What's your best military-related story?

I had taken over my first platoon and returned from my first patrol, on my first deployment to Iraq. We had just switched over from HMMWV's to the MRAP's. I was feeling "super cool" and got a little overzealous in jumping out of my truck (didn't maintain my 3 points of contact). My gear caught on the hydraulic door and I'm only 5'3" so I was way too short to do reach anything to lift myself off. So there I was, hanging by my IBA from the door of my MAXXPRO in front of my platoon. It was reminiscent of the nerd hanging by his underwear from the school locker. My Platoon Sergeant and Warrant Officer had to come lift me off. As they untangled me from the door, all they could say was, "Ma'am... how in the world???" to which I responded, "I have no idea, please don't judge me." It's 6 years later and we still laugh about that whenever we talk.

After about 2 months as a Male Company Commander for a Female Company my ladies knew my routine and the rules of the Barracks. Any man entering the barracks spaces announced himself any time between Reveille and Taps. There were no men allowed between taps and reveille, except the Company Commander, since this was where my office was. Everyone knew I arrived in the morning between 0500 and 0515, without fail. One morning I arrived at 0505 and as I turned into the Main Floor of the BEQ, I heard a shower running and then turn off. As I turned toward my office, one of the young ladies stepped out of the head, totally nude, shower kit in hand, and towel over her shoulder. Both of us stopped dead in our tracks I saw a very young, well-built 20-year-old and realized there could be a problem. She looked at me and realized that she had made a mistake. Being a man as well as her Company Commander, I looked in her eyes. Then I looked all the way down to her feet and back to her eyes. Finally, I broke the silence and said, "Sailor, where the hell are your shower shoes?" With that, she did a full body blush, turned, and ran to her room. I never had any problems when I went to work after that.

I am Patrolling during night shift by Las Pulgas on Camp Pendleton. It is evening, and has just become dark. As I am driving down the road, I am aware of a large grey object in front of me that is just coming into view of my headlights. As I get closer I see that it is actually a car that is driving down the road with no taillights. I light him up and pull the vehicle over. As I walk up I notice that this is an '80's model Chevy Camero. It has black tinted window, and gray primer all over it. There is no license plate, where the tail lights are supposed to be are bare wires, the tires are bald, no headlights, no dash lights, no wipers, no registration, no driver’s license, no insurance and the door doesn’t close. Plus the guy driving it could not see out the windshield because it had a radiator leak and the window was covered in coolant and dirt. So the guy is hanging his head out of the window with a flashlight, while trying to hold the door in place.
He was a civilian who had come on base to pick up a friend of his, and they were on their way off base again. How he got on base, I have no idea. I gather all this information as I am walking up and this guy, starts mouthing off to me. Calling me all kinds of uncreative names... I mean really if you are going to bother to insult and mouth off to an officer of the law, at least have the courtesy of being creative and original. After all it makes it easier to swallow when you end up in hand cuffs and behind bars. Anyway he starts to mouthing off to me, and basically wanting to know why I have pulled him over. After all he is a civilian and I can’t do a thing to him.... <chuckle> <chuckle> (this is going to be fun)
I proceed to ask him for driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance. His passenger, who is the Marine he has come to pick up, is constantly telling him to shut the fuck up, because "These MP's don’t f@$# around!!" I advise the individual he should listen to his friend. He tells me I can go f@$# myself and gets back in his car ready to leave. I chuckle again, reach in and grab him by the collar bone and armpit and drag him out through his window. I then proceed to handcuff him and leave him face down on the road behind his car. I had to call my supervisor over with his ticket book, because I ran out of tickets. After all was said and done, he had 17 tickets that totaled over 3K. The thing he did not reckon on, MP’s had the ability to write military tickets as well as federal tickets. He then had to go down before a federal magistrate to get the whole thing taken care of. It sucked to be him.
After I wrote all the tickets, and un-locked one of his handcuffs, handcuffing the other to his back belt loop, he signed all the citations. Not to happily might I add. I then un-cuff him, he gets back into his car and is about to drive off when I advise him that his vehicle is unsafe and I will not allow him to drive the vehicle on "MY BASE". He asks how he supposed to get home; I said I didn’t care as long as he didn’t drive on my base. He asked how far the gate was, I told him 3.5 miles. So him and his friend get out and start pushing the car. I stayed behind him with my amber lights flashing, while I ate my sandwich, and drank some coffee. When he gets to the gate, he hops in and starts his car up. I light him up again, he is swearing profusely, and is very agitated. He started screaming about jurisdiction and lack of authority. Oh the uninformed. California is a police state and law enforcement have jurisdiction everywhere. Anyway, I tell him that he just reached the gate, but federal property actually extends another 300 yards. He and his buddy had to get out and push another 300 yards. He then got in his car and became someone else problem. I never did see that car on base again.

There are too many to tell, but is one of my favorites. The command had received a call from a group of&nbsp;congressional budget staffers who were researching a funding increase request. As chief of operations (security, law enforcement and SAR), I was most familiar with what we did and how it got done. The chief of training also had a large dog in this fight because the unit was expanding and our training needs were going to take a corresponding hit. With this in mind, the command decided the two of us should provide the staffers a trip through the AOR on one of our Response Boat - Smalls (RBS), and explain the nuts and bolts after the parent command had completed its 30,000 foot view briefing. The plan was that late in the afternoon as the weather was cooling off, <strong>Bill,&nbsp;</strong>a great friend, mentor and former supervisor whose favorite concluding comment during the safety brief before leaving dock was always "What could possibly happen?",&nbsp;would pick up the three staffers at the pier of our parent command about 20 minutes from our office. We were underway about five minutes out from the meeting when I spelled something burning&nbsp;in the cabin. The conversation went something like this. Me, "You smell that." Bill pointing to smoke coming out of the heating vents on his side of the boat, "Think it's got something to do with the smoke coming out of the vent over here?" Me, "Could be." The electronics started systematically shutting down. Bill immediately got on the radio as it was going dead and tried to get a message off to the Com Center, and I hit the Nextel to OOD. Both messages were really short. Something to the effect of "We are at Bravo Papa (the nearest buoy) on fire. Notify the command we're coming in hot (literally) to the&nbsp;dock if we can make it. If no contact in 10 launch a SAR asset. WE WILL BE IN THE WATER." We managed to put the fire out, but by the time we did, all of the navigation, and comms gear was shot, and we lost one engine. We limped in to the dock at our parent command with me ringing out every RPM I could get out of our remaining engine and smoke rolling out of the windows. A damage control team was waiting for us as were the budget staffers. We got the boat moored, and stepped off to tell the damage control guys what was going on. As soon as we were done with them, I worked it out to borrow another boat from the local unit co - located there, turned to the budget staffers, and told them we were their ride for the orientation tour. The look on their faces was priceless! They wouldn't get on the boat with us. They voiced a ton of questions about what had happened to us with a clear concern that it&nbsp;might happen again&nbsp;if they went with us. We finally convinced them to get on the boat and spent the next couple of hours giving our pitch for some new equipment. Over the next two years we got almost everything we asked for including new some new boats, and full time maintenance staff dedicated to nothing but keeping things from catching on fire so apparently a little chaos was a good thing.&nbsp;

I was on leave a few years ago, I went to the Pope shoppette at Bragg, I was in civilian clothes and rocking a pretty nice1 week beard.&nbsp;<div>I was in line waiting to pay for my stuff, and the guy behind in PTs was all on my back trying to read the army times, and I told him</div><div>Me: I'm with somebody</div><div>Him: I'm a LTC</div><div>Me: I'm not with him for the money</div><div>I paid for my stuff as the cashier was almost on the ground laughing</div>

I had just joined an aviation unit from an infantry unit as their supply SGT in Korea. The new commander who had just made CPT trying to prove himself and beat his wife who was the commander of the other unit on movement exercises, asked me to lead a my squad on attacks against the unit as practice. He invited his spouse as a way to show her how prepared he was to beat her and her unit. He gave me 1 week to train my squad, which consisted of 4 Korean soldiers and 1 American soldier, They thought for sure they would out do us. Little did the commander know that even though I was a logistical manager I was also an 11 Bravo. He thought I was merely in an infantry unit as a 92Y. I trained my guys well, and when the time came, not only did we take the camp, but we were able to seize the command tent. Needless to say I was on night watch and required to act as club MP for some time after that, but it was worth it to see the look on their faces.&nbsp;

<p>I was a WO1 and I was at Camp Atterbury, and we had the General, who was actually a skunk that would come out at night and would pass every bunk and look for food.</p><p><br></p><p>My COL was adamant about ensuring that we did not eat in the tents. Needless to say I had some hot fries and I ate them and stuck the bag in my duffle bag and stowed it under my bunk.</p><p><br></p><p>It is three o' clock in the morning, and the General is in the tent, and he is coming for my bunk which is next to the COL's. </p><p><br></p><p>I hear this WO1 Davis yes Ma'am do you have any food in your area?</p><p><br></p><p>No Ma'am of course not that would be a direct violation of orders.</p><p><br></p><p>The General stops and makes a dress right dress and&nbsp;crawls under my bunk and starting digging out he was able to get his sharp claws out and pull out the bag of hot fries, and he did not even eat them he made a right plank and proceeded to the next tent.</p><p><br></p><p>Needless to say all I could say Yes Ma'am in the leaning rest. Every one in my tent broke out in laughter.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

Around 1AM dispatch received a call about a possible dead body on Douglas St. adjacent Vandegrift Blvd. by the back gate to Camp Pendleton. I was the area supervisor for mainside, so I was dispatched to check it out. I responded as well as Oceanside Police Department (OPD) because of blurred jurisdiction lines. We both arrived to the general area of the supposed body and began to look around. We find what looks to be an adult body laying face down on the side of the road in some grass. I approach the body to check for a pulse, bear in mind that cars are going by the whole time watching this take place. I feel for a pulse and find out that it is clothes sewn together to look like a body with a mask sewn on the head. The OPD Officer comes over and looks and starts to laugh, so I start laughing too. People driving by are wondering why we are laughing with a body on the ground. The OPD officer bends down picks it up and throws it to the front of the car, runs over and starts stomping on his head. The looks on the faces of the people driving by, utter terror. He then picks it up takes it to the back of his car and starts slamming the trunk lid down on it several times. People are still driving by. As he puts the thing in his trunk I asked if he would like me to throw it away or if he was. He says he is going to keep it because he is going to put it somewhere else to see how many calls they could get on it. Boring nights on watch.

The drunk Major that grabbed his 9mm to dispatch a camel spider that ran across the tent during a game of Spades....<br>

I was in Korea, 5/20th Infantry (Mech) back in 86'-87'. A buddy and I decided to do nothing one day (yes, yes we did), so we reported to the bowling alley. We stood outside the door, both of us "At Ease" - one with hands loosely clasped behind, the other in front, facing opposite directions... talking quietly. Every 15 minutes or so, we switched our hand positions. As Officers walked by, we'd snap to and salute. At 1130 we reported for chow, then at 1300 we reported back to the bowling alley.

Around 1515, the BRIGADE Sergeant Major comes by and goes in. We snapped to Parade Rest and greeted him and he told us to carry on.

Three minutes later, he pops his head back out of the door and quietly asks, "Men, what are you doing here?"

Not skipping a beat, we both responded, "Lollygagging, Sergeant Major." He gets quiet, then asks, "How long have you been here?" "Since 0815 this morning, Sergeant Major."

More silence. Then he smiles and says, "Get the hell out of here, and don't try this again."

"Roger that, Sergeant Major!"