Posted on 03/18/2018 8:16:55 PM PDT by wheresmyusa
Good times, right? :)
Turkey vultures ain’t got $-it on a US military recruiter. ;)
~W
Joined Air Force in 1980, went to Officer Training School. I wanted to fly A-10s.
Saturday morning OTS inspection the Col looked at the shoes of a guy that just didn’t care.
The conversation:
THE COL: OT, that shine looks like $h@t!
THE OT: That’s just your reflection sir!
He was gone within hours.
(After pilot training and FAIP assignment, I did fly the A10 - the most fun you can have with your pants on)
I had Mess and Maintenance week at the Edson Range chow hall. I was in the pot shack with the guide from our sister platoon in the series. One of their prives had jumped the fence and was standing there quite visibly on I-5 dressed like a boot thumbing for a ride. One of their platoon’s other recruits jumped the fence and brought the hitch-hiking escapee down in a flying tackle and manhandled him back over the fence.
I went to Airborne School in ‘88, too. We had a female lieutenant in our class who had ran track events in the ‘84 Olympics (unbeknownst to some of the cadre). One of the black hats made the mistake of promising to smoke her on the PT track :)
No kidding? That’s hilarious! What year did you go through? I was Hotel company 2054.
I can only imagine what it looked like to passing motorists. Horrifying to passing civilians, hilarious to Marines.
I was 3rd Bn., India Co., Plt. 3014 in 1982, probably March.
Can you see the shift key? ;-D
Going the second time into the gas tent, I had a great plan. I would over-oxygenate my blood by hyperventilating, just like when preparing for a deep snorkel dive. When it came my turn to recite, I took off my mask and calmly stated my name, rank, SSN, and the name of my school. It went flawlessly. Then the test officer said, “Excuse me, would you mind repeating that?”. I was destined to be a snot factory once again.
IIRC, I believe he did get a “Comet party” right before he ‘escaped’.
In the summer of ‘65 I began my only summer camp experience at Parris Island, South Carolina – Boot Camp. The following is my recollection of just another day.
In the run-up to Series (company) drill competition, for the first time we were permitted to blouse our trousers for a practice session of “troop ‘n stomp”.
The morning of that session more than a customary number of recruits were up for a pre-reveille head call. Then a line formed. Something definitely was going on when guys started messing themselves. Initially suspicious of the goings on, our Drill Instructors soon figured out we had a Platoon sized case of diarrhea. I don’t recall it extending to the other three platoons in the Series.
Some of us were marched off to Sick Bay for a dose of kaopectate and a precautionary exam. The lesser afflicted went to chow then policed up the squad bay and collected dirty utilities and skivvies. Finally all hands were formed up and off we went to practice close order drill.
And it was a big deal for us as we were strut’n for the first time on Parris Island’s Main Parade Deck with bloused trousers!
But the earlier situation still had a few casualties to humble!
As we marched along, perhaps half-a-dozen guys fell out one at a time and ran to our Drill Instructor. “Emergency Head Call” request! Our Drill Instructor waved his arms about and off to our area ran a recruit. No way would an unaccompanied recruit venture into another Battalion area! After a short distance, they slowed to a walk as diarrhea won again. Head hanging down, it was more than a long walk home.
Back at the Barn, using broom handles to stir, we hand washed our soiled clothes in GI cans mixed with Wisk detergent and Lysol disinfectant. To this day, a whiff of Lysol reminds me of that episode.
That day or the next we learned that members of the mess duty platoon working the scullery hadn’t done a proper job cleaning a batch of mess trays and utensils.
When I went through officer basic, there were several of my fellow officers waiting outside to take pictures and videos of the people coming out of the gas chamber.
I said my name, serial number, and home town without a problem. But when I opened the door to go out, the effects of the gas hit me, so I staggered out like a blind Frankenstein.
The videographers told me I put on one of the best shows. I only wish I could have gotten one of the videos.
Eww. That’s one sick story.
Betcha the scullery workers caught holy hell over that one.
One week in basic training (AF) (1985) myself and another Airman were assigned to work with a grounds maintenance guy on the base. He was a SSgt IIRC.
So he wants us to paint some curbs yellow. He had no overalls, so to prevent getting paint on our new uniforms, he tells up to turn them inside out. So we did, then we proceeded to work around the base in that manner.
So lunch time rolls around and The SSgt tells us to just go to the chow hall as is. So we did.
In the AF Basic training chow hall there is this thing called the “Snake Pit”. This is where all the TIs sat while their Flights were eating lunch. They’d spend their lunch eyeballing all the airman eating lunch, and calling them over to the pit to berate them for one technical rule violation or another, real or imagined.
When we walked it, every single TI in the Snake Pit shot to their feet with their eyes as big as dinner plates. They ordered us to present ourselves before the pit to suffer their scrutiny and commenced to yell abusive comments at us and questioned our intelligence in vulgar terms…very loudly.
We explained to them, with disciplined and rigid military bearing that the SSgt had ordered us to do so, and they all seemed to understand. I guessing that grounds maintenance SSgt had a reputation as somewhat of a jokester. We actually enjoyed getting the Tis all riled up as we knew we were under “orders”, so we were covered.
That’s my favorite memory from boot camp.
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