I was doing PMS on a radar unit and stuck the fluke probe into the high voltage case....and blew out both the meter, and a 90 million dollar radar unit.

I was a bit nervous about getting in trouble...till I figured out how to blame it on this other guy.

Both came while I as on guard duty in Nam.

I got a call on the radio for one member of each post (two men posts) to be ready to be picked up in full gear. I had a noob with me so I had to put on all the darn gear and stand in front of the post. A 6X6 can rolling up and just slowed down. I was pulled up by other members and we rolled out of the bomb dump toward the Vil.

The road split into four parts in front of us; one to the AF, one to the Marines, one to the bomb dump (where we were coming from) and one to the Vil. I said, "If we turn left at four corners we all jump out right?" Kidding of course but on one disagreed. Just something to break the stress. Turned out it was a small riot on the Marine base. Still it was a bit of a scare.

The worse was more because of a buildup than real danger. There was this acre of 55 gal drums sitting next to post 9. Word was it was all filled with Napalm. We talked about how bad it was be if a rocket has ever hit it. We figured that post 12 and 10 would be fried. (There was no 11 or 8 for some reason.) We figured 9 (mine) and 7 would die of oxygen starvation.

Shortly after this we had a rocket attack. No biggy, happens all the time. I reached for the radio to report it but I could hear others reporting it first. Then there was a large explosion and a fireball of all fireballs ballooned up into the air. I thought, "Holy S$@$@, they hit the napalm." I sprinted out of the post while yelling, "Massy get up we are being hit." I landed on one foot and pushed off to the bunker. I rolled up under the bench and hugged the wall. The second I landed I felt Massy try to squeeze between me and the bench. He could not make it so he went on top of the bench.

All for not. They hit fuel blather at the airport. We spend the rest of the night watching the mother of all fires burn.

 

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i am envious of these people who have "war stories".
as a human, it seems quietly sad to have never taken part in war.

i expect that those who have may consider such a life a blessing.
who knows?

i've been reading Hemingway lately and he espouses Tolstoy for being a veteran.
he goes on to berate authors and critics who minimize the impact of war on an author.

 

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No you're not, talked with quite a few friends whose been in combat in Afghanistan almost all of them suffer from some form of PTSD. Those stories comes with at times a very high price.

 

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In 2002 I was called out from my kitchen to help with a disturbance at the bar. Turns out it was get drunk and stupid night for the Navy base. I tossed a few tough guys out on their ass's after pulling them off of the 55 year old general manager. I took a few shots in the ribs and one in the eye but I kicked major ass. Everyone around me wasn't very surprised but I was. I figured they'd have better training then I. NOPE!

 

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My team was hitting a safe house in western Baghdad. We inserted on the rooftop of a house that was supposed to be occupied by the dudes using it as a safe house. I had eaten an entire box of half melted thin mints a few hours earlier, and I had a falafel 30 minutes before we got the party started. It turned out that the house was not the correct house. We started jumping roof-tops, and one guy snagged his pants leg on a bolt that was sticking out of the roof. As he fell, he grabbed a wire that was running from one roof to the next. It snapped when he was about 10-12 ft from the ground, and he landed spread-eagle on a wall separating the two houses. As one or two of you might know, folks in that neck of the woods often fix glass shards to the top of such walls. He screamed bloody murder. It seems a shard of glass had torn through his pants and ripped his scrote wide open. At that point, we took AK and RPK fire from the target house. One of the birds gave the house "the business", and we left one guy with scrote-boy and moved to clear the house. As we crossed the street, we took RPG fire from an adjacent house. Apparently the warhead didn't arm, because it skipped across the street and bounced off of a car without detonating. That's when the girl scout cookies and falafel came out. I shit all over myself. It was at least a good pint of hot, runny putrid shit. We cleared the house, etc, etc, and called a nearby infantry platoon in to clean up the mess while we attended to scrote-boy. He saw my shit-saturated pants and laughed. But it smelled so bad he puked all over himself. One of the infantry platoon's NCOs gave me a clean change of pants and a garbage bag to put my shitty pants in. I kept them and washed them. I never did wear them again, but they are the only pair I kept when I left the service. Truly an embarrassing moment. But at least I didn't get my sack torn open.

 

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^^^^ damn!

 

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those guys have awesome stories. even MayorMcDonald has some good shit.

you are an extreme poofy poof...
so you & me & illy, with his lame ass restraunt story, & all the others should STFU.

 

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MayorMcDonald? MCDONALD!? I was a nightshade. I WAS A NIGHTSHADE!

 

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This one time at band camp...

I'll have to get pretty plastered to share more stories from that chapter of my life...


So instead I'll tell the story of when I went bow hunting with my dad and 'the guys' for the first time.


Used to live in Detroit, as some of you might recall. My dad used to go deer hunting in the UP a few times a season. When I was 8 I got my first hunting bow. I got pretty good with it (for an 8 year old) and my dad took me with him to go practice with the guys... After an hour or so everyone came together and they agreed to let me come along on their next trip.

So there I am with 'the guys' all of 8 years old. Middle of freaking NO WHERE in the upper peninsula. We go out the first day and it was all yadda yadda. My dad mostly just showing me the ropes, learning to track and such... Second or third day is when my dad was tracking a good sized buck. We got close and my dad told me to 'wait here'. At first I was totally cool with it. But about ten minutes in (seemed closer to 4 hours but...) I spotted the deer my dad was stalking. I remember to this day yelling dad dad I found the deer. Of course the deer looked up, spotted me and hauled ass.

About that time I saw my dad and I started yelling dad dad I saw the deer.


I wasn't invited back the rest of that season...

 

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