A guy at my school
stole a bullet from the cadet force and spent the whole afternoon sitting under the school stage threatening to hit it with a hammer and kill himself.
( MartinH, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 12:11, Reply)

So many stories, so little girth
"Black up, lads", said WO Simmons as we lay in a ditch on some maneouvre out in the English countryside.

The enemy were due any minute, and even in the dead of night, our peachy clean white faces would stick out like sore thumbs.

So, I scooped up a handful of mud and smeared it liberally around my chops to hide me from those bigger, nastier boys and their great big guns.

At least, I thought it was mud.

"Corporal Scary - what the fuck is that smell?"

"Oh shit."

And it was.

Good: no bugger came within twenty foot of me that night.

Bad: three days of the galloping squits.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 12:01, Reply)

Not me but...
I have an uncle that has been in the armed forces for years, for the purpose of this story, lets call him Bob. Bobs head officers 50th birthday comming up, so there was gonna be a party, and what better way to celebrate then have a fancy dress party! So one night Bob decides to go have a beer with the head officer, while in the pub discussing what to wear, Bob suggests that the head officer should go as mr T, and bob go as a member of the KKK, head officers wasnt too sure, but bob said that he already had the whole outfit ready, so why not! so the head officers agrees, and carries on drinking. At the night of the party, bob arrives at HO house to get ready, sorts out the outfit, both of them look pretty funny, so they deicide to head off to the mess, (where the party was being held) Head officers walks in to find that every one of the 150+ officers has come as a member of the KKK...

Sorry for length and girth, but you love it...
WOOO! first post!
(if_only, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 12:00, Reply)

true story
i was on the british side in WW2, i killed like 10 germans in a row once, then they started shouting at me "OMG SPRAYING NOOB!" and stuff like "AIMBOT H4XoR!!1", then i got kicked from the server and i was like "WTF!?11oneoen"
( northernwifeb3ta is going to Dubai in December :D for "work", Fri 24 Mar 2006, 11:31, Reply)

Joining Up
I signed up for the army at 17. The first 3 days of basic training were brillant - down the pub every night -picking up kit - sitting around smoking - no drill - not having to make our beds.

Then 72 hours into it everything changed.

The corporals and sergeants who obviously been acting went absolutely mental. We were sitting on our beds and they stormed into the room screaming to get changed into our running kit and to get outside. Thirty of us lined up thinking what the fuck was going on.

The commanding officer then walked into view and said

"Your dental records are inorder, you have been passed fit by the doctor, your pay records are inorder...now you're fucking mine."

We then were taken on a ten mile log run, 7 people left the next day.

In my 3 years as a squaddie nothing was as scary as that
(noggin, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 11:18, Reply)

Different kind of army
In the seventies, Belfast was a rather troubled place. One morning my granny went out the back to empty the bin and there was a sniper sitting on the back wall, waiting for one of the frequent brit patrols that went through the area.

She threw coal at him until he pissed off.
( VampireMonkeyOnSpeed a super sexy sexual sex terrorist sex, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 11:12, Reply)

WAR! never been so much fun de-diddle WAR!
Cannon fodder. Great game.

never been in the army
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 11:04, Reply)

They promised me I could beat up queers and darkies.
I didn't get to do that very much, but at least I got lots of sex on account of all sailors being bummers.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 10:54, Reply)

Back in 1981
I was nursing my wounds after a messy marriage break up and decided to take my uncles advice and try to join the Royal Marines. My idea was to join the RM Band and travel the world. Problem was, I was a fit fucker then, and got an A1 fitness pass so I ended up being selected for special duties, ended up in the SBS and went to the Falklands. My story is here. I'm back in the music business now.
( Captn Hood-Butter is not dead yet., Fri 24 Mar 2006, 10:50, Reply)

Watch
When I was in 'Nam I hid some bloke's watch up my bottom. When I got home I gave it to his son. Little bugger didn't look too impressed with it, though. What a waste of time and effort.
(stusut79, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 10:37, Reply)

Millions of years ago
I was in the army bit of CCF at Bradford Grammar School because I wanted to have a go at playing with guns. They have an armoury there, should you choose to start an armed revolution using 22 and 303 rifles it would be the ideal place to steal from. Anyway, they sent us on a jaunt up to a place called Warcop in Cumbria to run around blow stuff up, just the sort of thing any right minded 13 year old boy would want to do. What they didn't tell us was that one person would be singled out for brutal treatment throughout the weekend by the sixth formers who were pretending to be officers. I seem to recall one bloke who is now a copper in a former colony in Asia being beaten and sexually assaulted by an older lad who was called Matthew something or other, all under the noses of the teachers. In loco parentis indeed. Character building I've no doubt. In conclusion; pseudo military boys' club = bummer's paradise
(bogus official shove it up your cunt, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 10:31, Reply)

Navy Horridness
I was a Matelot (thats a Sailor in the Royal Navy) for a while back in the early -mid 90's back when I didnt know any better...
Basic Training: so mind and body numbing that Id forgotten what my parents and my girlfriend's faces looked like after just a week. I was also unable to go for a shit for nearly 2 weeks and unable to get an erection for nearly 6 weeks- and they reckon they dont use bromide anymore.
After passing out the rest of my time was spent alternating between picking up leaves for an OCD suffering base commander and waving ping pong bats at Harriers(I was a aircraft Handler in the fleet Airarm)I then decided I wanted to do the Royal Marines psycho all arms course (a course so tough the best the US Marines had couldnt do it), buggered my knee up and bought myself out to become a forklift driver.
The Royal Navy- James Bond it AINT

In WW2 my Grandad, a private in an Italian Artillery regiment, was-true to the stereotype-,captured in the desert by the British army. He was playing cards at the time and went to his deathbed bitter at not being able to win back the money some 'dirty Sicilian' had won off him
( bigmeuprudeboy is using powerpoint or paint...have MERCY, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 10:30, Reply)

Sort of on topic in that it involves someone in the Army, which isn't me nor is it strictly an Army-related story or, indeed, at all.
My grandad was a Sapper in the war. He built the Basra pipeline that we're fighting over all over again, he was responsible at the age of seventeen for keeping the entire South East's contingent of Bristol Blenheims in the air, was a part time rally driver and mates with an agent of the SOE (not Sony Online :P). He is also very much a product of Empire. He's not racist, as such, but he can't quite wrap his head around modern attitudes to race. He is a dinosaur. An example:

He recently went into hospital for a triple heart bypass, he wasn't, as I'm sure you can imagine, in the finest fettle and was somewhat disconcerted to have a black male nurse looking after him. His concerned conversation with my mum went along these lines.

"Jude, I'm not sure whether I should say anything, but I really think I should have a qualified nurse, not an orderly"

"Er, Dad, he is a proper nurse."

"Oh really? They're allowed now are they? Well, that's jolly good, isn't it?"

Now, he considers himself to be a pretty progressive sort of a chap and decided he'd strike up a conversation with his nurse. In the interests of racial relations, you see.

The poor nurse was somewhat disconcerted the next morning to find his patient jabbering away at him in tongues. My grandad was trying to talk to a lad born and raised in South London in fluent Swahili.
( Kroney, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 10:08, Reply)

I was in the Venture Scouts
got buggered senseless though.



does that count?
(nappy rash, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 9:50, Reply)

Seen a lot of them through being in air cadets, so you'll see a fair few from me this week.
The first I shall tell will be the tale of about five people being locked in a under-floor storage cupboard in a moving caravan at an RAF gliding station.

Following a good day's gliding, it came time to pack away the gliders and the caravan and toddle off to the mess. Now we were all in fairly high spirits, and the idea came to two of the bigger instructors to stick one of the female cadets into this underfloor cupboard, which was absolutely tiny. They then think "why stop there" and throw in one of the instructors, a six foot tall grinning ginger lunatic. He points out that it's against the rules for him to be locked in a cupboard with a female cadet in case he accidentally sexes her. So to counter this they throw me in. Two more cadets were thrown in after as well. Now it was all rather cramped but we'd had the laugh. Unfortunately the storage door was then locked from the outside. And the caravan started moving.

Spent the next five minutes with my head between the girls' legs bouncing up and down. This might have been slightly more erotic if 1) I had been 100% sure it was the girl at the time (for the first half of the journey I was only guessing) 2) if it hadn't been pitch black, and 3) if I hadn't had said ginger lunatic's leg compressed against my crotch.

Got out a few minutes later and were told "never tell anyone about this, it could lose me my job" by ginger nutter (who I later discovered had a habit of getting on very very well with female cadets).

Whoops.
( Noit happy baby orangutan, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 9:41, Reply)

My parents met in the Army...
... my Dad says nobody fires a machine gun quite like my Mum. Must have been love at first sight!
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 9:21, Reply)

Cadets were rubbish
I was in army cadets and they were crap. Every once in a while we'd go out on MOD ranges for detachment weekends where girls from other platoons would generally get their tits out and try and impress the real soldiers. People got kicked around, the sergeants (who were in their twenties) verbally and physically abused us and we spent our whole time swearing. We were only 14-15. That probably why the Leiutentant (sp?) of our platoon was paedophile. And he was. Was found in a caravan with the girl who ran our NAAFI sweet shop. She was 14, he was about 50. Fair play to him.
( Fray Brentos *mega-belms*, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 9:02, Reply)

War Bastard
I was shooting alien geese in the plains of Nicaragua when one of my buddies goes limp "noooooooooooooooooooooooo" I shout like I've seen in the films, and I rush over to him.

"are you ok Mitchell?" I yell in his face

"no Brady, I've been slotted"

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" I scream again. This time for a bit longer. "who was it?" I demand, shaking him and with his last breath he manages to mutter "Boy....... George".

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" says I once more.

From then on I made it my life's mission to track down and kill that cross dressing fat necked ponce, but alas he evades me still.

He is a karma chameleon I suppose after all.
(Andrew Avetoom, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 8:11, Reply)

Well
January 18th 1990, my second day in the RAF, I nearly ripped me bollocks off.
Whilst 'doubling' back to the domestic half off RAF Swiderby (Swinditz), I caught myself about 1" to my left of me nadgers on the upright resty thing that those pivoty wotsit barriers rest on.
It hurt.
I now have a scar about 10" long on my left leg, although it has faded well with time.
We also had this fuck off huge lad who was christened honey monster, along with this lad who was on permanent drill, due to the fact he couldn't walk, nevermind march.
I cannot put words to describe how well he marched, but he was known throughout Swinderby, if not the entirety of Lincolnshire, as Robocop.
I could tell you more, but I'd have to kill you.....
( the wild elk Freeing excellence affects reality, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 7:51, Reply)

My grandfather fought in WW2. Yes for the "bad" side.
He wasn't exactly supporting the nazis or anything. Before the war he owned a farm and he would often hide Jewish slave workers in his barn and secretly feed them out of view of the nazi guards. His ethic on the matter was if you didn't get fed right and treated well you wouldn't work hard. But in a nice way.

He also lived somewhere near a death camp. With some vague idea on what was happening he approached an old friend, now nazi. Him "I'm not blind, I see the trucks. I can smell, I know theres smoke. What the fuck is going on there?". He was told he better shut up and pretend nothing ever happened or him and his family would be 'taken care of'. So just a normal hardworking farmer with strong work ethic and human decency, but also wanting to look after himself and his family and his country.

He was East Prussian, so when the war got going he was pretty much on the front. At some point the Russians came and they all evacuated, with great loss.

While he was a soldier he had a few interesting tales, from what he's told me. Once a grenade or mine exploded near him. He's still got the shrapnel in his eye-lid.

Once he got chucked in an American concentration camp. They didn't feed him for a week or two. People started dying. Then they gave them some peaches or something. Apparently many more died from burst stomachs or something trying to eat after such a large fast. He started slow and made it. He didn't really escape I think, the war just kinda ended and he gradually went south from job to job until he settled down near the Swiss border.

Sorry for length and hope I haven't confused or omitted anything.
(riedacher_bertram, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 6:04, Reply)

Life in the Royal Australian Navy
i joined the navy through ADFA, and got my aviation degree, well currently i am flying Seahawk helicopters out of Nowra, when i am doing patrols out on the north coast of australia (you know to stop illegal fishing)
its funny looking at the fishermen's face when i buzz them. i also was on stand-by during the disposal of the ship pong su that was taken from some drug smugglers,(i was watching over the pilots just in case anything went wrong) they got two RAAF F-111s to blow the living shite out of it. i could hear the pilot on the radio as he was pulling away when he dropped the bomb, let me tell you he was having too much fun.
(Seahawk, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 5:12, Reply)

I'm currently serving in the US Army.
I'll tell you now, most of the laughs I get from my job are in-jokes that 99.9% of the rest of the world wouldn't understand, so I'll tell a story that one of my Sergeants told me about one of his tours in Iraq.

His platoon had run into some contact and the lieutenant had called in for close air support (by the way, when someone farts in the army he is obligated to say "Lieutenant who?" or "Keep talking sir, we'll find you".) Except he called in for his location instead of the enemies. My Sergeant hears a roar of propellers and looks up to find an Apache attack helicopter headed straight at him. Then he sees the cannon on the front swing around and point at him and seconds later a pair of rockets fired... sailing safely over towards the enemy. After the skermish with great relief he stood up to feel a slight squish in his pant leg. He commenced to walk 10 Km back to the FOB (forward operationg base) with a piece of shit kicking around in his pant leg. He would later be told that when the gun points at you it's because the pilot is looking at you. The gun goes where his head points.
(The Ross, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 4:07, Reply)

Basketball camp-- ARMY style!
My mother was in the US Army and spent a tour teaching at West Point. Which gave me the opportunity to spend a month there one summer learning to play basketball The Army Way, which is closer to being in the Army than I ever want to be again. Of course, The Army Way and teenage girls are a pretty sorry mix. Up at 5am! Lights out at 9pm! Chipped beef on toast! Scary hairy lesbian instructor!

Of the five girls in my room, I was the only one who a) lasted the entire month, and b) went home without a concussion or a broken bone. They played basketball there the way other people play field hockey.

Also relating to my mother's stint at the USMA at WP, there's a ski slope at West Point that we would frequent. I was only 15 or 16 but could easily pass for 18. Whenever I'd ride the chairlift with a cadet, I'd ask him (or her) if he had any classes with Major West. If they said yes, I'd try to see how much shit I could get them to say about her before announcing that Major West is my mother and skiing away really fast.

I never relayed their comments to my mom though. I'm not a farking narc.
( madrabbit is fully prepared, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 3:35, Reply)

Not much to say
I've mentioned these stories before, but they're topic-appropriate so here they are again.

My grand-uncles (my dad's mom's brothers) were both in the army during WW2, although there probably was some conflict since one was in the Japanese army - he had gotten drafted because he had to get Japanese citizenship in order to become a sumo wrestler (seriously) - while the other fought for the US (in Italy, thank goodness). I think there's a movie, or at least a History Channel special in this story...

My dad and one of his friends were both drafted into the army in the 60s (they'd gone to college to avoid the draft but graduated just in time to join). They spent that time defending Texas from the Viet Cong and honing their typing skills. Dad managed to "borrow" an extra army jacket to take home by claiming he'd lost the first one. I can only imagine what other mischief he had gotten into...
(Kitsune-chan I'm not a bunny I'm a grownup girl, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 3:33, Reply)

Leave nothing behind
Not my story, told to me by a friend of mine in the TA.

Basically out on training exercises you are meant to act exactly how you would in an actual combat situation. Anyway... you are supposed to leave as little evidence of your passing as possible. No pans, no food and of course... no big steaming turds. This would mean that you either bury it or lay your chocolate log on some clingfilm/plastic (im not entirely sure of the details), wrap it up and save it for disposal later. At the end of one long exercise everyone has built up a fair few pounds of brown cable and they are just about to head off into the sunset when my friend gets a wonderful idea.

Some poor sap had left his pack unattended so my friend and few others set about removing his kit... and replacing it with their plastic wrapped poo.

This guy must have had the shock of his life when he opened his backpack at base to find he had literally been carrying everyone elses shit including his own.

There are plenty of other stories from this nut... such as beer prizes for hitting sheep with mortar fire and him purposely being given the heaviest and largest weapon possible (hes only small you see), but Il save them for later.
(infernios, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 2:54, Reply)

Radar
I guess I'll start with my friend Verv, who would have qualified for last week's question too (the one before as well). He contacted me a little over a year ago while studying Korean in a military intelligence institute in the US. He's basically everything you'd name in a typical American: extremely pro-Bush, fundamentally religious, and thinks his way is right. I knew coming to this country would open his eyes up. Oh yeah, and he looks like Radar from MASH.

A month after getting here, he made the announcement that he knew the US government was just fucking him around, so he denounced Bush and proclaimed his new belief: "I think this is the underlying premise of a conservative, yet socialistic stance, or inflammatorily known as national socialism."

Verv is the kind of guy drawn to anything a bit nationalistic. He has band together with a small group of very xenophobic Koreans. He also revealed once that he has a fundoshi, that Japanese diaper that sumo wrestlers wear. He loves Asians, but he isn't crazy about blacks and Arabs. But he's the sort of guy more likely to hug someone than punch them. He always uses unnecessary British slang (like "oi" and calling everyone "mate") because he's a skinhead. And he generally sounds like a Klingon on ecstasy. "Tonight, mate, we will drink. For honour!"

The first time I met him, he was the typical annoying foreigner. He got really drunk and assumed every girl wanted to bone him just because he was white. They didn't.

Recently he got two things he really wanted: a Korean girlfriend and a Rock Against Communism shirt. I took this picture that shows off his personality pretty well (http://indecline.net/korea/archive/20060225/RAC.JPG).

That night, he was in the park with the girl on the left when they started snogging in full view of everyone. His uber-nationalist Korean friends showed up, and when they saw Verv with his tongue down this girl's throat, they were pissed. The biggest guy started muttering "What in the fuck?" Verv saw them, stopped kissing the girl, and yelled "Hey guys! Look at my shirt!" One of them nearly kicked his ass.

Later that night he got his nose broken in an inpromptu bare-knuckle boxing match against two of his friends.

I'm gonna cut it off here. Expect any future stories to have more of a point. And no apologies for length because this was just the foreplay.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 2:53, Reply)