Stupid GI Tricks

[pmulcahy11b]

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...

[dragoon500ly]

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.

[dragoon500ly]

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!"

[dragoon500ly]

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.

[Legbreaker]

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.

[TiggerCCW UK]

Its a similar situation here in the UK Leg. Every time we were on the range we'd be lined up afterwards, reminded that it was a criminal offence to remove rounds or brass from a range, be given a chance to return any we had and then do a declaration to the OC or range officer (whoever was the senior rank) stating 'I have no live rounds or empty cases in my posession sir/sgt etc"

As far as I know this was the case across the UK, but that may have only happened in NI (or with NI units) due to our 'unique' security situation.

[Legbreaker]

It was the same in every unit I was in. The only (minor) difference we had to the UK seems to be the wording of the declaration: "I have no live rounds or range produce in my possession, sir!"
You could have half a dozen AT rounds in your back pocket up until that declaration, but if anything (even one expended 7.62mm casing or a piece of link from a machinegun belt) was found afterwards, you were in SERIOUS shit.