"The Original Arnold Horshack" Topic

"The following is adapted from Swift Boats at War in Vietnam (Stackpole, 2017), edited by Guy Gugliotta, John Yeoman, and Neva Sullaway.

Swift Boats (patrol boat fast, or PCFs) at the beginning of 1970 appeared to be in reasonable control of their war. Operation SEALORDS had cleared large swatches of the Lower Mekong Delta, forcing the enemy to withdraw to strongholds deep in the forest. Firefights and ambushes had declined, and civilians could move about the region with relative ease. SeaFloat, the Navy's floating base in the Cua Lon Estuary, was a resounding success, fostering the growth of a substantial settlement where none had existed before, thereby giving local people a chance to earn a living.

Up in the northern Delta, Swifts had joined with PBRs (patrol boats, river) and RAG (river assault group) units to choke off the flow of supplies and men along the Cambodian border. A second detachment of Swifts policed the border from a makeshift forward base at Ha Tien, at the mouth of the Giang Thanh River. Although these efforts proved moderately effective, manning guard posts and night ambushes in the sweltering wilderness was not entertaining work. Swift crews generally were not fond of ritual or routine. Some crewmen found inventive ways to kill the boredom…"
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Amicalement
Armand

That was a pretty good story.

That's one of the stupidest stories I've ever read.

Well…

Amicalement
Armand

Bored enlisted get into lots of trouble. Bored JUNIOR enlisted can get into trouble in a locked room with nothing inside it but them.

Doesn't sound too far-fetched to me.

I agree Lion … The NCOs in my unit used to joke, "Lock a Pvt. in a rubber room with 2 ball bearings. He'd break one and loose the other."

L4: you forgot "and have no clue how either one happened!"

LOL ! You got that right !

Great story.

I have a good friend who commanded a Nat'l Guard platoon of M1 Abrams tanks in Iraq about 2 years after the pronouncement of "mission accomplished".

Among the pics he took was a close-up of a landmine that they found, poorly emplaced and ill-concealed, right by the junction where their base entry met the local road. A "close-up" in that you can see the toe of his boot in the pic, right next to the edge of the hole that the mine is sitting in.

I asked him about the pic. He started to describe how the mine was seen just that morning by the first vehicle as the morning patrol rolled out the gate, and how he, being back several vehicles in the line to get out, dismounted and … I interrupted him. "Why did you go and stand 6 inches away from a live landmine?"

He replied "To take a picture!"

Sigh …

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

When I was at Marine Barracks at Fort Meade one night two guys on guard duty were bored. To solve the boredom they practiced "quick draw" on each other with their .45cal pistol and shot each other in the leg.

I can totally vouch for junior enlisted doing the stupidest things. I was one.

Wolfhag