What is the funniest thing you've seen or experienced while deployed?

<p>I received a burn on my hand and went to the medic who proceeded to poke at it with non-gloved hands then asked me what happened?</p><p>My response was, "Oh it's a normal herpes outbreak".</p><p>Three bottles of hand sanitizer later I finally got the medic to settle down.</p>

I was on a guard shift one time with an older Afghani and his son, just the three of us in the tower.  Somehow or another, the older Afghani (who unlike his son, spoke fairly reasonable English) started telling me a story of how his neighbor's wife had cheated on him, and he had found both his wife and her lover and shot them.  He proclaimed it a "good job" and mentioned how nothing bad would happen to him, as the killings were considered totally justified.  

To this, I explained what would have happened in America.  ie: The man would have found his wife in bed with her lover, and he would have had to grant her a legal divorce, in which she would take half of his money and property and go live with the other man, while he continued to support her through alimony.  The older Afghani became irate and started cursing, which confused the hell out of his son who didn't understand what I was saying (his father was too pissed to translate.) It took a solid ten minutes for the guy too calm down, at which point he relayed the entire explanation in Pashtu to his son, who I got to watch get as pissed off as his dad was.  

We had an NCO who always talked a whole lot of crap on just about anything subject brought up. Me and one of my buddies were leaving our Office for the night when he comes running up behind us, chastising about us using our flashlights. Mind you, this was a black out FOB, so the only lights were on the latrine CHU's. He kept going on and on, and then he told us to turn them off. Laughing, we obliged him (right as we were coming up on a wooden bridge that crossed into our living tent areas). He began by saying, "It takes approximately 3-5 second for your eyes to adjust to the..."

He was promptly cut off by the sound of him sliding into the ditch and under the little bridge.

Stopped a small Toyota truck at a flash TCP and the guy had two goats riding in the cab of the truck and his wife was riding in the back of the truck. When we had the interpreter ask him what he was doing he gave us a simple answer: "I don't have any rope to tie up my goats and my wife knows not to jump out of the truck." Makes sense when you see the problem through his eyes.

While underway on patrol we had an operational reactor safeguards exam (ORSE) which is make or break/do or die for the engineering department. It is 1986 and Star Trek is in the theatre (the one where Spock locks himself in the engine room to save lives or something like that). Everyone is serious, best uniform on, etc. The inspectors are normally full birds or one stars and they have almost always had a bad day, life, etc. In other words “don’t give us a reason to fail you.”

We are at the stage where primary coolant samples have to be drawn from the reactor for testing. This involves someone having to enter the reactor compartment. Petty Officer Farias, the roving watch, comes upon the test about to take place. As the sailor is about to open the hatch to the reactor, Farias, in his best “Mr. Scott” voice yells out

NO SPOCK - DON’T DO IT! YOU’LL FLOOD THE COMPARTMENT!

The Captain looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Before anyone could say anything, the 3 inspectors wet their pants laughing. We though one of them was having a stroke as he kept clutching his chest. All of them were die-hard Trekkies and had seen the movie.

We had a new private strait out of A.I.T. Well we needed E.M.s to go guard a NATO site. Well all briefings about terrorist and such. This kid was a nervous wreck! Well it was O dark 30 and he was walking perimeter when he kick up a rabbit in front of him! Well after a scream and unloading a clip of ammo and putting the place on total alert they found out what happen !! He was heading back to the rear so quick you would think his backside was on fire! And got the nickname Barney Fife!

2004 BIAP, Iraq. I Was On CQ In The Company Toc And I Had Noticed We Had Gotten A New Color Printer. I Had Some Of The New $50 Bills In My Wallet So I Put Them In The Copier To See If It Would Image The Micro printing. At A Glance They Looked Perfect. I Don't Know What Possessed Me To Do This, But I Copied And Cut A Bunch Out. When I Went To Make My Rounds Around The Company Area I Strolled Through The Battalion AO And Put The Fake $50's In The Piss Puddles below the urinals In The Outhouses. I Didn't Get An Opportunity To See Which Sleepy Eyed GI That Thought, Hey It's Fifty Bucks Who Cares About The Piss on my hands, But I'm Sure There Was Some Really Disappointed Joes when they got a good look at it in the daylight.

I was the LPO of a mobile comms unit "stationed" on a modified salvage barge anchored at the end of KAAOT in the NAG. I was also the tech for our satellite system responsible for the connectivity of everything we did on site. We provided all the services for the embarked staff for the joint task force for the area.(comms, phones, vtc etc). We had some Iraqi VIPs on board for a tour of the barge & what we had set up on the terminal (oil terminal belonged to Iraq) I was along on the tour with my OIC for technical question answering etc. However, being female and the VIPs were Iraqi officers, noone really paid any attention to me and didn't listen to anything I said (even when my OIC, male, tried directing their questions to me) unless my OIC repeated what I had just said. At one point, while we were on the terminal where my satellite system and dish was set up, one of the Iraqis started looking around and because of my dish being there (on, transmitting, HIGH power radiation, talking with outer space, BIG RED SIGNS posted, words and pictures, very clear DON'T GO IN THERE vibes) I was keeping an eye on him and where he was going. Sure enough he started going into the radiation zone of my dish - he had to step over a rope AND one of the BIG RED SIGNS to get in - and I tried to stop him with hand signals and talking to him but he just ignored me and kept going. Knowing that the lower ranks might not know English that well if at all, I tried telling someone else that wasn't involved in the conversation going on. He also ignored me so I had to interrupt my OIC to try to tell him to say something. Well this made the head Iraqi mad and he finally looked at me and was probably expecting my OIC to yell at me or something but since time was of the essence I didn't bother trying to tell my OIC, I addressed the Iraqi directly (ooooo, he didn't like THAT!!!), pointed at his man, now standing directly in front of my satellite dish getting irradiated full on and tried to indicate he needed to come out immediately but all he did was call the guys name or something and I turned to look at the guy and in "sign language" (not actual sign language just generic motions that got the point across) directly addressing him (which again they did not like - remember I'm a female - 3rd class citizen if that high to them) basicly saying "your crotch is getting fried you will not have sex/babies anymore". He came out of there so fast and hard he almost ran off the other side of the terminal into the North Arabian Gulf. After that episode, I always walked in front of the group and was addressed FIRST, directly, to make sure it was OK to go somewhere when they were around any of our equipment. :)

Saw a helicopter drop a Howitzer, right in front of visiting Russian officers. The general beside me dove under a truck, and I was right there with him, but the Russians just stood there, watching it fall.
The Howitzer thumped to the ground, it was pretty messed up with parts flying here and there. The Russian general leans down and stares at us cowering under the Six-by, "Very quick, but hard to use afterward..."
I remember biting my lip and looking away as the general blinked slowly, getting his thoughts together, afterwards, He stood up dusted himself off, "Well, now that we've shown you the Army way, lets show you the way the Marines do it..."
I am still amazed that those Russians never moved a muscle, they just stood there, and stared up at this hunk of metal falling right at them, and I was even more amazed that I didn't loose a stripe while I was coughing wildly, trying to cover up my laughter as I crawled out from under the truck.

Being in on an Article 15 at GTMO and listening to an E-5 demotable trying to explain away the reason for his car accident - not because he blew .16 on the meter but because he was distracted by the other soldiers in the back (1M, 1F) "going at it". I leave that to your imagination, but you know what I mean.