Private Fubar did what!

Should I tell some stories about myself? Sure why not. I was in Iraq outside of Baghdad living in a building on a small log base. The room was pitch black since the windows were blacked out due to snipers. I took a hand held pump action lotion bottle and I pumped out the lotion like a blind mortar with a 25% accuracy rate. I did this several times, but I stopped when I actually hit someone in the face and he yelled, "What the f^&k".

Let's not assume it's just our PVT's making dumb or funny mistakes...

I used to work for a SSgt. Shot himself in the hand (Personal Weapon). .38 right through the knuckle of one of his fingers. This dovetails into a unit picnic I was at where my boss (A Maj) says "Holy #$%, what happened to your foot!" to another Maj/LtCol (Can't remember what was at the time). Apparently blew his big toe off with a shotgun some 10-15 years previously. It was unclear whether he was in the Marines at the time or not.

So our company was getting ready for an inspection and the BDE Commander and BDE Sergeant Major were flying in from Colorado (we were in Maryland). we had atleast two weeks notice of the date. Part of the inspection was a dress blue's inspection. We were informed two weeks prior that the Sergeant Major wanted everyone to have their dry-cleaners receipt on them. It was a busy couple weeks leading up to it, and it was up to the soldiers to get your uniforms ready and present them to your team leader for inspection. Uniform inspections were very common in the company so most of us were always prepared. In general we were very bonded as a unit and wanted to look good for our team leaders and squad leaders and represent for each of our individual squad. The day comes and we are lined up, the Sergeant Major is working his way down the line when he stops at one private and looks stunned. "Private," he says, "do you have your receipt?" "No" says the private. " did you clean that uniform at all?" He asks the over. "No" he respond. "Did your team leader/squad leader inspect this?" Asks the Sergeant Major. "No, I told them it was good." Replied the private. "Why not" asks the Sergeant Major. "I wasn't given proper time, and I don't have the money." Long story there was a flood of anger that rained down on his team leader and up. What was sad was that he had a really great team leader.

Flying story: Allah for a day.

We taught both American and foreign national students in the 1970s. As a T-37 instructor we taught aerobatic flight maneuvers. Many of the same things you see stunt pilots do at air shows, but at altitudes well above 5,000 feet. The syllabus included spins. Spinning an airplane is often the result of an incorrect flight maneuver because it is a departure from controlled flight. Fortunately, the T-37 was entirely recoverable. The students had to demonstrate proficiency in the spin recovery before we could send them practice aerobatics solo.

My student for the day was from an African county (maybe Congo) with an impossible to pronounce name. We called him Doodah, which was about as close as we could get to saying it. Our mission was his first spin ride. We climbed to 20,000 ft and I talked about getting into and out of a spin. Reviewed the recovery procedure. Then I took control of the aircraft and entered it into a spin and instructed my way through the spin recovery. We ended up at about 14,000 feet and I gave the air plane to Doodah. He performed the climb back to 20,000 without problem. He entered into the spin as I had previously demonstrated. Then I said, "recover." He didn't move. I said, "recover now!" He didn't move. Then he let go of the controls and said, "Allah Akbar." I had no idea what he meant. (At the time Muslims were pretty rare in the US and unknown in the USAF. Radical Muslims hadn't bothered Americans yet.) My reply was, "I've got the aircraft." I took control of the aircraft and executed a spin recovery. We returned to the base and landed. Needless to say he failed the flight and required additional training. Later on I figured out I was Allah at least for a few minutes that day.

There was a SPC in my unit that had locked himself out of his barracks room. He was a repeat offender and didn’t want to call the PLT SGT or Supply SGT to let him in. His room was on the 2nd floor, it was a mild early summer day in Germany so he had left the window open. He decided to do up to our buddy's 3rd floor room and try and crawl out the window to his window below, the space was too big, he couldn’t reach his window ledge. So he decided he needed some sort of tether anchored to the wall. This was back in the day of BDUs and ironing your uniform and our buddy on the 3rd floor was doing just that. So SPC, decided that yes I can use the iron (HOT) to repel down to my window's ledge. He gets out on the 3rd floor ledge and gets his body to a 90* and he takes that very first step over the edge. and POP the wire on the iron snaps. SPC falls 3 stories down into the grass below, with the broken iron. He only suffers a broken arm, banged his head pretty good, and a small burn from the iron. He receives an Art. 15 for damaging military property. and the nickname “Air Assault”

PFC Snuffy was helping in the arm's room and thought it would be a good idea to steal an ACOG, a day of lock down later, his girlfriend gave it back to us so he could go out with her. The only time I've seen an actual court-martial.

We had a PV2 that was a full-on chicken noodle sandwich. One night, he was arrested in downtown Bamberg, FRG and was turned over to the MP by the local Polezei. Our 1SG were called to pick him up, and when he arrived, he could hear PV2 Chickennoodle shouting all kinds of expletives from the next room. When the MPs escorted the 1SG into the cell area, they found this Private butt-naked, clinging spread eagled to the bars, with urine all over the walkway in front of the Cell. 1SG told the MPs to keep him and left. PVT Chickennoodle wasn't around for long after that....