My Dad.
Not normally one for telling us scary stories. Or interesting ones. But my Dad.

Based in Belfast circa 1970. He was in the REME and in the garages there were maps of Belfast which had huge red areas - Don't go here. One night, he gets a call from the SM - Get your lazy arses here. So they follow this SM through the streets of Belfast to find an army vehicle broken down. Normally he'd fix it there, but was told to get out now with it. So he did. Got back. Looked at the map to find he'd been taken in to deep middle of the red. Pretty scary.

But as well as that, when the sqauddies drove through towns, they travelled with the back doors open, armed to the teeth. And they don't stop at lights in case someone took pot shots at them. Imagine their faces when a car hurtled past and threw a shoebox in the back. Cue the moment of "wtf" and waiting for everyone to die. They open up the box to find the biggest bra inside they'd ever seen. It hung in the officers mess for a while afterwards.

When Dad progressed up the ranks, he still looked after tanks. Hell, he was on the Challenger mkI project.

All the crews of these tanks had to remember was - when on exercise, just remember to keep the battery alive by using the radio every so often. You don't want a flat battery. Tanks are a little harder to jump start. But, having designed the tanks, Dad knew a little secret. At the drivers feet (their heads out of the top, they can't see their feet) is a couple of connections, which when triggered, produce just enough power to start the tank.

Invariably, Dad would get called out at stupidoclock to "my tanks broken down". Dad would get there, and reach over to the connection and have joyous glee as the tank started first time. Gave him an opportunity to shout at them for getting him out of bed.
(beatpig understands subliminalesbianmessagaying., Tue 28 Mar 2006, 12:20, Reply)