What practical jokes did your unit pull on new privates?

Change summer air in tires for winter air, or vice versa.
Ask maint. Sgt. for sparkplugs for 5ton truck, and elbow grease.
Get the sky hook out of the conex.

I was in the Commo Section where we use tools like TL-13 (Wire-Cutting and stripping pliers) and a TL-29 (Knife/Screw-driver). We would send a new guy off to requisition a ST-1 for the project at hand <STONE>.

wasn't a private but just as funny.
we were in England training with the brits, i was an M-60 gunner so while over there they put me on a GPM i wasn't allowed to fire on certain ranges so the LT hands me his SLR and says go fire some up Willy. make sure you clean the rifle when your done and oil it up good as well. being the new PFC to the platoon i did what he said except I dumped about a 1/2 bottle of LSA in the weapon. i had just finished oiling it and he come by saying hey give me back my rifle I'm on line in about 1 minute. i handed him his rifle , he never checked it. when he came back he has oil and carbon all over his face. 1 rule on their ranges was no camo, a brit Major saw him with all the carbon on his face made him do push ups for wearing cameo. he was pissed at me for a long time but since he has told me " oil her up good Willey" he couldn't punish me

Edward 40 hands: 100mph tape 2 40oz bottles to their hands, when done you remove the tape. Sounds easy...try it and see how long till you have to pee.

Also more run of the mill stuff like drop zone keys.

Have the new guy ask the Chief Master Sgt where the PRC E-9 (“battery”) was, lol.

Anybody remember the square needle conversations before required shots?

I sent a nurse cadet to the lab looking for fallopian tubes. He was a good sport and I gave him my $25 2LT dress blue shoulder boards.

I worked with a Neuro surgeon who started out as an enlisted OR tech. He got his bachelor degree after hours etc went to med school then did a Neuro surgical residency. He knew three or four names for every piece of equipment. Part way through a case he would ask the scrub tech for a “hen way”. The surgeon would appear to be anxious for a “hen way” asking for several times. The scrub tech would at this point ask “ what’s a hen way”, the surgeon would say “ about 3 lbs”. Everybody would laugh and get on with the work at hand. One day we had two techs in training, one scrubbed in one observing . The surgeon starts in with the hen way. The guy scrubbed in looks at his buddy observing. His buddy runs out to the front desk and asks the chief nurse for a hen way. The chief nurse was not amused, first time in a long time the surgeon pranked himself

Starting out as an aircraft mechanic we all got got and got others too. Rookies would be sent to get a left handed monkey wrench, 25 feet of flight line, a couple of gallons of prop wash and my person favorite was a gag we'd pull on the B-52.

We'd get a rookie to sit in the navigator ejection seat. This seat was over the crew entry hatch and the bomb-nav seat was similar. We'd rig some BS test to get a kid in the seat. Both the lower ejection seats had leg restraint systems. It kept you from traumatic amputation in case of bail out.

Once we got the rookie in the seat, the egress troop would tell him to move his feet back...further and further until the leg restraint would activate. When that happened we'd scream don't move you'll blow the seat.

We'd let them sweat for a minute before releasing the restraints and telling the rookie he was never in any danger since we made sure the seat pins were all properly in place.

Send them to the head shed to find the PRC-E8.

Black smoke for night helicopter operations because white smoke will whiteout the NODs.