Night vision devices will only fail at night.
7a. They will function perfectly once the sun rises.
The heater on your tank will fail in October. The part to repair it will arrive in April.
This next one I can personally attest to. I swear that every time I went to the medic station, I was stuck with an I.V. Worst experience was when they had National Guard medics “helping” out. Five attempts later, one of the other medics must have took pity on me and took over.
No matter how minor the ailment, a visit to the medics will result in an I.V.
Ah, the memories…
The only times you will throw a track are: a. At night, b. in the rain, c. during the movement back to garrison, or d. one hour after you installed the new ones.
The exercise will finish and you’ll get back to garrison just after the wash rack closes.
If you are promised “downtime,” what they really mean is: You will be breaking track.
We had one track that we all swear was cursed. It could spend days parked in the motor pool and the crew would come back to find something wrong with it. They would replace the engine, get out to the field and end up going straight over to the mechanics to end up pulling the engine again. Out of the field, they probably spent the most time out of all the crews breaking track.
In AIT at FT Knox, I had one medic stick me 3 times for blood and missed EVERYTIME! Then she had the nerve to say that she was getting sick and didn’t think she could do it! At that time I had a pretty nice collection of bruises growing inside my elbow…
I’m starting to develop an appreciation for our Navy Corpsmen. I’ve been stuck about a billion times, but I don’t have any horror stories like that. The one time I was stuck by a trainee there was a 2nd class Petty Officer standing over her shoulder. The trainee was kinda cute so I tried for her phone number… That’s when the bad luck hit.
The Marine Corps’ common cure for anything? Drink more water!
If you are so ill that you need to see the corpsman, his common cure is a bottle of … Motrin![xx(]
When I was stationed on a Navy base, I have to admit the Navy corpsmen were better. Although I still managed to receive a couple of IVs there too! Doh! I’ve offered to save them time and IVs and offered to go drink a gallon of water and some Gatorade, but that was never accepted. As for the Motrin, I don’t think the pharmacies stock much else. By the time I left the service I must have had 6 huge bottles of the stuff in the cupboard.
I remember being stationed at Spangdahlem air base and broke my nose. The clinic sent me to see a pediatrician who could spot the fracture on the bridge of my nose. His response was to take some Motrin and come back in two weeks. I have had to rely on the VA to “fix” my nose only to end up having constant bloody noses. I trust the medics more than I do the Drs.
Thanks, I’ve seen various quotations but never the complete list. I really liked a couple of them.
“GUNNER, SABOT, SNIPER” is not an appropriate use of ammunition.
It is cruel to tell NBC types “Damn, that Fox looks like a BMP” particularly when live rounds are being issued.
I was an “NBC Puke” until I retired.
On a side note, when I was in college (a lot of years ago) we had a modeling club that was sponsered by the AF Capt that was in charge of the AFROTC on campus. One meeting he invited a couple of professors to come to our meeting (we were having an AFV competition). Both turned out to be German professors who were teaching for two years at the University and both had been Panzer officers during WW II (I still think one of them had to have been Waffen SS). There were a lot of questions and answers that night, but the one I remember the most was the answer to the question of what they feared most on the battlefield. Expecting an answer of T-34s, Stormiviks etc, we were caught by suprise when both professors replied immediatly - “A bunch of pissed off infantrymen”.
Reminds me of the trouble we used to get our chemical guys into. At NTC, there was at least one chem truck that went out with the recon to simulate the Soviet OOB. They were usually the first ones to get compromised out on the missions, call in incorrect reports, etc., so we didn’t have much respect for them. Anyways, one time we tied 550 cord to the back of their truck, attached chemlights to it, broke them and buried them. Later that night when they left the TOC, as they pulled out, here was about 10 chemlights trailing behind. There was no moon out at the time, so they showed up real well with the NVGs. They didn’t even realize it until they received a call from both the TOC and our platoon leader advising them to secure their lights. [(-D]
I’ve never laughed so hard as the time my rifle squad stopped a mech platoon with nothing more than several yards of discarded slashwire and some spare time…I think those trackers made up swear words after they saw what they had driven through…And once out of their tin cans, they make easy pickings for an L-shaped ambush.
Pay back is a mutha. When we were in the field in Virginia late 1970’s one of the Battlion officiers would drive by and toss a few cs grenades in out site. They were testing our NBC training! One day they drove into our site parked their M151and went to see the CO. They did not have their gas masks strapped on their legs. We went over and removed their filters and waited. Sure enough they walked out of the CO’s tent got to their Jeep and rather then tip us off, by putting on their masks pulled out a couple of CS grenades and started to toss them around. We donned our masks and called out, “GAS!” the alarm was spread around and we turned and watched as they put their’s on and started to check their masks. Needless to say they did not work without the filters.
Later that night our CO asked about the gass attack of the afternoon. Some one said maybe the wind carried the gas back on the enemy. Everyone got a laugh out of it. Needless the staff officiers never left their gas masks again.
I was a 2Lt in an air exercise and to assist in the exercise, the ground pounders had brought in two of our most up-to-date anti-air assets. Some kind of hyper velocity missile in a turret thingy on top of a tracked chassis. (I think we called it an ADATS or something) Anyhow, the C of G for these tracks was pretty high and they were supposed to move them on lowboy trailers. Somehow, somebody somewhere had put them on regular flatbeds and in transit to our air weapons range, the flatbeds slipped in mud and turned over. The ADAT thins landed upside down, right on their gee-whiz turrets and did multiple millions of dollars. That morning, I was heading to the OPSO’s office (my boss) and I heard the CO in charge of the crushed multi-million dollar equipment talking to someone on the other end of the phone and I clearly remember a full colonel saying a lot of “yes sir, No Sir, Yes Sir” to someone way higher up the food chain. I beat feet and got the hell out of there as I could see a lot of collateral damage in my future. Don’t know what happened to that Colonel but I am guessing “I’ll take career halts for $500 please Alex”.
Just finished an excercise , in Hohenfels , Germany . On a dark , rainy nite , moving my tank , (a Leopard C 1, with mine rollers ), back to the " biv " site . Looking forward to steaks and beer . What happens ! Our tank , catches a culvert , and ends up , on its right side , rollers and all . The left track , is off the ground . After 4 hours , our tank , is recovered , back on its tracks , both tank , and crew , good to go ! As for the steaks and beer ? Upon our arrival , we were greeted by our Quartermaster , with steaks , and beer ! So it isn’t all bad !
Frank
" PERSEVERANCE "