Positive deployment stories

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 13:18:39 -0400

I know that a deployment can be a hard and trying time for people. Being away from family, being in a war-zone, and having danger close are all hard things to handle.

With that said, I am wondering if people would share positive or funny stories from their deployments.

Response by SFC Mark Merino made Nov 7 at 2014 5:16 AM

SFC Mark Merino — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 05:16:43 -0500

The Navy came out to investigate one of our 58D's that had been struck on the flightline by celebratory fire. The round almost came straight down and passed through the top of the acftand made a tiny divitin the concrete even. We got into a pising contest because he was convinced that it happened in flight........when the helicopter was flying INVERTED. I asked when was the last time that he watched Blue Thunder......adding "Sir" of course.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 9 at 2014 11:18 AM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 11:18:06 -0500

On a route clearance mission in Afghanistan we had heavy traffic backed up, I was in the rear Vic running the Gyro cam when I saw 3 ANA pull a guy from his car and one started beating him with a RPG while the other beat him with the rocket!! After dealing with ignorant Locals trying to get in our convoy or get too close while being limited by ROE it was a relief to see those ANA year into him.

Response by PO1 Donald Hammond made Nov 9 at 2014 1:32 PM

PO1 Donald Hammond — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 13:32:27 -0500

Okay, in the middle of the cold war, on a submarine. Somewhere. :) We caught a fishing line and had to surface to get free of it. I was topside as I was a senior electrician and we had an electrical line rattling in the superstructure and one of my guys had to go in and clamp it down. I was on the phones while I handed tools in to him (Headset sound powered phones the Navy uses). A Russian MiG started circling us, obviously taking pictures. Our CO was freaking out. Then he waggled his wings. Our radio room came on the phones and told the CO that the Russian had congratulated us on winning the Gold Medal in hockey in the Olympics (spoiler alert : now you know the year). Oh but that wasn't the best part. There was a HUGE marlin on the fishing line and we wanted to haul it in and have it for dinner. CO told us "We are already in enough trouble as it is. Let us not add stealing somebody's catch to it".

Durn. We cut the line loose.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 13 at 2014 11:38 AM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 11:38:06 -0500

I figured I should post a story, now that we have a few up.

We were at FOB Shank to tear down and hand over the FOB to the ANA. When we first started this "retrograde" most of the wood from buildings and tent platforms was given to the LNs, which meant they were on our work sites daily. They had to have escorts when on the FOB, and most of the time it was ANA or some other security group that were their escorts. One day as we were cleaning up a work site one of the guys in my platoon found a can of butane or something like that. He thought it would be a good idea to throw an axe at this can, which caused the can to explode on impact. The local ANA guy thought that one of the LNs had fired a shot (which was dumb cause they can't have weapons on the FOB and are searched before coming on) and freaked out. He actually leveled his AK at the guy before he realized what had happened. We thought it was hilarious, our LT disagreed with us.