Best Drill Instructor/Drill Sergeant stories

My Drill Instructor in Army Basic at Fort Knox in May, 1968, a SSG from NYC, thought pretty highly of himself (not what the rest of us thought of him). He once stood in front of us and shouted "Sound off like you've got a pair!". I was in the front row of the formation, and being young (but a few years older than most of my company) and brash, I retorted, "Testicular presence has NO bearing on vocal prowess". He stopped, looked intensely right at me, scowled, and then continued his tirade to the company. He either didn't hear me (but I'm sure he did) or he didn't understand what I was saying (fortunately for me - I could have ended up in "deep kimchi"!).

At 17, I got off the bus with a lot of other new boots and lined up on the yellow marks at Great Lakes. We were told to arrange ourselves by height, and after a few minutes we got that sorted out. Then our short, muscular, Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class DI kicked things off with a challenge:
"Anybody here think they can beat me in a fight?"
There was a long pause and then from somewhere behind me came a deep voice:
"I can."
The DI demanded that the speaker come forward and identify himself. From the middle of the formation came a man built like a bull elephant. He stopped in front of the DI and identified himself as a linebacker for the Packers.
The DI looked him over then ordered him to stand next to him. Once again he challenged us:
"Anybody here think they can beat the two of us?"
That was the first good laugh our DI gave us.

DI: after chow, go hang drywall in Captain's office
me: Never hung drywall
DI: you're a got dam 12b Combat Engineer, figure the shit out , I'll volunteer a 11b to help you
Me: yes DI, can I miss formation tomorrow morning
DI: hell no, just get the shit done , should only take a few hours !

There was a lot of fun stories.
Reception battalion they decided to have roll call. It went like this: Large, Green, Dick, Condon
In Basic, another private called out to me....Yes, my last name was Dick. The DI thought he was being swore at and didn't realize until I got up from the front leaning rest position what my name was.
Another time, a private was sleeping in the wrong uniform and got told to change. She started to change right then in her sleep...and thought a cop told her to do it.
In hold over, we were told to clean the DI bathroom. We knocked and yelled, but didn't realize until we started heading in and the male DI was showering. Yes, we were all female.

Back in '69, at Ft. Lost in the Woods, MO, we had a DI named Midget who actually was pretty damned close to being one. I still have visions of him in my head jumping up and down like some kind of cartoon character. Anyway after a very long day of Bailey Bridge Building, as the company marched back after Midnight because the effing buses never arrived, somebody started whistling the theme from "The Bridge on the River Kwai", Pretty soon, just like in a movie everybody picked it up and it was a tonic. Backs got straightened, the step lengthened, heads went higher! At that point, the Midget went stark raving nuts screaming, "Stop it! Stop it! You are not authorized to do that". Well we stopped and we fell apart. Several weeks later, I was filling in for the Company Clerk on leave when our scores were posted for the 12A10 finals. We got the LOWEST scores in the Brigades history the First Sgt was absolutely puzzled. Despite having some really positive experiences in the Army and great interactions with DI's, when Nixon started the early out program during the wind down, I jumped at it. THAT damned night sticks in my craw till this day. I owe the Midget one thing, he taught me how NOT to lead. Sent three sons off to the military, one is deployed today in the ME. They ALL know the story and have benefited. In the early '70's when you started hearing about fragging I wondered!

My OSUT unit at Sill had just graduated a couple of days before, along with several other OSUT units. So it was going to take several days to catch a flight out of the airport in Lawton. My wife at the time was back home in Florida. Her and my parents were involved in a multi car accident which put my wife in the hospital. Red Cross made arrangements for me to fly home on emergency leave, but no flights were available out of Lawton for at least a week. So the senior drill of my platoon took it onto himself to drive me down to Dallas/Ft Worth International to get a flight home. I offered to pay him for the gas and such, but he refused to accept it. He stayed at the airport until I caught my flight. A few years later I ran into Ssgt Reynolds while I was at Ft Campbell. I got to thank him again for what he did for me back in April 1976. He ended up becoming the godfather of my daughter.

In basic,I was always amazed by our Drill Sargent ,being able to maintain count as we marched.Even on long force marches.In formation 1 day I asked how he did it ,he went into this loud rant about this ability can only be achieved by exercising specific memory control,and only real soldiers could acquire this,and so far none of us showed this ability.Just before basic graduation,he told me that his thumb touching his index finger was the negative count and his middle finger was the even count.

In 1987, I was unlucky enough to get food poisoning just at the end of basic. After getting out of the hospital, I had one of several DIs sitting across from me at every meal ordering me to eat. Meanwhile, half the newbies in the chow line are trying to lose weight!

Hello I am looking to hire a drill sergeant for an hour on Mon, Tues, or Wed for a company video. We are gearing up for our sales meeting and wanted to get some footage of a drill sergeant yelling at employees. Will pay!

It was a "no win" situation when going through basic in 1972. About half way through officer summer camp, I had an exercise in reporting to a superior officer. My prep was an AF Capt. that handed me a 3x5 file card with the instructions of, "Read ver batum what is on the card". Believing that this was an exercise in following directions, I did just that. I walked into the senior officers office and stated ver batum what was on the card, "Smith comma Dale A reporting as directed Sir". I was told by the senior that you don't say the comma. I informed the senior that I was instructed to state that which was in quotes ver batum. He asked if I was quibbeling and I said no and found myself out on the track running wind sprints. Truly a no win situation.