Sea Stories/War Stories

MarineUKFan said:
@OldDevilDawg .... We were on an extended mission with Recon Bn to the south of Fallujah and we set up a firm base in a really small town (we called it Ferris Town) that was built by the Saddam regime as a kind of getaway for officers and other bigger wigs. We occupied a school compound and were sending out patrols and such. Me and my guys, we were doing our thing (you're familiar with what kinda stuff we did I think) and I just happened to be off watch and walked over to the north side hallway of the school building to see what was going on in the market across the street. While I was watching the market, a sentry of our supported unit was walking right outside the compound wall from my right to left toward the entry point which was guarded by more guys from our supported unit when everything kinda went black. I finally (probably just a second or two from that) raised my head and saw blood dripping down from my noggin onto the floor and my boots. Then I looked up at the entry way of the area I was standing in and saw a pile of guts sliding down the outer wall. Turns out it was a suicide vehicle bomber and me and one other of my guys are the only ones that took any shrapnel. Mine was right over my right eye and I'm convinced if I had been wearing my eye protection it would have diverted that shit right into my eye. As it turned out, we had some great corpsmen and the battalion surgeon out with us and they just stitched me up on site and no medevac or anything. The sentrys at the ECP and the roving guard walking right toward where the dumbass blew himself up? Unscathed thankfully. The only one who died that day was the one who's guts I saw sliding down the wall and who's torso they found on the roof of the school. There ya go,, bro.
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As I tell my boy when he heads into work, cop in L.A, be smart and “lucky.”
 
MarineUKFan said:
@OldDevilDawg .... We were on an extended mission with Recon Bn to the south of Fallujah and we set up a firm base in a really small town (we called it Ferris Town) that was built by the Saddam regime as a kind of getaway for officers and other bigger wigs. We occupied a school compound and were sending out patrols and such. Me and my guys, we were doing our thing (you're familiar with what kinda stuff we did I think) and I just happened to be off watch and walked over to the north side hallway of the school building to see what was going on in the market across the street. While I was watching the market, a sentry of our supported unit was walking right outside the compound wall from my right to left toward the entry point which was guarded by more guys from our supported unit when everything kinda went black. I finally (probably just a second or two from that) raised my head and saw blood dripping down from my noggin onto the floor and my boots. Then I looked up at the entry way of the area I was standing in and saw a pile of guts sliding down the outer wall. Turns out it was a suicide vehicle bomber and me and one other of my guys are the only ones that took any shrapnel. Mine was right over my right eye and I'm convinced if I had been wearing my eye protection it would have diverted that shit right into my eye. As it turned out, we had some great corpsmen and the battalion surgeon out with us and they just stitched me up on site and no medevac or anything. The sentrys at the ECP and the roving guard walking right toward where the dumbass blew himself up? Unscathed thankfully. The only one who died that day was the one who's guts I saw sliding down the wall and who's torso they found on the roof of the school. There ya go,, bro.
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@OldDevilDawg PM me cause I don't know how to do that here, and will tell you one more little tidbit from that deal......
 
Back in the day, an E7 or higher in the Navy had to physically see the tip of the penis, stream, and cup for the piss test to be valid. One morning I got called in for a test wile I was half drunk-half hungover. It turned out that it was my Chief as the observer ... he hated that duty and was already pissed off ... when he saw me, he said "Fuck". So I am following the instructions: started the stream, put left hand on the wall and retrieved the cup with my right hand. I look at my LCPO and said, "Can I as you a career question? IF I stay in for 13 more years, can I watch grown men piss too?" About that time, I pissed all over the cup and handed it to him ... bastard hit me square in the jaw and told me to stay there. A minute later, our COB came in and asked what happened and did I need to report it. "Nothing happened in here that wasn't justified COB."
 
I mentioned not pissing off any active duty Marines until boot camp in an earlier post. Well, this wasn't just your standard recruit pissing off a DI for doing something stupid in the squad bay.

A little background.... At Parris Island back in my time there (they probably still do it), there was a parents' night out with the DI's the weekend before recruit graduation for parents that came down to see their new Marines graduate. This is really the night that the DI's go get drunk with your parents and find out all the dirty shit on you that they can and come back to the squad bay in the middle of the night, smashed off their asses, and punish you for.

Well, I had come to boot camp on the buddy system with another guy, our platoon guide (who tried to iron his charlie shirt sleeve while he was wearing it lol) and our DI's had no clue until that particular night when my loving mother mentioned it to the "nice Drill Instructors". Our "heavy" DI and another one came back that night (no idea what time it was but it was late) and roused me and my buddy out of our racks and took us in the whisky locker and commenced to beat the shit out of us for not telling them (no visible marks and we weren't gonna rat them out....we were gonna be off the island in a few days!!). That was fun lol.

The next day was our on-base liberty where we could go hang out with our family and do big boy things like go to the PX and Burger King. My dad, being retired National Guard, was able to secure a room on base at the officers guest house and they had shared that info with our Senior DI during the meet and greet. We cut loose on our liberty and were instructed to be back in the squad bay no later than 1800 that evening and we were also supposed to stay in our uniform. Well, we went to the PX and then BK and I got a shit load of food and took it back to my parents' room and gorged myself while wearing jams and a Spuds Mckenzie T-shirt. I was living the life. About 30 mins before we had to be back, I got back into my uniform and we were heading out and got to the stairwell and I look down and there is my Senior Drill Instructor giving me the evilest of evil eyes I had ever seen. It was 7:30 in the evening (that's 1930 in real time). As soon as I saw the evil in his face I realized my mistake. We were told 1800 to be back and I had in my mind we had to be back at 8 o'clock. Those are not even remotely the same thing. I literally feared for my life as my Senior DI escorted his UA recruit back to the squad bay. That was NOT a pleasant night.

Everything turned out OK though. I got my squad leader position back for our graduation because I was one of the only dudes in the platoon who could do column of files correctly for final drill competition lol.
 
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@RTR...USN (ret) reminded us to think of the active duty service men and women in the coffee thread this Thanksgiving morning.. It made me remember my first Thanksgiving away from home..

I went to San Diego for boot camp and School, the base was RTC/NTC off Rosecrans blvd.. Walking distance to downtown for young sailors :), I was in my last month of training before getting orders to my ship,, and it was wednesday the night before Thanksgiving of 83..
I was in IMCO school learning morse code at the time and when the day ended we had a holiday weekend before us,

we lived in dorms with 4 to a room, one of my buddies was John from Texas, one named Carmen from Pittsburg, and Preacher from Georgia, Preacher went to the commissary and bought a bottle of Harwood bourbon, this was rot gut shit and only cost $4 for a fifth.. we started many nights like this but the cap came off the bottle and went in the trash and we passed it around taking shots out the bottle till it was gone,, about 5 minutes,,

We walked the 30 minutes to get to this bar that was near a sports arena, this was our fav bar, prolly a sports bar but had a good ratio of women and also they had a little kitchen that served a bad ass mushroom and swiss burger (late night).. we partied hard as usual, as luck would have it, Preacher and Carmen hooked up and John and I drew blanks so we decided to walk back to the base.. it was about 2am,,

there was a jack-in-the-box on the way so we went in to grab some burgers and fries, there were 4 sailors dressed in their blues in there, the fact that they were in blues meant that this was their first liberty after boot camp.. otherwise they would be in civies.. also the very short hair.. John was fucking with them and said something to the effect of whats up "boots",, well one of them said Fuck you.. Like I said, John was from Texas and liked to fight,, He was a good sized guy and had a very short fuse,, he had two of them knocked out on the ground before I knew what was happening,, the other two started to come in and I grabbed one and I pulled him out through the door and we went to the ground, John had the other still inside, I got up and was kicking my guy in the head (yeah I'll kick a mf'er when he's down).

I never saw it coming but all of the sudden it felt like a bus hit me and I was on my knees with blood dripping down my face, the next moment John was picking me up saying lets go the cops are coming.. We ran around a corner and there was a shipping company or something with a bunch of 18 wheeler trailers parked in the lot, we crawled under one trying to hide from the police who by now were searching the area with flashlights.. while under there, john said I cant believe he didnt knock you out.. I said who? he said some guys were walking up just as the shit went down and this one guy just came up and cold cocked my ass..

we thought the coast was clear so we crawled out and went around the corner right smack into two cops lol,, they put us in cuffs and took us to the shore patrol station on the base,, My cheek bone was busted under my left eye and they took me to the infirmary for stitches... kinda funny, I was laying next to the guy I had been kicking lol,, he said, was it worth it,, I said fuck yeah,, he laughed...

I woke up Thanksgiving morning with a headache, hangover, black eye, and a toothache believe it or not, and all that made me sick to my stomach that lasted all weekend,, My turkey dinner was a half a turkey sandwich from the mess hall and some broth.

The shore patrol released us and I didnt even have a captains mast.. those were the days my friends :)
 
Not so much a war story but something to share.

I had an old boss who told us there are two kinds of cops ( could apply to a lot of professions). I don’t know if he stole it from someone famous or came up with it on his own. Anyways, he said there are two kinds of cops, the palace poodle and the yard dog.

The palace poodle. People own dogs that live in the house. They are free of fleas, get groomed and when people come over they are welcomed in the house at the same time because they look good. The problem with the palace poodle is they couldn’t protect you from an intruder. This is police admin. They wear their suits, socialize with vip’s but couldn’t protect you from societies villains.

Then there is the yard dog. The dog that lives outside in the elements. He’s got fleas, never groomed, and is just plain dirty. You would never let this dog in your house, but you need him. He protects your home and God forbid anyone try to harm you. This is the street cop. He’s not showing up at political functions or city council meetings, he’s working the street, drinking gas station coffee and pissing people off with his gruff attitude. The thing is, you need this yard dog.
 
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Back in the early 90s, we pulled into a port in France....a town called Six-Fours-Les-Plages (had to look it up for the spelling cause I had no idea....). It had been like 20+ years since any American ship had ported there. Place was awesome and the people were so nice to us. Anyway, one day a few of us were out on the town and on the other side of the street we see two guys in white shirts and black ties riding bicycles and they lock in on us. Like just make a bee line across the street (traffic be damned) and head straight towards us. They roll up and me and my buddies start telling them....we're not interested....just out to have a good time and not to looking to become Mormons. Dudes told us they had no intention of trying to convert us or even missionary to us....they just wanted to speak English to Americans. Turns out they were closing in on the end of their mission and hadn't seen one American the entire time they were there. We hung out with them for a while and, let's just say, they didn't act very Mormon for a few hours. Always hoped we didn't corrupt them too bad.....
 
MarineUKFan said:
Back in the early 90s, we pulled into a port in France....a town called Six-Fours-Les-Plages (had to look it up for the spelling cause I had no idea....). It had been like 20+ years since any American ship had ported there. Place was awesome and the people were so nice to us. Anyway, one day a few of us were out on the town and on the other side of the street we see two guys in white shirts and black ties riding bicycles and they lock in on us. Like just make a bee line across the street (traffic be damned) and head straight towards us. They roll up and me and my buddies start telling them....we're not interested....just out to have a good time and not to looking to become Mormons. Dudes told us they had no intention of trying to convert us or even missionary to us....they just wanted to speak English to Americans. Turns out they were closing in on the end of their mission and hadn't seen one American the entire time they were there. We hung out with them for a while and, let's just say, they didn't act very Mormon for a few hours. Always hoped we didn't corrupt them too bad.....
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@PSUTE will fucking love this story.
 
MarineUKFan said:
Back in the early 90s, we pulled into a port in France....a town called Six-Fours-Les-Plages (had to look it up for the spelling cause I had no idea....). It had been like 20+ years since any American ship had ported there. Place was awesome and the people were so nice to us. Anyway, one day a few of us were out on the town and on the other side of the street we see two guys in white shirts and black ties riding bicycles and they lock in on us. Like just make a bee line across the street (traffic be damned) and head straight towards us. They roll up and me and my buddies start telling them....we're not interested....just out to have a good time and not to looking to become Mormons. Dudes told us they had no intention of trying to convert us or even missionary to us....they just wanted to speak English to Americans. Turns out they were closing in on the end of their mission and hadn't seen one American the entire time they were there. We hung out with them for a while and, let's just say, they didn't act very Mormon for a few hours. Always hoped we didn't corrupt them too bad.....
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OldDevilDawg said:
@PSUTE will fucking love this story.
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I do love the story. Ran into that story light in North East. Couple of missionaries were thrilled to talk to me because I had spent that time in SLC. We were able to share stories of skiing at the different resorts...
 
Our first refit in Scotland found my division 3 people short or about 75% of full strength. For us, refit was a 24/7 work fest. We rarely went to our racks because everyone could find, wake and put us to work. Refit was all about performing all major maintenance on your division's equipment and A-Gang owned most of the systems on the boat.

After three weeks of around the clock working, we got our first and only night on the beach. I needed and got a thorough debauchery on that night. Before I left the boat, I told my Chief that I would need help getting back on board that damned thing. For some reason, he did not take me seriously.

As I was waiting for the last liberty launch back to our boat, I realized that I was going to be drunk while hungover at the 0600 muster and get a massive ass chewing. I decided that my Chief was going to earn it and I bought/ate a half dozen pickled eggs from a food shack on the pier for just such an occasion. Three of my mates helped get me on the launch and down the ladder from topside to Ops upper level.

There was one stainless steel staircase on board connecting Ops upper and middle levels. I slipped on the first step and as I was falling my pants went down to my knees and I was going commando. So here I am going down these stairs in the middle of the night, in Scotland, drunk, upside down and half nekkid. Right as I reach the landing, my division officer and chief rounded the corner ... since officers go first, my nekkid ass hit him square in the chin as I pinned him against the freeze box door. As my chief is helping him up, I am trying to pull my pants up and just said "Told you I would need help".

That morning at muster, I am working on a paint peeling fart. My chief took me topside and assigned me a job chipping paint on the hull. I was in a 4' high crawlspace with no ventilation, full of pickled eggs, fish n chips w/malt vinegar and Tennent's Special Ale. I would fart and puke/dry heave ... hit the pneumatic needle gun trigger and about pass out. All day and most of that night, I was trapped in hangover hell.
 
My son had a legendary recruiting day, part one.
That little shit of mine has had a hell of a day and I could not be prouder of the bastard (term of endearment, my twin and I call each other the bastard and we are the fifth and sixth of Dad and Moms brood). He has a NG wanting to go Army and needs a conditional release signed by the CG of her unit. His chain of command said it was not possible to get and not to waste time. They knew he was going to the mat for it but didn't order him not to try. They warned him that he could be kicking a hornet's nest and they would not be taking any kind of heat and would throw him under the bus quickly.

So my son, an active duty Army Reservist, took two days leave and appropriated a government vehicle and drove from Spokane to JBLM in Tacoma to use the National Guard Commanding General's open door policy. He got there early and went to his old unit to check the security on their guidon. It was secure but the building across the street was 1st BTN HHC 1BN-37FA(HHC4-23INSFRG), whatever in hell that means in Army speak, and theirs was laid in a window. He walked right in and the CQ watch was absent so he checked the offices of their CO, Sgt Major, and 1st Sgt and they were empty. Chris walked right back, grabbed the guidon and ran like a scalded dog.
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