Jokes and pranks while serving.

[CaptainRobin]

While I think everyone who frequents this forum knows I appreciate all Veterans... I thought I'd throw this out there. We've ALL done some humorous things... well, maybe not to the recipant... but it did give us a laugh.

Back in the early '80s, Germany, REFORGER, out in the counrty side, sitting on top of an M113, manning the .50, listening to the radio traffic. My shift, about 0200 hours...

Feller from another squad comes out of his track, goes to do his business outside the premiter. I'm wearing nightvision goggles... the ones where you have two eyepieces that glow green... think they were PVS7s... Couldn't stand the opporunity... it was just a training exercise...

So I dismounted my vehicle, and as silently as I could, eased up on him. He was squatting, doing his business, battle dress trousers around his ankles. I took the goggles off, turned them so the "green eyes" would be facing him, held them over my head as high as I could (and I'm six feet tall), grasped a small tree, started shaking it and growling and roaring.

Ever see a grown man run with his pants around his ankles and screaming? Priceless. I bet he hates me to this day.

What have some of you guys done for a laugh?
Robin

 

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[CaptainRobin]

Come on folks... certainly I wasn't the only one with a sense of humor. Remember how fire extinguishers always had to be checked and weighed? If discharged, and all the CO2 had left the canister, it STILL had propellent gas in it. Ever slipped up behind on one of your buddies with an empty extingiusher, put the nozzle just a few inches from the back of their neck, and pressed the release handle and watched them LAUNCH themselves across the room?
Robin

 

[CaptainRobin]

Alright folks, I was a Combat Engineer. We were well trained on boobytraps. Even had triganular red signs that read "BOOBYTRAPS"... if you went into the platoon toolroom/office and one of these was exposed... be careful. Practical joke in the making. Got a peer one morning after physical training. He'd gone to shower, and we used mousetraps as triggering devices on occasion. I set a dozen of them, hooked a paperclip through the hoop, and hung them on his towel on the back side which was hanging on the latrine shower room hook. He comes outta the shower wet and naked and grabs his towel off the hook. Traps started springing, pinching his fingers. He had a cussin' fit... was kinda/sorta pizzed... but as one might say, "Here's your sign"... BOOBYTRAPS. We laughed about it after he calmed down. Got lots more...
Robin

 

[AeroMike]

Okay here ya go. I was stationed at the 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany and I got a call from my older brother, he was in Rhine Main AFB getting ready to be shipped back state side. He was medivac to the 98th Gen. Hosp. from Iraqi during the beginning of Desert Shield. I went out to see him off and before you know it, I grabbed his bags and told him to hop in my car and I pulled rank on the driver (I was an E5 Sargent at the time) and drove him back to my hospital. It was when we got to my department (Radiology) that it hit me what I was doing, I was kidnapping my brother~!!!!

Well, lucky for me I worked with 4 full bird colonels and I went straight to our Chief of Radiology and Colonel Sim called the Ortho chief and had him admit my brother as his patient and kepted him there for a week before he was medivac back to Washington.

My brother was in an IED attack and tore his should up. He has since had several surgeries on it and has most mobility back but is 100% disabled from it. He was in the 2/75th Rangers out of Ft Lewis, WA.


So there ya go, I kidnapped my older brother during a war, and I ended up going to the sandbox myself about a month later with a detachment for 7th Med Com.

I have a few more funny stories maybe I'll share some other time.

 

[CaptainRobin]

Aero, I hated it when the 97th was closed and I had to drive from Friedberg to the 98th... two hours at 100kph+... Had a knee surgery at the 97th... one of those four bed rooms. I awoke from the surgery and was about to wet myself. I was pressing and pressing my call button because I knew they wanted to measure urine output after being knocked out. No one came. So... I got out of bed, hobbled into the hallway, and found a latrine where I could relieve myself. Of course about the time I got back to the room a nurse came in and chewed me for NOT holding my water so they could measure output. I told her to kiss my grits...

Now kidnapping your own brother from another military medical facility... that was ballsy... but you were able to see him for a week. Good for you and him. Sounds like you were working with some good officers.
Robin

 

[Bluetangclan]

OK, this was an Air Force one a few years back but my unit is a sub unit for a bigger wing elsewhere so we regularly got phone calls from admin people we didnt know. We had a not too bright guy and played a prank on him. He came into the office and we gave him a note with just a phone number on it. Told him "Captain Deies from the 165th called and wants you to call him back immediately." He picked up the phone and called and was answered. From our end we heard "Yes sir this is Senior Airman XXX, you were looking for me?" pause "I have a note here that says I was supposed to call you" pause..... at that point too many people were cracking up for the guy not to get it. We gave him the number for Captain D's seafood. Post some more after lunch.

post lunch: Lets see, The Air Force in my field has a lot more admin type jokes. We had a guy who left his computer unlocked when he walked away so we jumped on there and sent our shop chief an email. Not just any email. It was a homoerotic star wars email/admiration email. Everything from stroking a wookie to handling light sabers and how much he loves being under the chiefs authority. Well we hit send right before he entered the office again and the chief was in his office across the hall. We told him to go knock on the glass and wave to let the chief know he was there. Watching someone in charge snort out hot coffee is highly under rated.

When we were working with chemical warfare gear one time, checking it over and making sure the parts were in good working order, the same guy from the first prank was present. One of us asked him if he had a Strap-on for his mask(he wasnt the sharpest tool in the shed). He said no of course. So we sent him to ask the chemical weapons guy(the guy was an ex NFL player and had a dry but evil sense of humor ) if he could get a strap on. Well a little while later we got a phone call from him and a slight chuckle telling us "we were so wrong." He told the guy he didnt have any and to go to Supply and ask. No phone calls from supply but they played into it and sent him back to our office to ask our shop chief. We could hear the chief's laughter from upstairs before he yelled at us to quit sending people on wild goose chases, it wastes too much time.

When I was in the army we were at a small rifle range in Korea zeroing our Aim Points(a scopelike thing that doesnt magnify vision but presents a holographic red dot where the bullet will go.) There were only like 4 or five lanes and 150 of us to use them so there was a ton of downtime being bored. So what do army infantry people do when we are bored, we mess with people. In basic training we all used this series of radio equipment with the acronym PRC with an accompanying number for the model , and normally acronyms get shortened to a word, in this case "Prick-##" . So what is probably the oldest trick in the army since the invention of the PRC series of radios, send the new guy looking for one. We had a guy who was relatively new to the military and our squad leader an E-6 sent our new guy to the platoon leader, who was an E-7, to look for a "Prick E7". With a straight face he said he didnt have one, so he told him to go ask the 2nd platoon sergeant and went with him, shaking his head at us. We saw nearby the 2nd plt sergeant smile and assume he didnt have one either so he sent him to 1st platoon. 1st Platoon's sgt lacked a sense of humor and immediately stalked over to us for a 30 minute push-up session. It was still funny.

At Benning, our First Sergeant was this absolute PRC redneck(I am from GA, I am allowed to say it, besides its easier to picture the guy with that description) with a beat up Ford pick-up truck. Someone found it funny one day to put a gay pride rainbow decal on his bumper. There is stood for 3 days until either he noticed or someone told him. He had the entire company outside demanding the guilty party and smoking us(making us do muscle exhausting exercises like pushups and grass drills) until someone talked. No one did. And for almost an entire after noon we got really dirty and tired. It was still funny.

Same unit in the deserts of the Middle east. My unit had 1st response guard duty for a two week rotation. I was in the tower with a machine gun overlooking the front gate of the base. At the front wall(there was a double wall with about a hundred yards of open sand in between) was the actual gate guards who inspected incoming vehicles. Below my tower was a Bradley fighting vehicle also covering the front gate with its 25mm chain gun. They got bored in the middle of the night and all of a sudden I hear "BANG!" and then "Bang!", and then over and over again. I look down to see the driver beating on various places of the armored vehicle with a sledge hammer and from the ground he couldnt see the gunner and vehicle commander cracking up in the turret. This continued for about 15 minutes until a staff duty person from the MRLS artillery battery across the dirt road behind us walked up and stopped the hammerer. He yelled at the Bradley commander that the Battery commander said "He appreciates the diligence to detail the crew is showing making sure the vehicle is up to spec but to please have his driver look for weak spots in the armor in the morning after everyone is awake."

Oh and a tragic but still funny moment, in my current unit a good 6 or 7 years ago a senior ranking NCO sent an off color joke by email to a few people. They try to stress political correctness and such in the military, but frankly, the military prides itself on the lack of in defiance, so this isnt unusual. Well I never got to read this joke to see if it was funny as it was removed from the system by someone higher than me. However this was not before every person he didnt want to read it, read it. He using the wonders of Outlook addressed the email instead of the group he wanted, to the next group down which was every member of every shop of the same type he was in in the entire Air Force and conveniently enough, he had a signature with his and the unit's DSN phone number at the bottom. So as the world turned and people showed up for work and diligently checked their emails, they had a surprise waiting for them, and every half hour the unit got calls from commanders and shop chiefs in new time zones. He was asked to retire and had the quickest paperwork process I have seen. He was young enough so he went to work for the city police department. We thought it was funny.

 

[Cool Hand Fluke]

Back around January of 1976 we were in the middle of tank gunnery at Grafenwoehr Germany. The tempature at night was in the 20's or teens.
We had this one new guy in our platoon who had just arived from the "world".. We waited for him to fall asleep and then we carried him in his cot outside
in the 20 degree weather around 10pm at night. We waited about 30 minutes before he woke up freezing his @ss off! He walked in the
barracks with a big grin on his face, about a 50 guys broke out laughing. Great memory!

-Cool Hand Fluke
C Company 1st Battalion, 35th Armor, 1st Armored Div. 1975-1978
C Company 4th Battalion, 63 Armor, 1st Infantry Div. "The Big Red One" 1978- 1979

 

[fever87]

Just today the XO off the USS xxx (one of the ships we oversee) was in our building and was eye-balling an expensive model of his ship that sits in the passageway just outside my office. He was trying to talk my boss into letting him have it for the ship's wardroom. The answer was the predictable "no way". My boss has an attachment to the model and it cost several thousand dollars to construct (back when we had money). Before he headed off I overheard the XO say he wasn't going to give up. So when my boss went to lunch I grabbed a screwdriver, undid the BAS (big-ass screws) and moved the model, pedestal and all, out of the passageway. My boss came back from lunch, walked past without noticing. Another trip down the hall and back and still hadn't noticed. Now I'm dying. Then after another trip down the hall he notices. High and right he went. We let him know the model was safe had it back in its proper place soon after. I'm retiring soon so I'm feeling a little freer to be a prankster.

 

[CaptainRobin]

Had a First Sergeant who was a total a-whole when I did a stint as an Operations Sergeant... abused his position for personal gain, chewed me out daily, wanted me to falsify reports, all kinds of dishonest stuff and was making everyone miserable. Sooooooo.... one day I went to the library and Stars and Stripes bookstore. I took a magazine subscription card from EVERY magazine in both places and filled them out with his name and address, no postage required as we were served by the APO. About two weeks later he started returning from the mail room with STACKS of magazines, sometimes as much as two feet tall. Then the subscription bills started pouring in. He'd come from mail call with piles of bills and magazines, slam them on his desk, and glare around like he'd like to kill someone. I never told anyone, just gloated in making HIM miserable. Priceless...
Robin

 

[chatmangreer]

I was in the Navy stationed in Okinawa in 1982 at Kadena AFB. Smoking was still allowed inside your office. Our CO left for a while and while he was gone, I poured some gun powder from one firecracker in his ashtray and slipped back to my work station. About 30 minutes later, over the loud speaker he yells "Everybody fall in NOW!" We were all standing at attention while he paced back and forth in front of us with his "blackened" fingers giving us a speech about how he does not like practical jokes. He wanted to know who put something in his ashtray but no one said a word. (No one knew anyway except me) I never laughed so hard as when I got off work that day.

 

[ammo_u]

OK I'll give you two. I worked missles in the USAF @ Nellis in LV NV. We did some stuff I wont put on here lol.

First, worked with a guy that was just a total douchebag and always messed with people but never wanted to be teased in return... well he was overly sensitive about anything gay/homosexual and would lose his mind if someone questioned his sexuality. Well, we had a Gerber machine that cut stickers (nominclature) we would put on the missiles durring 90 day inspections so we cut him a sticker that made his license plate which looked like a personalized license plate which read "IM GAY!". Well one of my friends took it a step further and took a pic of the plate and typed up a fake letter head which indicated the pic of his car was going to be the cover photo for Gay lifestyles magazine and mailed it to him...the meltdown has epic!

The 2nd story is more tame. My best friend and I dressed up in tin foil and was taking our photo infront of the extra terristrial HWY outside of LV. We were both up for a medal and went in to talk with AMMO Lt and he was looking at his screen saver with a pic of me and my pal in tin foil. He looked at us and said "I was told these two clowns work out here in the MSA...can you believe that!!"

 

[Gunrunner61]

Really sucked to be him that night huh?

 

[CaptainRobin]

Okay folks... another story time.... the Combat Engineer Platoon (5th EN BN) I was assigned to when I first enlisted had a real peckerhead of an LT. I was a SPC4, squad leader of the platoon headquarters section, four guys. Company OPORD was held after dark, it's in FLW, MO, POURING rain. Our Platoon Sergeant came and gave us a brief. He had to return to garrison for something. The LT had set his pup tent about ten feet behind the PSG's truck and had crawled into his fartsack on his cot. He had a COT! We had air mattresses that would never stay inflated overnight, and we were sleweping in the water. We guys took WD1 (sreel stranded communications wire) and ran it through the two point grommets of his tent, then attached it to the trailer hitch on our PSG's vehicle. PSG drove off, wire tightened, ripped the puptent out of the ground, which caught the ends of the cot, flipped the LT face down in mud in his bag, and our PSG just drove off... never knowing what had happened. Had a ticked-off LT, big-time dressing down, but us boys never said anything.
Robin

 

[snakeyes]

I think this was supposed to be a joke on me but it didn't work out that way. I was a new arrival, probably my first week aboard the good ship Preserver a salavage ship, having to work around a bunch navy divers is always interesting. Any back to the joke, my job was working in the Aux engine room. We were in dry dock so a lot of work was taking place throught out the ship. A EN5 thought he would send me on a hunt for something that didn't exist, he sent me down into main engine room to turn on the cooling water to the hand rails. Will I didn't know any different so I turned on every valve I could find, by the time I got back to the Aux engine room, everybody was soaking wet and the bilges were filling up with sea water. I think some kind of memo went out after that.

 

[A/CMan]

Telling a private to go to the pc pit while we are in the field to ask the Lt for a bucket of grid squares and the private came back with a darn bucket of grid squares! The Lt cut up and old map into squares for him to bring back!!! Well hell! Geeze! I laughed so hard I near pissed in my pants!

 

[Frank1960]

I was a medic in the Army and worked in an Emergency Room. We had a patient who needed a rectal exam so the Doc put on his gloves put one hand on his shoulder and the other well you know where it went. Well as the doc is giving the exam a medic came in the back door to the room with a glove on his hand and put his hand on the guys other shoulder. The guy kept looking at each shoulder but didn't say anything. The medic snuck out the door without being noticed. The poor guy left looking over his shoulder at the doc and we never did see that guy in the ER again.

Another time I was putting stitches in the back of a guys head and the Doc came in to see how I was doing (was a rookie at sutures) and the doc says "thats not supposed to be sticking out like that" I said "It's not?" and we went on about that finally the Doc said "we are going to have to cut it back open push that back in and redo it" That patient was halfway to the door before he heard us laughing. He mumbled something but what with the doc being an officer he couldn't say much.

 

[poorhunter78]

This aint a joke, Just a Thank You for keeping us Free!!!

Wife Son and I went into a buffet other day.. Saw a feller in Naval uniform, I always go upto Yall and shake hand, Say Thank You!! This guy was eating with his woman, I couldn't bother him to Say Thank You! But a nod staring him in the eyes, Think he Got my Thanks!!!

Sorry, Back to your Jokes, They are good, Man's gotta have fun on the job!!!

 

[YankeeDownSouthAdv.]

small story- My unit B co 1/102 Inf. (NG) - we always used Duece and a halfs (2 1/2 ton trucks) to move around for training , well sometimes sleep was limited so you would find your self nodding off from time to time. Well lucky for me i wasn't the unlucky one who fell asleep this time. One of the Team Leaders waiting for his RTO to fall asleep, we all carried hot sauce in our rucks( makes the food /MRE's taste better) , soon as his head leaned back and his mouth was open, he silently removed the cap off his hot sauce and vigorously shook the bottle, he snapped out of his hades sparked coma, and grabbed for his canteen, downing it in a matter of mins..lol...one of the funniest things i saw....

 

[FreedomUIC]

small story- My unit B co 1/102 Inf. (NG) - we always used Duece and a halfs (2 1/2 ton trucks) to move around for training , well sometimes sleep was limited so you would find your self nodding off from time to time. Well lucky for me i wasn't the unlucky one who fell asleep this time. One of the Team Leaders waiting for his RTO to fall asleep, we all carried hot sauce in our rucks( makes the food /MRE's taste better) , soon as his head leaned back and his mouth was open, he silently removed the cap off his hot sauce and vigorously shook the bottle, he snapped out of his hades sparked coma, and grabbed for his canteen, downing it in a matter of mins..lol...one of the funniest things i saw....

Pretty much except we always carried sardines in mustard sauce. Squad leader dozed off during a drinking inspection, his head fell back and his mouth opened up. I grabbed the closest tin of sardines I could
find. Stuck a whole one inside his mouth without him knowing. We took so many pictures with flash's that we thought his alcohol induced brain would start going into a fit. Anyways, this poor smuck slept
like that for more than two hours. He never ate another sardine again even though we always offered up ours.....

 

[FreedomUIC]

This aint a joke, Just a Thank You for keeping us Free!!!

Wife Son and I went into a buffet other day.. Saw a feller in Naval uniform, I always go upto Yall and shake hand, Say Thank You!! This guy was eating with his woman, I couldn't bother him to Say Thank You! But a nod staring him in the eyes, Think he Got my Thanks!!!

Sorry, Back to your Jokes, They are good, Man's gotta have fun on the job!!!

This isn't a joke but fits with your post. Whenever my wife and I are dining out and there is a military person in uniform at that establishment, I always pay their bill for them including family without them knowing until the waiter/waitress tells them the bill is already paid. It happened to me once when I was at Fort Lewis and I have carried that tradition on for the last 28+ years.