"How about sharing funny military stories for vets day" Topic

From my dad – basic training circa 1942

Private Baxter was an Idaho sheep farmer and didn't know right and left hands (Not to mention never had taken a shower in his life, but that is a different story). This rather obviously was a problem during drill and ceremonies.
Drill Sgt gave him a rather large rock to carry in his right hand. Future commands were:
To the rock, march!
Away from the rock, march!

Hah. Like the ACW "Hayfoot, strawfoot". Goes back a lot further,too--the Greeks had "To the spear,face!"--"To the shield, face!".

My uncle was a bombardier on a B-29 during the Korean War. He said he had the best view of everything in the transparent bubble at the very front of the plane: he could see all of the enemy searchlights and every anti-aircraft round coming for his plane.

The funny story is about the lavatory facilities on B-29, which consisted of a metal bucket. The first man to use the bucket had to empty it when the plane returned to base. So everyone waited for an announcement like "tailgunner just used the bucket", so that they could go use it.

My father served on B-25s in the So. Pacific. For kicks they took some nurses for a ride. One of them picked the makeshift urinal, a hose with an attached funnel, and asked what it was for. The pilot told her it was to talk to the tail gunner. She put it up to her mouth and screamed my father's name into it trying to talk to him.

My father served three tours in Vietnam in the Corps. During one tour he was an aerial photograph interpreter, (earlier he'd been a BAR gunner and radio operator). During rocket attacks they'd run out of their offices, which were on the second floor, throw themselves against the railing on the stairs so as to 'bounce' and slow them down so they could make the turn and run down the stairs. During one attack a fellow Marine hit the railing and it gave way so that he sailed out into nothing before gravity took over and he made contact with the earth. Needless to say he ended up in sick bay with several broken bones. Someone put him in for an Air Medal and it was making its way through the administration channels until a clerk actually read the recommendation and quashed it.

On another occasion they were attacked and a new Lt. was injured when the 'four holer' he was sitting on was hit. At formation a short time later he was presented with a medal someone had carved in the shape of a toilet seat.

My late father's late friend Joe Kidd served in the desert in WW2. Since this thread is about amusing stories, I will cut to the point where Joe got captured. A German crooked his finger at Joe, saying "Komm Hier!" Joe, a Scotsman, thought how kind it was for this fellow to be addressing him in his native tongue. Later, Joe fetched up at a PoW camp, somewhere in Nazidom. He was shown to a dorm, and to his great surprise the other bunk in his billet was occupied by an old schoolfriend, calmly reading a paperback. "Old Schoolfriend!" cried Joe. "O, hello, Joe", replied the schoolfriend, and went back to reading his book.

I guess some stories are funny,or not,depending on how they're cast. I remember as very funny a story my father told when I was a kid,about one time when he was down in the bowels of his destroyer,in pitch darkness,lying on his back and reaching back over his head, trying to reconnect electrical cables. "Thought I'd never get them right".

It was only years later,after his death, that I learned (from my mother) the circumstances: the ship was under attack,and the shelling had knocked out all power. He was actually working desperately to get them functioning and underway again. The captain credited him with saving the ship.

Ha ha, Daddy.

While on ship doing abandon ship drills in the Marine Corps, I had a Major announce that he could not get the compass to hold the proper azimuth to the nearest land. being a lowly Lance Corporal, I replied, Well Sir, perhaps it's because your standing on 40,000 tons of steel. At which point the Battalion Commander leaned over and said "You know he's right."

Back in the late 70's I was leading my team on a nighttime training recon patrol on Camp Pendleton and as we started to pass through dry stream bed we heard some grunting and rustling a bit up stream from our position. Thinking it may have been some grunts we decided to go and investigate thinking we may get to have some fun surprising them. However as we got near, we saw that it was a baby bison tangled in some old wire. We immediately decided to see if we could help it out but we also had to keep tactical since grunts may have been out looking for us. Our corpsman, my ATL and myself went to the calf to untangle and cut it loose, as well as apply some first aid treatment to where the wire cut it, while my radioman (PFC Abeyta) covered forward and my pointman (L/Cpl Beahm) covered the rear. Just as we were almost done cutting out the calf we heard a load snort and heavy stomping just to the left of Abeyta; the calf's mother had returned and was not happy. Being only a few feet away from an angry Bison was something new for all of us. I knew if I released the calf it would cut itself more on the wire and would leave Doc in a bad position so I told Abeyta (who happened to be 100% Navaho) to do something to keep the mom off us. Abeyta hesitated a moment while the Bison snorted and stomped while inching closer; then Abeyta stood up placing himself between us and the Bison,raised his right hand and said in a calm firm voice "How" as if he was a Commanche Cheif greeting John Wayne in an old Western. All of us immediately started to laugh, except Abeyta who didn't move. We finished caring for the calf and sent it off to its mom, and the two of them trotted off into the darkness. Afterwards we asked Abeyta what was he thinking, he said it was the only thing he could think of since bison "don't speak Navaho but they may understand Souix." We did of course pay for his beer that weekend for at least putting himself between us and the Bison even if he did let the massive beast sneak up on us.