Whats the dumbest thing you ever did when you were in the service?

I was in Kinville Okinawa outside of Camp Hansen celebrating (heavily) my birthday,when my platoon Sgt. came in furious looking for my buddy.Normally we went together everywhere but this particular night we went separate directions. The Sgt. wouldn't believe I didn't know his where abouts and took me outside to berate me.Not happy about this treatment on my birthday (and drunk) I smacked him knocking him down.I paused for a moment and then thought"might as well get my monies worth" and proceeded to beat him like a rented mule.Shortly the ville patrol arrived and took me into custody and off to a cell. The SSgt in charge was a friend of my Sgt and was more than peeved and taunted me.I unleashed a rant of expletives and jokes about him and his family members that had all the prisoners and staff howling.Little did I realize all this was written down and read at my office hours in front of the Major and his officers who were a tougher crowd than my fellow inmates and didn't appreciate my material.400 dollars and a stripe later,plus guard and mess duty back to back along with a missed float to Tinian,Saipan and Guam all was well.
 
Anyone else know how hard it is to retrieve a full water buffalo from the middle of a Reserve Center's muddy-grass front yard?

The driver of the 5-ton that spun a nice muddy trench with all 6 wheels got chewed on by 3 different people for that problem! We missed our SP by a LOT!
 
Tim L said:
I was in Kinville Okinawa outside of Camp Hansen celebrating (heavily) my birthday,when my platoon Sgt. came in furious looking for my buddy.Normally we went together everywhere but this particular night we went separate directions. The Sgt. wouldn't believe I didn't know his where abouts and took me outside to berate me.Not happy about this treatment on my birthday (and drunk) I smacked him knocking him down.I paused for a moment and then thought"might as well get my monies worth" and proceeded to beat him like a rented mule.Shortly the ville patrol arrived and took me into custody and off to a cell. The SSgt in charge was a friend of my Sgt and was more than peeved and taunted me.I unleashed a rant of expletives and jokes about him and his family members that had all the prisoners and staff howling.Little did I realize all this was written down and read at my office hours in front of the Major and his officers who were a tougher crowd than my fellow inmates and didn't appreciate my material.400 dollars and a stripe later,plus guard and mess duty back to back along with a missed float to Tinian,Saipan and Guam all was well.
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Bad things happen in Kinville, though I do miss the taco rice and cheese.
 
shameless plug for *arms accross america*

aka lost weapons [rofl]

Kosovo: our partner unit went on a patrol and one of the NCOs put an M4 on the roof of his vehicle.. you know, like take out food? they get in the vehicle and drive off. my platoon was on QRF... guess what? o dark thirty, lets go find this weapon.. do a TCP and hope we find it... nope... a local Albanian turned in the weapon a few weeks later to one of the hard sights (FOBs).

Iraq: same... someone lost an M9... Arms Accross Iraq! [rofl] it was never found

JRTC - Fort Polk, LA: pair of NVGs lost. we spent an extra 30 hours in the field after a FAILED sensative items check... Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant were relieved "for cause" because they gave the "red one up" w/o checking... another unit found the damn things and notified range control (i think).

good times [cheers]
 
wolf223 said:
shameless plug for *arms accross america*

aka lost weapons [rofl]

Kosovo: our partner unit went on a patrol and one of the NCOs put an M4 on the roof of his vehicle.. you know, like take out food? they get in the vehicle and drive off. my platoon was on QRF... guess what? o dark thirty, lets go find this weapon.. do a TCP and hope we find it... nope... a local Albanian turned in the weapon a few weeks later to one of the hard sights (FOBs).

Iraq: same... someone lost an M9... Arms Accross Iraq! [rofl] it was never found

JRTC - Fort Polk, LA: pair of NVGs lost. we spent an extra 30 hours in the field after a FAILED sensative items check... Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant were relieved "for cause" because they gave the "red one up" w/o checking... another unit found the damn things and notified range control (i think).

good times [cheers]
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We had someone lose a set of NVGs at PTA on the big island. We walked in line, double-arms interval, for 5 miles. Someone found them in a humvee the next day.
 
I pulled a water buffalo up the backside of the CTA (central training area) in northern Okinawa in a rain storm.Its like Georgia mud,concrete when its dry and pure red grease when wet. Two trucks were stuck on the main road blocking it off. The 1st Lieu almost shat himself when I came over the steep hill behind him.He said "how did you do that"? I said "just like mud season in NH".
 
I used to hit Kinville at night for shrimp fried rice,made right in front of you in a wok. It was good drunk chow. Loaded with hot sauce of course.No wonder I look like death on toast now.
 
Hmm, thankfully I never got an Art.15 for some of the things I did.[laugh]
The only thing I will admit to was when I first got to Berlin, early 80's...I got inprocessed really fast. They were short handed so they wanted me to work. [laugh] Which as a result I never went to the School of Standards, where you find out the do's and don'ts of Berlin.
Now I should also say I was never a barracks rat, and when I landed there I figured I was going to see what the city had to offer. Which I did. I worked swing shift so I figured I had the morning to go exploring until I had to go to work. It was all good until I had to head back to the barracks. I was looking AT THE U-Bahn map and was like ah cool I can get from where I was to where I needed to go.
Now remember I am in civilian clothes, and only have my military ID on me. The train went a couple of stops, I'm like okay, well the next stop there is someone in uniform on the platform with a rifle, I'm like hmmm, continue to the next stop, same thing, then I am like Oh crap. The best not board the train.
Thank God they didn't but I was sweating it until I got to the other side.
I'm blonde haired and blue eyed, and got mistaken for a German many times when I was out and about.
I got to work that night and told a few of what I had done by accident and soon found out I could not ride that train or another. I lucked out it didn't get boarded, but I found out the other train if I had taken it, they did board and ask for ID. I'd have been screwed.[laugh]
 
Okay, warn your kids about this one. At the beginning of basic at Ft. Leonard Wood, the call went out during one formation for a volunteer to play the base drum (it pains me to continue). Having briefly played the base drum in the high school marching band, I thought "I can do this." I'm only 5 ft. 6, loaded with a full pack, rubber boots hanging off the back, M14 across my shoulder, and this god-awful big base drum strapped on. I'm thinking, this is not so bad, until I hear the call "DOUBLE TIME,........." My IQ went up at least 10 points in the next few moments and weeks that followed.
 
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The list is too long. How nobody died over the years with all the stupid stuff we did is beyond me.
 
I thought it would be cool if I brought some 20mm rounds home to show my friends[smile]

After what I did sunk in, I brought them back and no one ever knew.
 
My vehicle crew did a bayonet charge against the OPFOR at JRTC during convoy training when we ran out of blank ammo. Ended up getting our a$$es chewed by an Army full bird, but our battalion commander complimented us after the fact. Real bayonets > fake bullets.
 
The list of dumb things and poor decisions is long and not complementary....

#1 - Not telling one of my Fire Team Leaders over the radio that the reaction callout was a drill. Two Marines went to the hospital when the driver lost control and wrecked the HMMWV on the way to the scene. The HMMWV was totaled and the Fire Team Leader lost a stripe at NJP.
 
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In AIT don't ever make a comment about a couple of inches of snow on the ground and the general's wife not being able to get to the PX. I ended up shoveling snow for a few hours.[laugh]
I wasn't happy they closed the base cause I wanted to take my last final and get out of there.[grin]
 
OK......i checked the Statute of Limitations on this............

This is me showing off one of my trophy's from my Army days...

KimRowland003-1.jpg


I stole it one night from the front bumber of a two star's staff car![smile]
 
ochmude said:
My vehicle crew did a bayonet charge against the OPFOR at JRTC during convoy training when we ran out of blank ammo. Ended up getting our a$$es chewed by an Army full bird, but our battalion commander complimented us after the fact. Real bayonets > fake bullets.
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MILES gear just makes people forget about the laws of physics... they think that a tent wall or tall grass will stop bullets (even from a machine gun!)... they think that once you get too close for safe use of blanks, you can just yell "Close Kill," and you've met your mission... and then the fight started! ("I yelled 'Close Kill' first!").

And the yahoos who take the batteries out so that they can never be "killed," or who continue playing long after their buzzers go off....

Bring on the paintball guns! I want an AR paintball marker! No fancy triggers for me... just make it feel & shoot like an M-16!
 
When I was in Kosovo they decided to give my company 2 M113A3's. At this point in the deployment I was really bored most of the time, and I somehow managed to get to drive one everytime we used them.

I also had an odd amount of freedom for an E4. Being in the HQ platoon, I would just make some report at the TOC with some reason for me going outside the base and off I went with whoever had free time.

So anyway, we used to drive the M113 a lot becuase its wicked fun to beat on. Down the street from Bondsteel there was this dump that the people used in that area. Imagine like 10+ piles of dirt and trash that are about 10-15 feet high in the space of a football field. It made a heck of a off road driving course. So one day I'm out there going up and down up and down the bumps all fooling around. I even have my TC video taping it.

Well, I went up one side, and came down the other so steep that I was partialy thrown out of the drivers hatch, my CVC helmet fell off and out of the vehicle and the M113 almost flipped over from the back to the front. So that was the last time I drove over those humps going more then a few MPS [rofl]

The other time with the M113 was like 50 feet over from the humps. I used to like running trees over a lot, so I decided to drive into the woods. Well I hit a ditch and then a wall of dirt and rock at the tree line, so I went from 20mph to zero in a split second, not straped in. Me and the TC got slammed around good after that one. I didnt try to drive into that tree line anymore.

Keeping with the I liked to run trees over theme, we were making a road wider, so i pushed all the trees over with the M113 so the guy with the bulldozer knew how much trees to remove. After a full work day I drove the M113 back to base dragging a tree behind me. When I got to the gate to clear my weapons I saw it. the only thing I could do is laugh. this like 7' diameter tree had wraped it self around the rear sprocket that holds the track on. I drove that bad larry to the parking area and left it there. KBR took it out for me no questions asked [rofl]
 
I was patrolling an obscure location on my base (an area I wasnt supposed to be in), and parked my truck on a hill that was muddy. WHen I tried to back out, the rear end of the truck slid a ways down the hill and high centered the truck on a tree stump. I tried everything to get the vehicle out, but it didnt work so I left the truck there and started walking towards my squadron. My supervisor saw me walking down the road and asked me what the heck I was doing, and he got pissed. We called the motor t guys to come and tow the truck off the stump after about 2 hours of trying to damage control the whole situation. The flight chief heard about it, and got pissed and made me go for a drug test, and write statements, and all that jazz. I did the flight safety briefings for a month.
The whole thing also got back to my commander, and I had to show up in blues at the staff meeting that next week and give a vehicle safety/ driving safety brief to the staff as well as the mission support group commander... they gave me hell in the meeting, but when I saw them outside of the meeting they all laughed and said they thought it was the most creative thing that they had seen an A1C do in a long time.
 
MrsWildweasel said:
Hmm, thankfully I never got an Art.15 for some of the things I did.[laugh]
The only thing I will admit to was when I first got to Berlin, early 80's...I got inprocessed really fast. They were short handed so they wanted me to work. [laugh] Which as a result I never went to the School of Standards, where you find out the do's and don'ts of Berlin.
Now I should also say I was never a barracks rat, and when I landed there I figured I was going to see what the city had to offer. Which I did. I worked swing shift so I figured I had the morning to go exploring until I had to go to work. It was all good until I had to head back to the barracks. I was looking AT THE U-Bahn map and was like ah cool I can get from where I was to where I needed to go.
Now remember I am in civilian clothes, and only have my military ID on me. The train went a couple of stops, I'm like okay, well the next stop there is someone in uniform on the platform with a rifle, I'm like hmmm, continue to the next stop, same thing, then I am like Oh crap. The best not board the train.
Thank God they didn't but I was sweating it until I got to the other side.
I'm blonde haired and blue eyed, and got mistaken for a German many times when I was out and about.
I got to work that night and told a few of what I had done by accident and soon found out I could not ride that train or another. I lucked out it didn't get boarded, but I found out the other train if I had taken it, they did board and ask for ID. I'd have been screwed.[laugh]
Click to expand...

I was never .mil and I've never been to Germany so I don't know, but why would that have been a big deal?
 

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