What is your funniest salute story?

As a PFC I was walking down the street at Ft Camblle KY when I saw a car approaching with a large star on the hood and as it passed me. I did not know what to do so I did nothing. A couple of minutes later the car came around again and stopped beside me. The General gave me a good talk on saluting and asked me why did not have my name sewed on my shirt and I told I was going to the seamstress to have it done. He asked me what my name was and I gave him a phoney and what unit and again I gave him the unit next to mine. I never heard anything about it.

My bad, I inadvertantly mistook the question as funnies story for entire time of service! New here.

We were in the habit of putting our military ball cap in our back waist pants when not in use. One day after eating breakfast I had to go to the the latrine to take a crap but because I had to go bad and the latrine was close I didn't put on my ball. After I was done in the latrine I was looking for my ball cap but behold it was in the toilet and aI took a crap on it. On the way back to my hooch and no ball cap I saw a Colonel coming so I picked up my walking dance and made to my hooch but the Colonel came in and scolded me for not saluting him but I told him that way more then three paces from me. He warned me to never to do it again. I never told him what happened to my ball cap.

I did a left handed salute as a brand new cadet at Army ROTC Basic Camp - unexpectedly ran into the camp one-star and was so startled I did not have time to think

As I was transitioning from the Marines to the Army, I found myself in Ft Jackson, SC. The Captain in charge of the transitioning/receiving platoon asked me to walk with him and chat a bit. As the conversation developed, he asked me why I hadn't gone officer during my transition to the Army. I told him that I had considered it, but I figured officers worked at least twice as hard as enlisted. He looked at me, shocked, and asked, "how so," to which I replied, "well, Sir, you have to salute EVERYONE that walks by you!" This left him with a look of sober realization, haha!

I was stationed at Ft. Greely, Alaska in '74 as 26T20, and working at an AFRTS Radio & TV station. One typical winter day, I was trying to get into the old WW-II building. The door tended to freeze shut, so there I was. Snow blind. Freezing. Winds over 40 MPH, and it was below -40 as I made a second try, with both hands. This time the door opened, but it wasn't frozen. A body came flying at me, in a Kakhi uniform.

Unfortunately, I didn't see it in time, as I body slammed it back into the building. I still couldn't see, as I heard laughter, and four thuds. One of them said, 'At ease, Soldier!" so I knew that at least one of the thuds was an officer. It was worse than that! Three were officers, and the fourth was the Base's Top Sargent.

The man I had hit was smiling, but all I noticed at first were the two stars on each shoulder. I quickly saluted the General, then I saw his aide glaring at me. That Captain had a reputation worse that Frank Burns on M*A*S*H for being an ass, and he was bright red.

The other officer was the full Colonel who commanded Ft. Greely. He laughed and said, "Take it easy on me, Mike. I'm an old man!"

Top smiled and said, Thanks again for repairing my TV, it's still working great!"

The General was there on an inspection tour, where the Station Manager tried to take credit for a huge drop in complaints about the station. I had been sent out to collect programming survey forms, to keep him from meeting me.

The Station Manager tried to have me Court Martialed 'For destruction of Government Property and Dereliction of duty' for repairing station equipment outside a depot.' even though that was my MOS My company's captain gave him another choice. He could either put me in for promotion, or be busted from E8 to E1, and gave him 15 minutes. He needed help from the Company Clerk, but he made it by 17 seconds.

A couple weeks later the General was back, with his photographer. He put my SP4 pins on, and gave me a letter of Commendation for "Turning the biggest technical joke of any branch of the US Military, in this region of the world, into the smoothest running facility." I still have that letter, signed by Lt. General Marks, Commander of all thee Army bases in Alaska at that time. He told me that prior to my arrival, they filled five file cabinet drawers with written complaints about the shoddy operation of the station, and the poor signal quality of both the AM radio and TV stations.

During a CG's meeting of Brigade and Battalion commanders, I was one of two aviation commanders in the room. The CG expressed anger regarding casualness in saluting properly and using an example, singled out my aviation counterpart regarding his warrant officers lack of saluting or saluting properly. I knew he would jump all over it and he did. Several weeks later during a commanders readiness meeting the two of us were briefing our readiness status to the CG and his readiness team and during the my counterpart's presentation said, " I want to thank you for finally getting your warrant officers squared away on their saluting but have one more request...could you tell them to take the cigarettes out of their mouths when saluting"

One time when as an E4 I encountered some basic officer students carrying books in their left hands I saluted with my left hand and they quickly switched the books to their right hand and returned the salute with their left looking thoroughly confused.

My shift was over at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center. I grabbed my hat and went outside and sat on the bench waiting for my ride. I had my enlisted SP5 rank on my nursing uniform. When people started coming out of the hospital, some looked at me strangely, and saluted me. I was just as confused as they were, so I saluted back. This went on for about 20 minutes. Some saluted, some didn't, some stared. I was beginning to feel a little awkward. Well, my class SFC came out, and stood in front of me and said, "Specialist Stendel. What rank are you?" And I told him, respectfully. He said, then why are you wearing a Captain's insignia on your cap?" I was so embarrassed. He told me to return the hat and get my own. I whipped it off my head, and ran back up to the fifth floor, and put the Captain's hat back and luckily found my own. I laughed afterwards. Way afterwards. It was funny, though.

I had 3 days to go before I was to be discharged. I was in my office eating my lunch. I was reading an article in an old Playboy magazine. There was a knock on my door and I moved to open the door. When I saw it was the Chaplin and the Base Commander, I dropped the magazine on my desk and came to attention. I had recently been married and was in love with my wife's cooking and as a result had gained 7 pounds. To relax, I had undone my belt and unbuttoned the top button on my pants. As I was attempting to salute, my pants fell down and the magazine had landed with the centerfold in full view. It was at this point that I uttered some words of that I'm sure the Chaplin was not familiar with. I was later told that they were there to get me to re-enlist. They never did say anything that day or for the next 2 days that went by very slowly.