had lost power or something. The helicopter recovers and I see everyone in the chopper is looking at me and laughing hysterically. They had seen that I had fallen asleep, and so they told the pilot to do what’s called an “auto-rotation”, which is like when you put the clutch in on a car while your flying down the highway. Except when you do it in a helicopter, the blades keep spinning just without power, so the whole helicopter starts to drop like a rock and turn at the same time. It will do a number on your stomach even if you’re ready for it. I was not. They thought it was hilarious. I guess it is kind of funny.
Sheer Laziness
Sometimes it’s just funny catching soldiers napping when they should be working.
The white ribbon was supposed to be the “bunker” we would go in when an attack was inbound. We found a way to spruce it up a bit.
Budget Cuts
$700 billion a year and this still happens. How?
Pranks
He ticked off the wrong people.
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em
We had one NCO who couldn’t stand the trainings where we had to keep our gas masks on for any length of time. This was because it meant he couldn’t smoke. Until one day, he found a workaround using the water bottle attachment in the gas mask.
Anyway, those were a few of my favorites. Maybe I’ll post a few more one day if I think of any. Hope you enjoyed! Fellow vets, any funny stories to share? Or really, anyone whose ever had a job, any craziness at work that tops this?
This was my entry for Round 26 of the Comedy Open Mic. In the spirit of stories from vets, I nominate @quillfire as well as @stnwllstrtgc - let's hear a funny story from your time in! @corpsvalues, I would have nominated you, but you actually served as the inspiration to this post with your post from last week.
@DollarsAndSense is a father, veteran, participant in the rat race, freelance writer, and volunteer EMT. Want to read some of my previous comedy entries?
A Scholarly Exposition of the Dark Message Behind the Children's Book "Goodnight, Moon" (Comedy Open Mic Round # 25)
Awesome Stuff Named After Crappy People (Comedy Open Mic Round # 24)
Epic Stir Fry Timelapse (Comedy Open Mic Round # 23)
An exposition of the deeper meaning within this Dr. Seuss book - Comedy Open Mic Round # 22
Unless otherwise noted, all text and images in this post are my own and may not be reused without my permission.
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