What’s the best prank in uniform you've seen? Comment below!

When I first reported on board my ship it was the tradition to send the new guy out to get some fictitious item. I was sent out to get some "Bulkhead Remover". Little did my shipmates know but that I was wise to these sorts of things, but I dutifully went in search of said item. I went to a friend in the Ordinance Department and told him what I had been sent for and asked if he could help me out. We then took a 10 pound practice bomb, painted it OD with a yellow stripe around the nose, put an inert fuse in it and painted Mk 1 Bulkhead Remover on the side of it. I returned to the shop with the requested "Bulkhead Remover" in hand and gave it to PO1 that sent me out for it. Of course everyone freaked out and EOD got called in. They had a great laugh over the whole thing and put my "Bulkhead Remover" on display in their shop. Need less to say I was never again sent for any fictitious item.

We had a nurse Capt that was always pranking everyone. His favorite device was KY Jelly. In your hat, the phone, the toilet seat. On his last day prior to PCS ING, two of the med techs went out to his pickup, slimed the door handles, the seat and the steering wheel. As he left the building most of the nursing staff and med techs were watching from the windows. It is a shame we didn't have a Mike down there. First he got his hands into the KY on the door handles, no sweat, wiped off with a handkerchief. The fun part was watching him slide across the seat and attempting to grab the slimed steering wheel. Priceless payback!

In the '90s, until '96 IIRC, the USAF enlisted had velcro/rank name patches on our BDUs. Lots got turned upside down or swapped to different uniforms. I got called out by my CC for wearing a MSgt patch from my boss as an Amn/E-2 in the DFAC.

I pulled lots of pranks with zip ties. Best prank I pulled was on my boss. We were slow at work. His shirt had the sleeves rolled and was hanging on the back of his chair. My trainer and I put a pair of zip ties in his sleeves. We had to guess at the size as he was a wiry guy but had Popeye forearms. One of his habits when putting his top on was to put a hand in each opening and sort of punch straight out. As I said, we were slow. Early afternoon he cuts everyone but the house mouse (my roomate) out for an early weekend. COB he grabs his shirt, puts his hands in and pushes out. He got about half way. The zip ties stuck tight on his forearms. He couldn't get his arms in amd he couldn't get them out. My roommate is rolling watching him struggle with his arms stuck. Boss was pissed. Come Monday morning everyone knows what happened. Boss is still pissed so in front of the formation calls me out, tells me I'm not allowed to touch a zip tie without permission, and tells the flight to watch out for me to which they all just start laughing which pisses him off more.

I've also taken boots, filled them with water and put them in the freezer. Soaked lots of shirts and hats and froze them as well. That cured the "put your stuff in your locker where it belongs" issues we had.

V/R
Bogie

A Motor Pool Sergeant having a new Private letting all the air out of a Humvee tires in the Spring to get rid of the Winter air, after all, we all know that Winter air is not as dense, don’t we? Carry-on, MP Sergeant...

Shoe polish in the ear piece of the phone.

While my son was in the Army in 2013 he had a buddy who lived off base and had a pet cat. My son knew that I grew catnip every year in the backyard for our cats so he asked if I would mail him a bunch of nip for his buddy's cat. I mailed the catnip to his unit address and he stuck it in his wall locker until he was able to give it to his buddy later that weekend. Well it just so happens that his unit decided to do a health and wellness inspection. His squad leader and platoon sergeant saw the bag of catnip sitting in his wall locker and of course flipped out because it looks just like pot. My son told them to relax and said it was just catnip. Of course my son's squad leader and platoon sergeant weren't going to let this golden opportunity go to waste. They asked to borrow the bag of catnip and decided to march over to the 1st Sergeant's office to show him what they found during their health & welfare inspection. When they plopped the bag on top's desk he apparently lost it and demanded to know where they found it and who it belonged to. When they said they found it in my son's wall locker the 1st Sergeant yelled out numerous expletives and started storming out the door to confront my son. At that point my son's squad leader & platoon sergeant finally fessed up and told the 1st Sergeant to calm down and that it was just catnip. From what my son told me...the 1st Sergeant was not too happy that he got pranked and allowed to lose his sh*t before the guys let him in on it.

:) Well.... here goes. Before I went active duty I started off as an 88M in the AZ National Guard with the 1404th in Bellmont, AZ. At the time I was an E-4, and lived several hours away in Prescott, AZ. As such on drill weekends that did not require the soldiers to remain overnight, I would set up a cot and sleep in the armory. It had to be summer as June Bugs were in season and one night I spotted a skunk trailing the edge of the building hunting its dinner. The office of the armory had a double entrance so being the prankster I was, I closed the interior doors and propped open the exterior door with a rock and waited.

Sure enough, after a few minutes the skunk entered the building and I kicked the rock away from the door trapping the skunk in the entrance way. Next, I did the only thing a self respecting Joe would do... I left and want into town so as not to give myself away with some sort of laugh if one of the other Joe's who were camping out in the armory happened to stumble into my little trap. After a night of supporting the local establishments I came back and crashed for the night, making darn sure to stay well clear of my handy work. The next morning there was still no activity around the entrance as I stumbled to the showers. Then there was a shriek and I knew the trap was sprung! So... I took a nice long shower, ensured I remained composed, shaved dressed and faced the day.

At this stage caution tape was around the doors and the outer door was open to "vent" the air of the entrance. There was quite a bit of talk for the rest of the weekend, lots of speculation as to how the skunk got into the entryway, if it was accidental or intentional... and until today I have never shared the story with anyone in the military!

So... If you were there in the summer of either 1998 or 1999... it was me!

While practicing for funeral detail, we had a coffin & sandbags that was stored in the barracks basement. One day as we started to take the coffin back downstairs, one guy climbed inside and we looked around for the first victim- volunteer we could find to help carry it.
We called over another Soldier from the Platoon, and he knew it was heavy so he didn't think anything about it. When he had a hold of the handle, somebody knocked on the side of the casket, which was the signal, and the guy inside threw open the lid and shouted, “What’s a guy got to do to get some sleep around here?”
Our 'volunteer' shrieked and took off running, and we didn’t see him again for three hours.
During a JRTC rotation, we were on a night mission and one of the Soldiers in my Platoon relieved himself of a very large... deposit... in an empty conex container. He then called our LT over, claiming he had found a "WMD cache"... to which the poor LT began photographing and documenting it for far too long before realizing it was a joke.

This was not really funny but more cruel but one of the dentists I served with had a patient that had never been to a dentist and had several non repairable teeth. He told this poor solider that the teeth were so far gone he had to blow them out.
He took a couple of cotton rolls and wrapped dental floss around them leaving the end hanging out as a fuse. the waxed dental floss acted like a candle wick He had the man bit on the cotton rolls and lite the end and jumped back covering his ears and yelling fire in the hole.
The poor kid when he saw the fire racing up the fuse spit out the cotton rolls.

Sending a new mechanic to check the air pressure in the road wheels of an M577 Command Track. Sending a new soldier to Division Supply Brigade to pick up chem-light batteries. Sending a new soldier in the field to go find a tee are double e. Telling a soldier to go to S1 and pick up a DA Form I D 10 T. There are way too many!