I was 17 years old just quit high school and asked my dad to sign for me to enter the army.I was a paratrooper with the 509th abct in Vicenza Italy. I remember taking a shower and a guy that was showering said to me hey your doing that all wrong. You need to wash your hair first then your body. I have never done it different since. 78-81

When I was going to jump school at ft. Benning I ran into a classmate who had joined 6 months before me. He had broken his leg and got recycled. We made our first jumps together...

1991, Army AIT (MOS Training) at Fort Jackson, to be a cook.

Drill Sergeant (SSG) Ramey is a Ranger with combat jumps in Grenada and Panama and he is a MEAN, SADISTIC little guy, Loved to run us until we were about to drop, I found the PT at AIT actually harder at AIT than in Basic.

Fast forward to around 1994 or so, in Germany at a culinary arts competition, I run into now-Chief Warrant Officer Ramey and he's as nice as can be and we all go have drinks with the guy who was trying to kill me just a few years earlier.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by lowflash:
I was in the Marine Corps

Crossed the Equator and International Time Line more than several times.

Do Marines have similar line-crossing ceremonies? Or is that strictly a Navy thing?

In my time it was strictly a Sailor thing.

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
I have many fond memories of my 20 years in USAF, and tend (as do most of us) to not recall the bad things. I do remember the day (in Sep 1974) when I was called into the unit Commander's office and given the word that I'd been RIFed and would be discharged in Mar 1975 after 10 1/2 years as a Captain (15 years service). Although I pretty much expected it (I'd been passed over multiple times), it was a big letdown when it came. It is hard to describe the terrific blow to one's ego to essentially be told that one is useless, not needed any more, to be discarded like trash. I think I hid my real feelings pretty well and continued to do my job, and when the time came I enlisted as an E-4 to serve 5 more years as an NCO to qualify for retirement (as a Captain). My final 5 years were in a field I'd wanted to work in and were very enjoyable, so it wasn't all bad, and the monthly pension payments have made it worthwhile.

flashguy

talk about using lemons to making lemonade. congrats on that. you made the best out of an unfortunate situation which is what winners do.

i left voluntarily after 7 and got nothing but a few awards, friendships, etc. i did meet my wife in the Army so that's a big bonus.

---------------------------------------------

Kind of long but bear with me.
It was 1994 and my enlistment was almost up so I was gearing up to find a job in the civilian world. I was in AF EOD and we had a larger than normal group, we actually had an EOD flight with about 50 EOD guys and some support people. We were divided into different EOD teams of about 6 guys and we were assigned work as teams. We used to be autonomous until the AF decided to put us under the Civil Engineers. Our officers were pretty cool but CE had some real losers as officers. Cue one of them right now....

One day I am going about my normal routined when someone tells me to report to one of the Civil Engineer officers, Capt Jackass (I really do not recall his name but he was a skinny Captain who was a real jackass. He was the perfect example of the stereotypical officer everyone hated. I had stood at attention in front of him more than once to get chewed out for nothing of importance). Capt. Jackass was in a conference room with a Lt. and I was told to go in and officially report to them. I walk in and salute and stand at attention and all that jazz. As soon as I do they start reading me my rights. At this point I am trying to think of what I did to be read my rights and I am kind of freaking out since my enlistment is up in a few months. Did I leave out some Top Secret info? Was there explosives that I had access to that became missing? After reading me my rights Capt. Jackass asks if I want an attorney. I replied yes sir and he seemed kind of surprised. He told the Lt. to get me an attorney but he asked if I had any idea what this was about and I replied no.

He then proceeds to tell me that some film showed up to the base photo lab with some offensive pictures and they were trying to see who took them.The base photo lab was all civilian women. He shows me a picture that only showed a guys junk, you could not see anything but his arm with a watch on it and his junk. He asked if it was me or if I knew who it was. I was kind of relieved at this point.

Now let's go back a few weeks. Our team was out doing a range clearance and one airman (Bobby) brought his camera to take some pics and left it inside out govt truck we were using. My supervisor sees it in the seat when Bobby ran to do something and pulls his pants down and takes some pictures of his junk for the airmen to have "for posterity". I laughed and thought nothing of it. It was a personal camera with personal owned film so no big deal, we were constantly jacking with each other anyway.

A few weeks later my team is scheduled for a range clearance but I am in Texas interviewing so I wasn't with them. That week at the range one of our team members rolled the Humvee he was in and wasn't wearing his seat belt and it ended up crushing him when he rolled it over and he died. They were trying to prepare some pictures of the airman that died and asked if anyone has some pictures of him to give to his wife. Well Bobby just happened to have some film of this guy so he gave it to the civilians at the base photo shop to develop and guess what pic was on that roll? Yep, my supervisors junk just happened to be on that roll of film. I guess the ladies got offended and reported it.

Now back to me standing at attention. I knew it was my supervisor but I said it wasn't me and I had no idea who it was and that ended that. When I walked out I ran into other team members of mine and asked them why they didn't tell me what was going on before I went in since they were talking to our whole team. One of my other team members made a joke out of it and when the capt. asked him about the pic he said "no sir, I do not recognize that dick". Luckily my supervisor was not wearing that watch the day they interviewed him. Even though it was not govt. equipment I think it would have been an article 15 anyway due to capt. jackass. That's one of my stories.

quote:

Originally posted by lowflash:

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by lowflash:
I was in the Marine Corps

Crossed the Equator and International Time Line more than several times.

Do Marines have similar line-crossing ceremonies? Or is that strictly a Navy thing?

In my time it was strictly a Sailor thing.

I also crossed and became a royal shellback.
The detachment of Marines as well as officers got the treatment.
That was a lot of wacks across the ass with a shali as there was about 600 of the crew that had crossed before on the C A 73
The year was 1960.

Okay, maybe just one...

I spent my career in the Naval Security Group. For those of you (probably most of you) that don't know what the NSG was (it's been disbanded and absorbed into other rates since I retired) we did...ummmm..."communications research". I spent my entire career (outside one tour as an instructor in Pensacola) in Secure Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF's).

It was a pretty small outfit, intentionally not well known and we had facilities in places not normally associated with Naval activity. Everybody involved either knew or had heard of pretty much everybody else.

I also come from a small town in farm country. I graduated with maybe 50 or 75 other kids.

So, it came as quite a surprise to run into not one but TWO of my high school classmates in the same outfit! I had no idea that either of them were in the Navy, much less the Naval Security Group, and both career sailors as well! One of them went to the same church and we were in the same Confirmation class as well.

EDIT: Speaking of faulty memory...I got curious and dug out the ol' yearbook. 200 kids in my graduating class!

I was to report to my last ship while it was overseas. So I find out it's gonna be Columbia South America (where drug dealers have prices on Federales heads). I grow my hair long-ish and since I surfed i blended in and looked like a stoner surfer..anyway I catch a civilian flight

I land in Cartagena and I see no one to meet me...not one, no uniforms nothing...I grab my gear and start walking out to the exit and I see this shady as fuck local wearing a Magnum PI mustache and shirt and he's got a piece of cardboard with my last name on it.

Initially I figured, nope-not gonna even acknowledge him. But then I realize my last name is actually spelled correctly (The CG never got it right...ever) So i walk up and tell him that I'm your guy, where to. He says the ship left port last night and there is another CG boat anchored off shore in the harbor, and he takes me to that ship.

I meet the crew as they are all drunk on the beach and they buy me all kinds of drinks and feed me...turns out the group I was with turned out to be the chiefs and the captain...

a few days later, we get underway, they ask if I can fix theory main gun. I say sure. Ten minutes into working on it I've fixed it and the gun goes bang!! the chief asked if I wanted to stay on their ship and they would send their gunner's mate to my original ship instead. Iwas all down for that-but it was not to be. I was thrown onto a small baot and I had to report aboard my ship with my gear and the mail bag...

that mail bag made me a hero aboard that ship too!

(But I have not forgotten the absolute SUCK that wasting time at sea while not getting anything done is.)

Sleeping with my M1 Garand for a week in basic, cause the DI saw me drop the rifle.

September 1958, on the USS Breckenridge crossing the Pacific, headed for Korea and smack into a BIG storm. Everyone is sea sick, except me. I got volunteered to carry a bucket to slop up the puke. We were stacked six deep in our bunks. Top guy puked onto the two guys beneath him. Took three of us to break up the fight.

Waking up at 6am in GF hootch in Inchon, sick from smelling the shit being scooped out of the shitter by the old Korean manning the "Honey Bucket wagon".

Drinking cheap (.05 cents a shot) Korean whiskey and getting really fucked up on 50 cents.

Koreans always saw that we got back to camp in one piece.

But it was fun times for a 18 year old.

I hardly reminisce about my Navy days. Maybe I'll remember singing "Country roads take me home" in the belly of shaft alley.

Although, now that you mention it, I might remember now as I go down the stairs that I used to go up and down 7 sets of ladders longest being seven decks on shaft alley patrol in, at most, 10 minutes flat while singing stupid bar songs.

Knees and legs ain't what they used to be.

Okay, you got me going. I used to be able to drink and carouse every night in port without ever having to touch my navy pay check. All on the money spun off my $20 for $30 every payday loan business.

quote:

Originally posted by lowflash:

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by lowflash:
I was in the Marine Corps

Crossed the Equator and International Time Line more than several times.

Do Marines have similar line-crossing ceremonies? Or is that strictly a Navy thing?

In my time it was strictly a Sailor thing.

I crossed the equator 5 times and have he shell back cards. Everything the sailors did we did.

Vietnam twice.
Korea once.
WEST Germany 5 times.
SWA and Africa a few times. (FMS)
Stateside, not much.

I also crossed and became a royal shellback.
The detachment of Marines as well as officers got the treatment.
That was a lot of wacks across the ass with a shali as there was about 600 of the crew that had crossed before on the C A 73
The year was 1960.[/QUOTE]

As a detachment you and your fellow Marines were part of the crew thus a difference. On Amphibious Assault Ships we of the Marines were not considered part of the crew and numerically numbered more than the crew. on an LST we had our side of the ship and the crew had their side. The crew side of the ship was air-conditioned the troop side some times not. The ships company was always fed first then the Marines. There was no togetherness thus no commonality.

One instance comes to mind. LST unloading supplies Viet-Nam. We come aboard on a Mule-(Mechanical-4Wheel) to buy cigarettes, soda pop, and etcetera. They over charge us. The situation turns tense. We have rifles and we are not going to be Fucked With! Navy Chief defuses the situation.

I was a medic. At the time, it was required that a medic always be on the range when someone was qualifying, so I always volunteered to head up to Drum for the day and sit on the range. My 1SG never did figure out why. Well, typically, the short notice qualifiers were senior officers who more often than not would fire one magazine, earn "Expert" whether they hit anything or not, and leave. That left many many rounds needing to fired. We certainly couldn't take them back. So, we'd put the pop up targets on "random", and shoot all afternoon. It was great fun!

Other than that, I really would have to struggle to find even one good memory from my time in the Army. I hated the Army and everything it had to offer...or, not offer. The only good thing it did for me was station me on an Air Force base where I had a great job in the base hospital ER, met great friends (AF) that I'm still good friends with after 30 years, and had a lot of really good times that didn't involve the Army. I happily got out at the earliest second that I could. I'm proud that I served and did my time, but there's not a chance in hell I'd do it again with the Army.

To this day I kick myself in the ass for not joining the AF instead. Not a question that I'd have done 20.