Stupid GI Tricks
 

While cleaning out the ole storage shed, I came across a box of old journals that I had maintained while serving in the Green Machine from 1977-1987...its a collection of things that I had witnessed, thought it would be good for a laugh!

While on a field exercise at Hohenfels, we had a platoon get lost. For those who have never been to the there, right in the middle of the maneuver area is a rather tall hill capped with the ruins of and old castle. Needless to say, if you keep that landmark on one hand, you will eventually arrive at the main post. It was also a favorite assembly area prior to moving back to the motor pool.

Our fearless Second Lieutenant was fresh out of ROTC and was convinced that because he was a "Butter Bar", that the NCOs of his platoon had nothing to teach him.

Picture the company commander sitting in his jeep, on top of Castle Hill, watching the platoon drive around and around the hill, while the platoon leader, had his map spread out all over the coupola of his M-60A1.

Our Captain would come up on the radio net and ask the platoon their ETA and was assured by the Lieutenant that he was five minutes out. After almost an hour of watching this, the Captain comes up on the net and orders the platoon to halt. He then asks for the location of the platoon. After the Lieutenant gives a grid (32km off), the Captain asks the Lieutenant to stand up and look to his left, and did the Lieutenant see the CO waving at him?

Yes Virginia, the most dangerous weapon known to man, is a Second Lieutenant with a map!

We used to say the most dangerous thing was a 2LT with a map, a weapon, and a plan...

You guys are so tempting fate. Do you want another tirade from me about the evils of the commissioning system as it exists today?

Webstral

I have a similar "virtual" story. When I was in ROTC, one of my classmates was having a terrible time with learning map-grids. Our instructor pretty much had to repeat everything at least twice for him. A week or so later, that guy & I went to see "Platoon"* (that should give you an idea how long before GPS this was). During the scene in which the LT is fumbling with the map and radio under fire, I got to poke poor Steve in the ribs. :) A lot. :D He nearly punched me in the face!

* It might have been "Hamburger Hill?"

That was a sad, sad class, as far as the Army was concerned. There were only 4 in my class-- 2 of them didn't want to commit after 2 years, and the other 2 of us were medically disqualified.

Did it happen to be 1986?

While stationed at Fort Hood, got to take part in a map-ex run by the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division (that's right! I got to walk message forms from one table to another!! :D) The Brigade S-3 was excited because part of the map-ex was to use a tactical nuke to destroy an enemy regiment.

The highlight of the map-ex was the S-3 personally plotting the target location for the tac nuke...

The Brigade Commander calmly watched the whole process and when it came time for him to request release of the nuke, asked the S-3 "Have you confirmed the target location?"

"Yes Sir!"

"You do realize that the grid that you gave is the location of our headquarters?"

There's nothing wrong with Second Lieutenants, you just feed them, groom them and walk them a couple of times a day and they make great pets!

And never, ever, ever feed them after midnight!

;)

While serving with the old 2ACR in Germany, I got the chance to serve as a gunner on a IP M-1. This was the first gunnery exercise that we did after reequipping with the Abrams, and while we had all completed the conversion training, experience was sadly lacking.

While firing the Table VIII night gunnery, we had some problems with the weather, a typical Grafenwoher nighttime fog. But not to worry! We had the new thermal sights and the targets had just been refitted with hot air blowers, they should show up great!

Right!?!

When it came time for our turn on the stationary firing range, the fog was so heavy that you could not see the front of the turret from the hatches. And in the gunners seat...nothing could be seen. Finally, Range Control raised all the targets and turned the hot air blowers to maximum.

And nothing could be seen.

Finally, a dim blotch showed up on the thermal and with a great cry of glee, the tank commander yelled "FIRE!"

I pulled the triggers and watched the target explode into pieces. The only thing that I could think of was that I had hit the generator and had splattered burning fuel everywhere.

Needless to say, Range Control was screaming "Cease Fire" and that was the end of the gunnery program for the night.

The next morning, we found out what I had shot. I had nailed a boar, with a 105mm training HEAT round, 150 meters from the tank.

Yup! I had killed my pig, gutted and skinned it and cooked and served it all over the range!

And since boars are a protected species, I got to fill out about 25kg of forms for the German Forestry Service!

Nice shootin', Tex!


Webstral

That reminds me of an exercise we did in Korea. Unbeknownst to us a Special Forces team was taking part in the exercise. They had full TOC identification, waltzed right into the field TOC carrying large bags -- and a couple of hours after they left, the G-2 got a phone call to check the underside of the TOC truck he was in. There was a simulated tactical nuclear device there, and somehow, no one had seen the SF team plant it even though the truck in question was in the middle of the TOC area and they used full simulated procedures to plant it.

Sometimes, you can get a long way just by acting like you belong there.

That depends. Do you think Eddie is reading this thread? :sagrin:

Two quick ones from my own experience;

When I was a cadet with the 1st Ulster Marine Cadets we entered a team into the NISAM (Northern Ireland Skill at Arms Meet), which was a big competition involving representatives from from all units based in NI at the time. As the troubles were still in full swing then this gave a very broad range of units, as all services, plus the TA and cadets attended. One of the years we were there it was interesting to see the locally recruited TA field ambulance unit out shoot the paras :-)

The second one involves a pop at junior officers again (sorry to all the Lt's and 2 Lt's out there). A friend of mine who will remain nameless (as she is now a serving regular officer) had a few issues with radios on an excercise - the conversation went something like this;

'Bravo alpha, this is bravo charlie, are you receiving, over'

Pause for reply, when none is forthcoming,

'Bravo alpha, this is bravo charlie, are you receiving, over'

Pause again, then turns to senior officer.

'Sir they aren't responding'

Senior officer replies

'Maybe they don't have their radio on'

My friend then displayed some awesome initiative by transmitting

'Bravo alpha, this is bravo charlie, please turn your radio on'


:D:D:D

Great one, Tigger!
:D:D:D

Shortly after-- I started at Allegheny in '86, so I think the map/movie episode was the following spring? IMDB says the movie was released in December of '86, so it was likely in early '87, then.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has nailed a boar with a bigger gun!

After four years of not losing any cadets before graduation, in 1986 we lost 8 cadets from a combination of medical, in one case age (she was 30), and one guy who had a pronounced Grenadan accent (though he was perfectly understandable). Apparently, big losses among cadet corps were endemic that year throughout the country. I could never convince Third Region that I did not have high blood pressure, despite two physicals and dozens of BP readings. ( I got a couple of high readings at Advanced Camp because I was doing it on a badly sprained ankle.) I enlisted as soon as I graduated from high school, but we had already taken our final exams in ROTC and were only three weeks away from graduation.

It's all good. I would have made a lousy officer -- I hate politics.

For those of us who have been stationed at Fort Hood, I'm sure that you all remember how Manning Mountain sticks right out of the maneuver area. Highest elevation on post and, needless to say, a fairly unmistakeable landmark.

While test flying the latest AH-1S, a 6th Air Cavalry Combat Bridgade pilot flew right into the side of Manning Mountain. The crew were dinged up, but the bird was, errrr, toast.

The next day, while the accident inspection team was surving the wreck, another AH-1S, flown by the company commander, flew into Manning Mountain, less than 100 meters from the crash site!

The lesson learned form this, you should always maintain enough attitude when sight-seeing!

Ah,
Picture it. Fort Pickett, VA, 1995. (Yeah, a lot of my stories are either Ft. Pickett or Knox). We young impressionable ROTC cadets are out on a STRAC lane. Well, we're supposed to be reacting to a far ambush. Ok, fine, we know what to do and when to do it. Well, one thing we didn't consider? There'd been a drought that summer. Everything was as dry as the damned Sahara. Well, ok, we make contact with the OPFOR, and blanks are going off everywhere. Our squad leader asks the TAC for smoke, so he pops smoke...next thing we know, there's a good sized fire (bigger than a weenie roast, we're talking Battle of the Wilderness-light) coming right at the OPFOR. They come running out screaming "We surrender, do over, do over!" We spent a good twenty minutes putting out the fire and all agreeing (including Captain Sutton, the TAC) that NOBODY was going to mention it.

That same FTX, we have another STRAC lane, I'm a fireteam leader and our job is to recon a OFPOR position. So, we get fairly close to what I am sure are the OPFOR (I'd seen them putting on grey tunics with red "shoulderboards" in the parking lot). Somebody in my fireteam turns to me and says "Hey Weiser, you sure they're the enemy?"

My response? I turn to him with a look of surely your mother didn't raise you this dumb and said "Gee, I dunno, why don't you go up and ask them, and I'll wait here and see what happens.":D

While on REFORGER, my cavalry squadron was getting its collective tail handed to it by the Canadians. After a week of their Leopards running circles around our M113s, We had a three day admin halt, and watched the Canucks park their tanks just down the road from us. We watched them finish their maintenance and then settle down for a well-earned nights sleep. My evil TC asked for a couple of volunteers for a little extra NBC training. Regardless of my normal values (What! Me volunteer?) I raised my hand. We waited until just after 2400 hours and took a stroll upwind of the Canadas, along with two cases of CS grenades.........and the rest is history!

Never forget to sleep with your gas mask handy...the US Cavalry may be lurking nearby!!!

Ahh, yes, the fun of firing an M-202A1 Flash on a dry IRL range -- and then having to call the base fire department out, who were not happy about having to fight a WP/grass fire. We did get to see the sight of flaming bats flying out of the bunker at the end of the range, though. Memories...we burned that whole damn range away, and the fire nearly got to the firing line and the trees at the other end of the range.

It's not just junior officers who can screw things up!

While at Canungra, arguably the toughest training area in Australia (Tully is the other option), we were treated to a firepower demonstration by the training staff of the Jungle Warfare Centre - almost all of which where VERY senior NCOs and most having served in Vietnam.
All was going well, with machineguns, grenades, banks of claymores, and AT weapons tearing up the ground on the other side of the small, and extremely dry valley. Needless to say several fires very quickly broke out in the tinder dry grass and bushes and ended up burning out a fair sized chunk of the surrounding hills.

Another exercise a couple of years later resulted in the only time I've ever seen shit roll uphill!
We were several days into a week long exercise which was to culminate in a live fire company attack with Assault Pioneer and Mortar support. This particular day though was all about section attacks. This was done in two parts - a run through on the range with blanks followed a few minutes later by doing it all again with live rounds.
The light was rapidly fading as the last section went through with blanks. A rushed turn around and they were sent off with live ammo, one safety officer strolling along behind for every three men. Within about 15 seconds of the first shots being fired the panicked order to STOP! was given.

Due to the rush, and poor quality of accessories (namely the faulty zipper on the spare barrel bag for the M60), the assistant gunner had neglected to remove his blank firing attachment (BFA) from his rifle, being occupied with helping the gunner change barrels and then tying the bag up with string.

His first round lodged in the heavy BFA on his L1A1 SLR. The safety officer only noticed the bright orange chunk of metal still on the weapon as he was squeezing the trigger for a second, and likely catastrophic shot.

Turns out there were two contradictory manuals covering the use of blank ammo on a live firing range. On allowed it, and the other didn't. Everyone from the safety officers, range officers, permanent range staff, all the way up through battalion, brigade and Division copped a boot in the posterior. Ranks were lost, punishments handed out, resignations submitted.

And our hero, the poor assistant machinegunner? He was found completely innocent and was actually promoted a few months later.

LOL!

It does seem that the "helpless" private gets away with so much!

I belive that it was General Bradley who maintained that if a Private was left alone in the middle of a desert with only a anvil for company, that if you returned within four hours, the anvil would be broken.

I'm told (by an enlisted friend or two) that I would have burned out from trying to do good. I suspect they didn't want to tell me that I'm too nice, and I would have been back-stabbed early and often.

...and Joe would maintain that he had no idea how it had happened.

The toughest job in the Army is the job of the team leader. His direct report is Joe. I was so spoiled as an officer by having senior NCOs as my direct reports that it was a shock to go back to the enlisted side of the house and have specialists as my direct reports.

All too true. Life always seemed so much simpler when you are a Private, the moment you pick up NCO or officer rank...It's like you have become the babysitter, in charge of a couple of dozen 3-year olds, and they are armed!!!!

I was running the radio at a qualification day at the range when I was in my unit in Okinawa, Japan. Being an RTO, the job was cake. When I had the antenna, and the radio going, a new 2LT came up to me. He was about 23, or 24. I was 20 at the time. After some bullshit peppy questions that I begrudgingly answered, he said "Atta boy."

Atta boy? Dude, go the fuck away. I have to go make a radio check with Range Control.

Amen, brother! My current peers think I'm crazy for not wanting any responsibility other than myself. I tell them the Corps cured me of that nonsense.

Lee,

More to the point, the lesson there is also never, ever turn your back on a Yank, even if he's a friend. Especially if he's a friend! ;)

Tony

Tony...

One should always keep one's friends close...and one's friends even closer!

During my 2nd enlistment, I was assigned as an instructor to the Armor School at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Teaching the young'ns all about the M-60A1 tank, this happened (thank gawd!) to another company on the tank range.

Some background for those who have never served on a tank.

The M-60A1 uses a ballistic computer, unlike the modern computer on the M-1, the M60's used a series of geared wheels and cams to input the correct adjustment to the gun tube. To operate, you grasped a t-handle and pushed/pulled to index the correct round. The primary reason for the elevation adjustment is that antitank rounds such as the APDS round are high speed, flat-trajectory rounds, whereas rounds such as HEAT or HEP are low speed, high-trajectory rounds. Herein lies our tale...

One young student gunner had finished his assigned rounds and while exiting the gunner's seat, snagged the handle of the computer and pulled the setting from APDS to HEP.

The new gunner, in his excitment, thought that he had checked the computer and had APDS indexed. The loader placed a APDS training round in the tube and the gunner prepared to fire at the 2,000 meter target. The instructor tank commander failed to notice that the gun tube was at a "unusually high" angle and ordered the gunner to "FIRE!"

On a nearby range, I was coaching trainees on the use of the M-85 machinegun and happened to observe the tracer of a main caliber round flying well over the berm and disappearing well down range.

Needless to say, Range Control had a MAJOR hissy fit and shut down all of the ranges while they investigated.

The training sabot impacted 13 miles downrange, striking a Range Control storage shed, penetrating the roof, several stacks of targets, the concrete slab, and burying itself 7 feet into the ground.

The trainee gunner received a major "arse-chewing". The instructor tank commander received an Article 15 from the Training Brigade Commander and went from Staff Sergeant, E-6 to Private, E-1 in about 2.5 seconds.

Lee,

Ha, true!

I don't have any personal stories, but I can pass along one second-hand about a new LT.

A friend of mine was in the local militia unit (the Royal Westminster Regiment, part of the Reserve Force Command) which practices on a regular basis in Washington State at Yakima against regular US Army and National Guard counterparts, including the Rangers based at Ft. Lewis. According to him, the Rangers were the only Enemy Force that ever kicked their butts.

While training against Rangers acting as the Enemy Force, they were ambushed while moving along a road. After breaking contact the new platoon leader's bright idea was to attack again down the same road (instead of trying to flank them) because "...they'll never expect that!"

Apparently, they did. I think he tried the same approach again using the same shaky theory, and it went about as well as the first two times.

Tony

Our Bradley transition at Ft. Stewart got quite...eventful one day. Over about an area of four acres, there were almost 40 vehicles stuck in the mud at one point. A Bradley blundered into a mud pit...the platoon leader came to investigate, and got stuck...and so on. Everything from Bradleys to the mortar tracks to the M-88s and M-578s that were set in to recover them got stuck in a huge mud bog. Just about every heavy vehicle in the battalion was stuck at one point, for several hours. We lost a good two days of training from that little incident.

Had something similar happen in Germany. While on border patrol, the cavalry is required to move the reaction force off-post at least once. Our 2nd Lieutenant chose to move the reaction force to a mountain top about three klicks back from the border. The two M-113 Dragon tracks moved to the spot, and got stuck in a peat bog (on top of a mountain!?!?!) The M-88 was sent to pull them out, got stuck, a M-578 was sent and it got stuck, four M-1 tanks were sent and each one got stuck. Squadron sent a 5-ton wrecker up, and yup, it got stuck too.

The only way the vehicles got pulled out of the bog, was we connected each vehicle together, and looped about 200 meters of cable around a WWII bunker to anchor and pulled the them out, one by one.

Have to admit, I'd love to seen a battalion stuck in the mud!

I kept laughing about it during the time, which pissed off my superiors to no end...sometimes you just have to go with the parade.

Its the only way to keep your sanity! Besides, watching the colonel screaming at the major; the major screaming at the captain; the captain screaming at the lieutenants...and then watching the pretty colors the Lieutenants face turns when the ole Platoon Sergeant turns to him and says "You do realize, sir, that there is no fucking way a 5-ton wrecker is going to pull a 70-ton tank out of the mud?"

That's the hardest job of platoon sergeants, First Sergeants, and Sergeants Major -- to make "suggestions" to their less-experienced and less-wise officers. Doesn't always work, though...

I was serving as a driver on the 36-tank when we got a new butter bar fresh from Armor Officers Basic, after observing this one on the first day, the crew's opinion was that perhaps he had taken a left turn at the Naval Academy and found himself in the wrong service.

This opinion was shared by the CO, because a converstation was overheard after day 3 of this officer's armor career...

"Lieutenant, your Platoon Sergeant is a twelve year veteran of tanks, you haven't even worn the shine off of your first pair of bars! You are to check with your Platoon Sergeant before making anymore decisions."

By the time I rotated stateside, our Lieutenant had turned into one of the best Platoon Leaders in our battalion.

I've always been proud to have spent a large portion of my career in the Armored Cavalry Regiments, in my humble opinion the ACRS have produced some of the finest NCOs and officers that I have ever seen. Going through my journals, I found a story of one exception...

I was stationed with 3-2 ACR in Amberg, FRG one January when we had the monthly alert sound one frozen morning. While the drivers rushed to the motor pool to get the vehicles started, I went down to the arms room to draw the crew-served and personnel weapons for my tank.

Our protocol for an alert was to dress in MOPP Level III (chemical protective suit and those thrice-damned excuses for rubber boots), flak vest, kevlar and LBE. With all of that, I loaded up with four M1911A1 pistols, one M-16A1, two M-240Cs and the body of a M-2HB and our ammo can holding the firing pin for the 105mm cannon. I then grabbed my ruck and started up the hill to the motor pool. The side walk was covered in the typical German mix of ice and sleet and crowded with troopers, trying to make their way up a 40 degree slope while wearing rubber boots with slick soles.

Our squadron's S-3 was a certain major who had earned the nickname of Major Pitch-a-Bitch. He was truely loved! There was even a betting pool in the squadron on how long he would last in a war, the longest was a bet that someone would frag him within the first five minutes!

Picture our beloved major, standing in the doorway, screaming at the heavily loaded troopers trying to make their way up an ice-covered slope...

And inside that mass of 200+ troopers, a lone trooper earned the undying gratitude of his fellows

"It's easy for you to tell us to run up the fucking hill you stupid son of a bitch!"

Here's another stupid GI trick...

While tankers on running their Table VI, VII and VIII gunnery programs, there is a lot of time spent on administrative hold, waiting your troops turn at the range. Needless to say, many units take this time to run the troopers into the training barracks and give them time to eat in the mess hall, take showers, PX runs, etc. And since the tanks have their automatic weapons mounted, they leave several armed guards to take care of things...

Anybody cringing in terror yet?

Guard duty has to be one of the most thankless tasks that a young soldier has to endure, especially when its a 18-19 year old. And bored soldiers tend to come up with, shall we say, rather odd means to pass the time...

The M-60A1 tank had its .50-caliber machine gun mounted in a coupla and ejected the empty casings and links down the front of the tank where they tended to get caught in every possible nook and cranny. The M-85C machine gun also had a problem with misfires and you could almost always find a few dud rounds, just waiting to be put to use.

This trick involves tracer rounds, a book of matches and a P-38 can opener. The bored trooper pulls the bullet portion out of the case, making sure to spread the lips of the opening as much as possible and pours about 1/3 of the powder out to the fender. You take your trusty can opener and use the point to pierce the copper cover over the tracer element, you then reinsert the bullet, point first, into the cartridge and pour gun powder over the top of the tracer...strike a match to the powder and watch the flash, hear the pop and watch the bullet, with its tracer lit...go up about 70 meters or so into the air....and hope that it doesn't land on a dry brush, Range Control is never amused by range fires.

Here in Australia mucking about with ammo like that (or even just having a few bits of expended brass in your pocket) would get the offending soldier up on a charge quicker than they could blink.
I'd hate to imagine what sentence screwing with the tracers would get you, but it wouldn't be pleasant. Throw in starting a fire and it's likely to involved gaol time and dishonourable discharge.