Best Drill Instructor/Drill Sergeant stories

Portrayed by former US Marine Corps staff sergeant and real life drill instructor R. Lee Ermey, Gunny Sergeant Hartman could be considered the mold almost every other onscreen drill sergeant is made from.
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Summer of 2000, just got done with OSUT and had the 'privilege' of staying back at Knox and being assigned to the 15th Cav 'TRADOC'... During an event shortly after I start real Army life I got pretty jacked up and blew out my knee. I was devastated... as I left the commander office for the last time, heading to out process one of my old drill Sgt saw me. He told me that life was only going to give me what I earned... he asked if I wanted to come back in after I healed and I said yes... he said "I'm gonna hold you to that shithead" .... we had a very long conversation and he was a major influence on my entire life... I wish I could have tracked him down and told him how much that conversation meant to me and let him know I did make it back in and I am still serving now. It is remarkable the moments we can remember...

Don't thank me, thank your recruiter

Least fun was part of a Platoon in the whisky locker getting burnt out, with ammonia on the deck. Very close quarters. CS Chamber was fun. SDI sent me back in without mask to look for an imaginary list. Only blocked the hatch for a bit. Still big fun.

Just remembered one story. Aviation Bosuns Mates ran the carrier arresting gear, one of their jobs. They had a young airman, last name of Pinto. On the shops organizational board he was listed as Pinto ABEAN. Needless to say he was not totally happy when he made Petty Officer Third.

I have several boot camp stories. I'll just mention two. The first day we were taught to identify ourselves by rank and last name when talking to a TI. The TI came up to me in formation and I was at attention yelling "AB Wayne reports as ordered Sir!" He said "That is Airman!" I said "Thanks for the promotion Sir!" My first Sunday they marched us to church where we broke off into our different religions. My group finished first and I ran to the latrine. I was in and out in record time and everybody was gone! I ran out and saw my flight in formation so I jumped into formation with them. My TI was right there yelling in my face then asked "where were you?" I was at attention and yelled "Taking a shit Sir!" His response? "Give me a 314!" I was 18yrs old right out of high school in 1975. LoL

My senior drill instructor liked me I broke my foot and it would be in this boot for 4 to 5 weeks and I reported to him and it said on the outside of the orders envelope drop med rehab He told me I am going to keep you only if you keep up with the platoon on crutches When we were in 3rd phase the senior drill instructor called me in and said sit down and that never happens and said relax I want your opinion on something Who do you think should be the honor grad I said the guide and he said that's good because that is who I am going to select now get ta f out of here

It was during the "work week" at Bootcamp in Orlando. I was exempted from working in the galley, or policing the grounds, because I had 4 wisdom teeth extracted -- and all 4 went "dry socket". The painkillers they gave me were amazing and I was higher than a kite half the time. This made it totally impossible for me to do things like march in a military manner or answer questions with great fluency. A couple of drill instructors did stop me during that time but they saw the chit, sighed, and waved me on -- not that I cared -- I was really doped up that much.

Eventually, the dental department stitched up the holes after deciding I wouldn't heal naturally and I recovered enough to do some actual work. This work was in the barracks since it seems that adding someone to an existing working party on base was an insurmountable administrative challenge. For whatever reason, the chief decided that the universe needed some sort of balance and replaced that lost challenge by ordering me to have a cup of hot coffee awaiting him upon his arrival in the morning -- which, by this point in the training, tended to vary by an hour or two due to other duties he had.

I had enough work to do that running down to the first deck every few minutes to get a cup of coffee was simply impossible (as he knew it would be) and so I jerry-rigged a small hot plate by turning a clothes iron upside down and supporting it with a few books. After a few days of this, the chief asked me, quite curiously, how I managed to always have a hot cup of coffee on hand. Rather than spill the beans -- and probably get gigged for an unknowable infraction related to electrical safety or some such drivel -- I simply repeated one of his favorite lines: "A recruit must always be adaptable, sir!" Surprisingly, he just looked at me mildly for a few moments and stated that I no longer had to have the cup waiting.

Strangely enough, I ended up getting out of a lot of busy work immediately after that. The base's civilian switchboard operator was pregnant and had to take time off to deliver. Apparently, a backup was also on vacation and this led to a search for an operator amongst the recruits to handle a 4-hour shift in the evening. As it happened, I had spent two summers working as a switchboard operator on the midnight shift for the local National Guard base. When I was led to the board, they tried to reassure me that it wasn't as intimidating as it looked. What they didn't realize was that it was exactly the same hardware, but with maybe less than half of the lines. It would appear that a large national guard base had a LOT more phones than a naval training command. This gig was supposed to just last a day or two, but went on quite a bit longer. One can only assume that they were resigned to a few days of calls being bungled and the pressure to find a fill-in disappeared when things went smoothly.

Another incident occurred previously due to the Catholic "religious petty officer" being sent back in training. I don't know about other services, or time periods, but we had to have a recruit responsible for taking troops to religious services and evening prayers. Suffice it to say, I was about the last person I would choose for the job -- a view to which our two chiefs did not subscribe. Apparently, they were more concerned about having to find a replacement and placed the likelihood of passing the course above any particular religious leanings. So, one chief gave us a lecture about how the command required someone to assume the duties and how the unit would get extra PT if there were no volunteers. As this was going on, the other chief stood right in front of me and stared right into my eyes. I didn't quite grasp what was going on immediately simply because there is so much implied intimidation at boot camp that it sort of became a given -- like the sun rising; the fact that I figured this didn't apply to me didn't speed up comprehension. Eventually, something clicked and I raised my hand, upon which a smile appeared on the chief's face. This disturbed me a bit because such a thing had never been directed my way up to this point...

Okay, all B.S. aside, true story.
Late spring of 82, on the eve of graduation from Basic/AIT as a Tanker and our Drill Sergeant informs us that after chow there will be a 1900 hrs. platoon formation. Any plans of sliding down to the snack bar for a cold one, are dashed.
1900 rolls around and our Drill Sergeant calls us to attention, then a right face, then a column of twos to the left… and away we go, heading southeast outta Disney Barracks across the street and into the woods a few hundred yards.
Parked in a clearing is his pickup truck and he stops our formation, leaving us standing at attention and goes into a congratulatory speech, telling us all how proud he is of us especially for winning the “Honor Platoon” award.
He then points to a large, corrugated steel trash can and says “men, we are not leaving this spot until everything inside of that can is gone” and then tells us to fall out. And fall out we did… we lifted the lid to that trash can to discover if filled to the top with beer on ice and a bottle of Crown Royal on top!

Granted, in 1982 there was not a minimum drinking age in the Army and if you had a military ID card on post, you could buy all the liquor you wanted. So, we did as we were instructed and our Drill Sergeant only had to carry one man back to the barracks over his shoulder, with graduation going off the following day without a hitch.

I went through basic in 1989. My drill sergeant asked me why I joined the army. After I told him why he said: “Bullsh** private, you joined the army to kill communist bast**ds.” A few weeks later we had a dress inspection by the commander of the unit who happened to be an LTC. Of all people he had to ask this question he picked me. He asked me why I joined the army. I yelled as loudly as I could: “To kill communist bast**ds sir! I saw the drill sergeant who was to his right do everything he could to keep from laughing. The colonel just shook his head and went to the next guy.