Explosives expert
Very good friend of mine (I swear it isn't me, really) got the draft (we're Australian) for Vietnam and like an idiot promptly joined up. Soon thereafter the penny drops with regards death, discipline and general nastiness, so said fellow decides to maneuver himself out of potential danger (and not into the brig) by being a bit of a funny bastard. You know, "accidentally" dropping mortar rounds down the barrel upside down, that sort of thing. So they made him an engineer. Naturally. Somewhere his "sense of humour" wouldn't perhaps endanger his comrades. Being an engineer in the army at that time mostly involved blowing things up. In his case, trees to make way for a road through Borneo (that's not still classified, is it??). So, how much PE does it take to fell a 90 ft rainforest giant, then? Or rather,how much does it take to lift the whole bloody thing not just skyward, but skyward and over a bit... a bit more.... and all the way to just (allegedly) 5 ft short of the Officer's Mess IN THE NEXT VALLEY? He's still not saying. Apparently the best 2 bits of his servive year were 1) hanging out with the locals for days at a time whilst on "field work" getting pissed on tapai, and 2) leave in Singapore on his way home to Oz, where in 4 days a whole year's pay went on hiring a Mercedes, drinking, and whoring. So you see, he did learn to be a good army sort after all.
(dadadali has hybrid vigour, Mon 27 Mar 2006, 13:45, Reply)