If I remember right it was 1953. One of our cooks was en-route to one
of our detachments. He was a real big guy. The plane he was in
exploded en-route. He immediately became a member of the caterpiller
club. Made it safely to the ground. Some time later he was serving in
the chow line. I asked him about his "adventure". He said he figured
He must be awful smart or awful dumb to have made it. I suggested
how about awful lucky? His feet were so big they sent him back to the
states to be fitted for shoes.

__________________
In Omnia Paratus

I've searched in here and in what's left of my mind and find no indication that I have posted this in here before but just in case, my apologies.

It was July of 1966. I was stationed at Chu Lai with the 5th Marine Division. Our camp was all tents, even the CO lived in a tent. The Seabees were working diligently to build some more permanent facilities but sniper activities were an occasional impediment. We had very few amenities and creature comforts. An occasional mobile PX for toothpaste, Candy, Cigarettes, etc. On a rare occasion we might get in some cases of warm canned beer. Limit of 2 cans per man. But listen, when it between 95 and 110 degF and the beer is hot 2 will do ya...trust me on this.

We were each allowed to scrounge around for various building materials for making "furniture for our tents. The first day I was there I score a small oscillating fan. I was delighted....until it dawned on the that we had no electricity in our tents! Can y'all say CRESTFALLEN?

Sanitary facilities were no less primitive. Latrines were scattered around the camp and although primitive they were well maintained. The shower situation was grossly inadequate! A "water buffalo with 5 passes of 1/2" aluminum tubing with holes punched in it rigged to form a crude shower.

As far as recreation goes the best thing we had going was a kind of drive-in movie only we didn't have cars so we had to WALK-in. The ground was ridged like the "whoop-ty-doos on a motocross track so that the ground was not flat and you could sit on the low part and lean back against the berm. Our screen was a large sheet of stainless steel. There was a 4' deep trench around the whole "theater" area due to the afore mentioned out burst of occasional sniper fire (usually just a little harassment and seldom resulted in anything serious).

One night when we had a movie scheduled to start at dark I was running behind. I'd been running behind all day and I didn't want to miss any of the movie. But I did want a shower first. I ran into my tent and took off my dirty clothes and wrapped a towel around me, put on my flip flops, Grabbed my M-14 and 2 bandoliers of ammo and headed for the "shower".
Cardinal rule: NEVER go anywhere with out gun and ammo. It was a good rule and it was strictly enforced.

Those holes were none too close together and a little feller like me had to run around in a wide circle to get wet. It was almost dark. I soaped up and rinsed off and didn't even bother to dry. Wouldn't have done any good anyway, it was so hot that you'd start sweating immediately. The only reason to take a shower in the fist place is so that the sweat on your body would be fresh.

I wrapped my towel back around me and headed for the theater. I sat in the middle of a row about half way between the screen and the trench. I took a few jabs about my towel but it was all in fun. Don't remember what the movie was but just as it got rolling good 3 shots from and AK-47 rang out. I didn't see any muzzle flash and couldn't really tell which direction it had come from. Didn't think it prudent to sit around trying to figure it out so I jumped up and scurried to the trench.

In a heart beat we were all shoulder to shoulder and bangin' away and nothing. Several more incoming rounds not too close together. when things calmed down some I heard some laughter and looked around and one of the guys said, "Hey Doc, what happened to your towel?" Everyone had a good laugh....I never saw that towel again. It was probably gone before I hit the trench. A young 2nd Lt. suggested that from now on I take the time to put on some pants before coming to the movie. I thought it was a good idea....

__________________
Real men love cats!

We were in Southeast Asia helping the local country's armed forces with their Islamic insurgency. We were in the Combat Operations Center (COC) when reports of movement in the wire came in. Folks not on duty, moved to their fighting holes but it was like watching five year olds play soccer.

It was like magnet ball. All of them moving in a tightly clustered formation to the perimeter.

One grenade could have killed them all, but fortunately the water buffalo that triggered the alarm didn't have any.

It was March and/or April of 1963. And though my "Dream sheet" had requested Sea Duty or the 8th Naval District (Texas Louisiana Oklahoma) I wound up being sent to FMF school. The Marine Corps did not train medical dental or chaplain personnel and as a department of the Navy some of these folks were "picked" to serve with the Marines.

As I remember it FMF school was 6 weeks or maybe it was only 4, but anyway it was at Camp Del Mar on Camp Pendleton California. This time was spent training how to wear all the Marine uniforms and handle, use, and care for all their weapons...and we also got a good dose of the Gunny Ermy (from Full Metal Jacket) style guidance and encouragement.

All the barracks buildings were along the edges of the huge parade field which was a perfect square. All these buildings looked exactly alike brick for brick and stick for stick inside and out. We had come in from a night compass march training exercise and it was about quittin' time on a Friday so they turned us loose. I ate a quick dinner in the Mess Hall and went to the EM club just on the other side of a really deep gully.

Now I just love Heineken Dark Draft beer. And that particular evening it was going down GOOOOOD! When I left the club I was bloused to the gills. I had to decide whether to walk back to my barracks on the streets or take the short cut across the gully from the Parade field.

I guess I'm one a those that get drunk and lose all ability to make good decisions, at least that was the case back then. I like to think I'm doin' a little better on that now.

I chose the short cut through the gully.

I was unaware when I made that decision that it was wet and muddy but I don't think it would have made any difference. Anyway when I finally made it up the back side of the gully and stood on the parade field (we called it a "grinder" I lost my bearings and got totally turned around.

After a minute of careful consideration I figured it out and went to my building and my bunk which was an upper. I took off my muddy shoes and crawled up into my bunk.

The next thing I know I feel something huge and heavy landing on my chest....twice. I opened my eyes hoping that I'd be able to breathe again before too much longer and there was a huge marine standing there looking DOWN at me...on the top bunk.

Uh oh!

I'll have to paraphrase here. He asked me what I was doing in his bunk. I told him with deep conviction that it was MY bunk.

That's when that huge fist came down on me one more time. He pulled me up by my shirt and put me on the floor. He took his keys and showed me while he opened his (my?) locker. He finally convinced me. Just when he was about to forgive me he saw how muddy I got his bunk. I asked him not to hit me any more and he just took me out side and asked me my building number. I told him and he pointed it out to me and left me standing there. A couple of minutes later my shoes came flying out the door and landed at my feet. I was glad too because I had no intention of going back in there for anything.

It only took a few years for me to be able to see the humor in that story.

__________________
Real men love cats!

August 1974, Shaw AFB, Sumter SC. standing at attention on asphalt in blistering heat for inspection. The new butter bar was taking his sweet time hovering over every potential victim.

Back story: I had no designs on a military life and had been playing with a local band for six months. In that time, I had stopped cutting my hair. I would pack my hair with Dippity-Do into a hair helmet, stretch an oversized fatigue cap over it, trim any stragglers poking out and be off.

The POL section was a lax outfit until Lt. 35-10 showed up.

Fast forward.....by the time he got to me my cosmoline coiffure had begun to melt. Green goo was oozing and I heard "Sergeant, remove your cover!"

It looked like a man-o-war was ingesting me from the top down.

I was escorted to the base barber shop.

__________________
Music/Sports/Beer fan

The Base Exchange at Naval Air Technical Training Center Memphis cashed paychecks and every payday there was a long line out the door onto the sidewalk leading up to the door. I was standing in line one day and an obviously just out of boot camp sailor (issue dungarees, no shape to his white hat, short hair, etc.) walks down the sidewalk along side the street and passes a Marine WO heading the other direction with no salute.
The Warrant Officer turns around and yells, "Hey you!"
Sailor, "Me?"
WO, "Yeah you! Come here!"
Sailor comes back to WO, "Yeah?"
WO, "Boy, how long have you been in the Navy?"
Sailor, "Three months."
WO, "Then pop tall (words of emphasis added)!"
Sailor comes to attention.
WO, "Didn't they teach you to salute officers in boot camp?"
Sailor looking puzzled at the red pips on the WO's insignia, "Yes sir but I didn't know we had to salute Red Cross officers."
Every sailor in line laughs hysterically!
(At this point I will not repeat the remainder of the Warrant Officer's highly colorful conversation to avoid being banned)

__________________
μολὼν λαβέ

We had a rather portly Sergeant, whom I shall call Sgt. Louie. On midnights, he would have a patrolman drive the squad car and he would sleep most of the night. He hardly ever got sent to any calls. One night, the Ptlm. got bored driving Sgt. Louie around with him sleeping. There was a parking lot that had a semi-trailer parked on it, so the Ptlm. drove the squad car up to the side of the trailer and eased the nose of the car under the trailer. He then yelled out a few expletives and slammed on the brakes. Sgt. Louie woke up, saw the trailer with the nose of the squad car underneath it, screamed, and we think he peed his pants. He didn't sleep the rest of the night and never had that Ptlm. drive him around anymore.

Another time Sgt. Louie drove his squad car, again on midnights, and getting close to end of shift, he was getting tired. He had stopped for a red light at an intersection, fell asleep, and as the driver side window was down, his head fell onto the window opening and his hat fell off onto the ground.
The station got a call that a policeman must have had a heart attack, as he was stopped at an intersection, and wasn't moving. Yep, it was Sgt. Louie.

One more. Sgt. Louie went through a fast food drive thru, and upon leaving hit a post, scraping up the side of the squad car. He took the car and deliberately drove against a utility pole to cover up the drive thru fiasco. Only problem was someone had seen him do what he did, and had called the station. Sgt. Louie got into hot water for that one.

I used to drink with an old cop who had narcolepsy, he would fall fast asleep sitting on a barstool sleep for 20 minutes without falling off the stool, wake up and wonder why his beer was warm.

It was a local dive bar, and everybody had their own issues, and what happened there stayed there. So we'd just let him sleep, and nobody bothered him.

The funny part was when you'd see him around town, with some poor schmuck pulled over, blue lights flashing, and him sound asleep in the middle of writing a ticket.

He made it to retirement, with out any issues, thank God.

Another one directly involving me. We came in off the Grinder one day after barracks inspection and my locker was ripped apart, uniforms all over the place which meant something wrong. Needless to say I received an invitation to the Company Commander's office to discuss my ancestry from the Revolution forward along with my obvious mental deficiencies. Final departing words from my CC was, "Don't ever cost me another point on inspection or you will regret it." So it's the next day at personel inspection and I see my CC talking to the inspecting officer and both of them look strait at me. "OH ****." We were formed up in ranks so as Company Right Guide, I was first in the rank for the sixth squad with my Squad Leader on my left. So then inspecting officer looks me over and starts to go past before he whips around and starts asking my general orders totally out of order. Then he starts with tricky questions like Who is the commander-in-chief of the Waves. "Sir, the commander-in-chief of the Waves, is President Richard M. Nixon, Sir" and it went on. Finally when he realized he wasn't going to trip me up he turned to the next victim but whirled on me one last time and asked, "Boy, who's the Secretary of the Navy?" "Sir! The Secretary of the Navy is Paul R. Ignacios, Sir." He turned to my CC and said, "Damn, I didn't know that." I got a smirk from my CC and left alone from then on.

__________________
μολὼν λαβέ

We had a sergeant much like that one--only he was a drunk. His name is zamora--we called him Zammo.

When Sgt. Louie was shift Commander on Sunday day shift, he would go into the women's restroom, where there was a couch, and sleep unless he was needed to sign paperwork or there was a problem.

Minot AFB, North Dakota, 1984, midnight shift. A B-52 alert crew had hit a gate during a crew response, and I was there with another SP, a buck sergeant dog handler, doing the report. The driver was a young first lieutenant, a little chagrined and trying to be one of the boys. He looked at the bored German Shepherd licking himself in the way of all bored dogs and said, Boy, I wish I could do that.

Without missing a beat, the dog handler said, Well sir, I can get him to move his head if you like.

__________________
It’s Fudd-Daddy to you.

As the result of a home accident, I required stitches in my finger. I went to the Naval Academy Hospital in Annapolis to get my finger sewed up. As the Corpsman was cleaning the wound, he was telling me about how experienced he was in the medical area. He said not to worry as he had much medical experience and he had been a medical Corpsman for long time. He proceeded to put five stitches in my finger and while he was dressing the wound, he said that was six stitches he had done. I said that you only put five in my finger. He then said he was talking about the total number of stitches he had put in patients in his 3 months as medical Corpsman!

__________________
Bill

I was in Memphis going to electronics school. The classes were mixed Navy and Marine. I was at the Exchange Cafeteria sitting next to a sailor and marine arguing which service was best. The standard "The Marine Corps. builds men" , "The Navy only takes men" etc. The Marine said "well you see who gets all the Waves on the base". The Sailor looked und said" Hell yes, Us Sailors have more pride." The Marine shut up, got up and walked off. I laughed for 20 min.

A former sailor once asked me: "Do you know why ships have Marines stationed on board?" When I said no (knowing a punch line was coming), he said "Because sheep get seasick."

I can give you his name and number.....

__________________
So many S&W's, so few funds!!

This is not my story but a buddy's. He was in a Navy helicopter squadron during VN. Not sure country they were in because they got around but it was probably PI. They were out in town one night and all were drunk. One was so drunk they found a wheel chair to push him around in. They came across some Marines and fists started flying. They left the guy in the wheel chair alone. Until he stood up to defend his mates. Then the Marines all turned on him and beat the **** out of him for pretending to be incapacitated.

Another buddy in the Army during the same conflict went in the latrine and sat next to another guy. It was the fashion to tuck their caps in the back of their pants. The other guy stood up and hollered. He had accidently filled his cap with ****. He couldn't wear the cap and couldn't leave the latrine uncovered. My buddy left him to his own devices.

I did 22 years in the Air Force; half of it at a highly classified organization whose very existence was Top Secret. Since I had contact with many of the civilian contractor outfits I always wore civilian clothes. One young black lieutenant stopped by my office on a regular basis and one day curiosity got the best of him. He had to ask, “Sir, who/what are you?” I asked that he explain his question a little better and he clarified by asking, “What rank are you OR are you a civilian and what do I call you?”

Lieutenant, I am a Master Sergeant in the United States Air Force. You can call me by my first name, it is Master. Well, he thought that was the funniest thing he had heard!


At the next organization Commander's Call the colonel got up and told the story to the entire outfit.....I don't need to tell you that not all of our black members found it as funny as the lieutenant had!!

This was told by our commander, a Navy captain, at an all hands. I have no reason to doubt his veracity.

During VN three pilots had been captured and were being held together before being transferred to the Hanoi Hilton. One was USAF, one USN, and one USMC. They knew the reputation of the Hilton and together decided they would rather take their chances trying to escape. They waited for their moment and suddenly made a break for it. They ran as fast as they could but they could hear the guards and dogs catching up. The Navy pilot stopped under a tree and told the others to go on without him, he was beat. He would climb the tree and pretend to be an animal. The other two ran on and soon his tree was being circled by the guards and dogs. He called out, "Caw! Caw!" His pursuers were convinced and ran on after the other two escapees. The Air Force pilot gave out next. He told the Marine to continue on without him. He would climb this tree and pretend to be an animal. The Marine ran on alone. Soon the guards and dogs were under the tree. "Pee-weet! Pee-weet!" called the pilot. The guards were fooled again and chased after the lone Marine. With nothing but sheer will power left the Marine finally came to a stop. Quickly climbing the nearest tree he waited for the guards. They were not long in arriving and circled the tree with the vicious dogs. Thinking fast he called out, "MOO!"

We had guys working all kinds of shifts, and no shift at all, going in and out and all of that, 24/7. So to try to maintain some kind of a stateside level of appearance in this situation just wasn’t rational. But remember, we are at a Signal Corps managed compound. Having said that, there would occasionally arrive an officer or senior NCO who thought that, “What these men need is a good inspection” and would order that one be held, just so they could see that it wouldn’t work, I guess. This didn’t happen very often for us, as we were hooched with the medics, and both them and us were exempt from duty, and were actually detachments operating under Headquarters Company. I’m not sure, but the ones I remember were the result of a new First Sergeant coming in over at the company. Anyway, somebody mentioned something about a “barracks” inspection and we all immediately forgot about it. I personally never went into the company office, or read the bulletin board, except to get paid my $300.00 a month as a Spec-4, including combat pay. So one day, while I just happened to be getting ready to try and get some sleep in the afternoon before going out on patrol that night, I looked up when I heard the screen door open to see my friend Will, (an E6) who announced, “at ease” for himself, as no one else had, for the beginning of our scheduled inspection, that no one recalled. The First Sergeant wasn’t with him. Here I was laying in my bunk in my tightie whities, which I only wore to sleep in, and didn’t and haven’t worn any form of underwear in the intervening 46 years; maybe a bit too much info there, sorry ‘bout that. It was obvious to me as I observed Spec-6 Will that he had applied a significant amount of toddy to his body, in preparation for the inspection, but was, nonetheless, maintaining a proper military attitude in carrying out said inspection. As he approached each area in the hooch, he would execute snappy left and right faces, with the obligatory about face when exiting each area, before heading to the next one, most of which were empty. I was already laughing from the time he entered the hooch, because as I have already stated; this was one of the funniest people I have ever met. He never came into our hooch, I always went over to the NCO hooches to drink with him. So here he came, with his cap all pulled down and everything, headed to my area. As he got to my area, he stopped, did a right face, and continued a few feet where he stopped in a position of attention, in front of my wall locker. After an appropriate pause, he reached forward to open the wall locker, all the while remaining at attention. He took a short step forward and swung the door open to find most of a quart of Vodka on the top shelf. There was nothing else at all in the wall locker. He seemed to deliberate a moment, and then, with military precision, he reached forward, removed the bottle of Vodka, and removing the cap, proceeded to take the bottle to his lips and remove about 20% of its contents, all with movements that could as easily have been an “inspection arms” drill. Having completed his inspection of the contents of the quart of Vodka, he replaced it in the wall locker in the same position it had been, closed the door, took a short step backward where he paused, and with eyes front, announced with a clear and commanding voice, “Nice display, Specialist” executed an about face, and proceeded to exit my area, making a right face at the isle, and proceeding to the next area. It was my most memorable, if not most favorite inspection, bar none.


But evidently, that inspection did not satisfy the new Top over at HQ Company, and he arranged another one, this time tapping Sgt. Joe, our NCOIC, to officiate over it. This time things were much better organized, and after everybody got past the “really?” part when they were told about the inspection, we went over to the Mama Sahns and told them that the big shots were coming through, and that they had to have the place looking #1. But we did our parts as well, removing all manner of contraband and other unauthorized objects of interest. One of the brothers, an American Indian from Oklahoma, who was a conscientious objector, had 4 machineguns in his wall locker! I would have liked to have heard what Will would have said about his display. Speaking of Will, he and Sgt Joe were very tight, but they lived in different worlds when it came to military discipline and procedure, and because Sgt Joe had been handed this task, you knew he was going to follow through with it, so Will would have to tow the line, so to speak.


When the day of the inspection finally arrived, a Saturday of course, the old dump actually looked pretty good, for the Nam. Some of us even had on nearly complete uniforms, and were on hand as requested, to give Sgt Joe some support in what everybody knew was just some bogus stateside baloney. We were all just hanging out on the isle adjacent to our respective areas when someone yelled “TEN-HUT!” to get the festivities underway. But things went very wrong even before the sound of that command had faded from our ears. I have mentioned before that there were dogs on the compound that had been “adopted” by the various different outfits represented on the site, and because we shared our hooch with the medics, we had in residence their dog, “GC” which, being the medics dog, was short for Gonococcic Condition, honest. GC suffered from a poor self-image, probably due at least in part to the name that had been hung on him. Some of the security guys kind of took him under their collective wing because the medics as a whole didn’t treat old GC very well, so he kind of gravitated over to us. Some of us were smuggling dehydrated roast beef out of the chow hall, giving it to GC, and pretty soon the roast beef and our positive reinforcement had a truly transforming affect on GC, and his stature rose from among the lowest in canine rankings, to the very pinnacle of dogdom, eventually. On his way to the top he was able to win the favor of fair Mitzy, the security section’s dog. She was the undisputed Queen of the compound, and his pairing with her was of itself a powerful catalyst in his rise to a heightened self worth. Their union produced an offspring, a female, named Princess, who had by now grown out of puppy hood, but wasn’t full grown as yet, and she had developed a great affection for Sgt Joe, and he was very fond of her as well. The reason I gave you all of this background was so that you could get a better handle on what happened immediately after the command TEN-HUT! was given, because it happened real fast. As I said, before the sound of that command had left our hearing, the screen door at the other end of the hooch banged shut, and as if TEN-HUT! Was her cue, Princess pushed through the door, and started the rather long walk down the center isle, at a very measured gate, with her head held high as she passed by all of the assembled GI’s standing at attention, as if for her, with an enormous road flattened and sun dried rat, as big as an extra large pizza, and as stiff as ply wood, in her mouth. You could tell she was proud of her prize, and who better to bestow it upon than her buddy, Sgt Joe? Of course, he is at attention along with the rest of us, only this time there are folks from outside the security section with us. Well, don’t you know that the little gal walked right up to Sgt Joe and gently laid her rat right at his feet? He held his position for a few seconds, but with her looking up at him, wagging her tail in expectation of praise, he just couldn’t help himself, and as he bent down to her, he said, with a hint of anguish, “Princess, what it is?” Somehow Princess’s message got through to those above us, and there were no more inspections.

So I am working afternoon patrol shift and before getting ready for work, I am looking for something in my garage. I reach up to move a box on a shelf just over my head and something else fell on me when I was pulling on an item next to it. The something was a bit heavy and had an edge on it and it hit me square on the top of my noggin, as I had turned my head in an effort to avoid the object smashing me in the face. It about knocked me unconscious and left a cut in my scalp about 3 or 4 inches log, which as scalp injuries do, began to bleed copiously.

I put pressure on it for a bit and then took a shower, which started it bleeding again. I put more pressure on it and got dressed and drove into work. I figured I could wear my hat and, after roll call, could drop by a local hospital where we often took injured arrestees to get patched up before jail, and I would get it stitched up.

As we finished my roll call briefing, a burglary-in-progress call came in at a nearby trailer park. Two of my guys and I responded, as did a guy and gal from day shift. The burglar had fled on foot somewhere into the trailer park and we fanned out to try to locate him, having a "sorta" description.

I round a corner in the park and spot a man face down on the lawn between two of the "estate's" mobile home/trailers. I got out to check him and could see he wasn't the burglar. I recognized him as one of the trailer park's premier drunks, and that day he was at the top of his game, completely unconscious. I had left my hat in my patrol car and as I bent over the drunk to check his pulse, I could feel the cut on my head had started to bleed again and the blood was trickling down from my hairline onto my forehead and eye brows. Still bent over next to the drunk, I kept bent over so the blood would drip off my eyebrows and onto the grass rather than down onto my uniform shirt and vest.

At this moment, Officer Blonde Fireball came around a trailer and saw me standing bent over a prostrate man with my head bleeding visibly. She thought I had been injured while subduing the unconscious drunk and she took high umbrage at this.

Officer Fireball was new to patrol. She was a very dainty slip of a woman, not quite five feet tall and probably not eighty-five pounds with her uniform and gunbelt on. She wore her long blonde hair piled up into a bun. She was very shapely and could be said to be very attractive if she would get her nose trimmed down some and reshaped.

She ran over to me and jumped onto the sleeping drunk's back. She got her little fists of fury wound up and began hammering his ribs with them, screaming in her high pitched squeak, "Don't you EVER lay a hand on my sergeant again!" I was laughing pretty hard by this time, both at the anger she expressed to the still unconscious drunk and at how totally ineffective her screaming and tiny punches were. The drunk hadn't even been woken up by them. I grabbed Officer Fireball by the upper arms and lifted her up off the drunk and sat her back down on her feet.

I was still laughing so hard I couldn't talk well. I grabbed my portable radio mic and asked for paramedics and an ambulance to respond on an unconscious male patient.

Officer Fireball then jumped back on the drunk and used all of her might to wrestle this unconscious man's arms behind him and handcuff him, then stood up tall and brushed her hands off against each other.

Two other officers pulled up and ran over. While I finished giving dispatch our location and my patient's description and condition, Fireball, with tears rolling down her face, ruining her eye makeup, told the officers that the drunk had attacked their sergeant, "smashing his head open!" "HE TRIED TO KILL OUR SERGEANT!" She then turned back to him and kicked him on the side of his butt with her itty bitty feet, again not waking or otherwise disturbing our passed out drunk.

Still laughing a bit, I told the officers that, no, the drunk had not assaulted me, that I had cut my head at home in my garage and that I planned on getting stitches on it when we cleared this call.

The paramedics and their ambulance arrived. While they attended to the still unconscious drunk, Officer Fireball climbed up into the ambulance and retrieved a stack of 4X4 gauze pads and a couple rolls of 3 inch wide gauze. She made me sit down on the gurney and proceeded to stack a dozen gauze pads on the top of my head and then wrap my head with the gauze rolls until all that was left of me that was visible was my eyes, nose, mustache and mouth.

The paramedics took the drunk to the ER for an evaluation and I followed them in to get what turned out to be six metal staples in my head instead of stitches. The ER doc saw me coming in with my mummy-wrapped head and yelled, "Trick Or Treat!"I swear, the stapler they used looked just like the big gray Bostich stapler I had on my office desk at the station.

Next day, at roll call, Officer Fireball brought me in a delicious home-made blueberry cream cheese pie, covered in whipped cream, to make me feel better. The squad only got sugar cookies she made. She fussed over me the rest of the shift, asking if there was too much pain, did I need any ibuprofen or anything? The guys kind of mockingly played along, with two of them retrieving stuffed bears from their patrol cars to give to me to "make-ums our widdle sergeant feel better."

The next day, Fireball's sergeant brought Fireball into our shift's roll call. He acted gruffly, told her that if she ever assaulted a prisoner again like that, she would go up on charges. Tearfully, she asked, "Did I hurt the man?" "No," her sergeant growled, "You struck him in the ribs at least six times and kicked him at least once in the hip with your steel-toed boots, and YOU DIDN'T LEAVE A SINGLE RED MARK OR BRUISE ON HIM!!! If you ever deliver such a piss-poor miserable beat-down like that on anybody ever again, you are going back to work in jail administration. Is that clear?" She said a squeeked-out "yes" and went into the ladies room and cried.

The next day I found her in the squad room turning in her tickets and reports. She saw me and began to sniffle. I went over to her and gave her a hug. I said I appreciated the way she had come to my defense when she thought I was hurt, it showed attitude and some bravery, but "Next time you need to hit somebody, HIT THEM IN THE KNEES AND SHINS WITH YOUR BATON!"

An American pilot shot down over Viet Nam captured and taken to a
prison camp. Camp Commander wanted to have some fun so he had
the pilot brought to him and said "behind you you see 3 huts. In the
first hut you will find a fifth of vodka. You must drink all of it in less
than 30 minutes. Then go to the 2nd hut where you will find a female
tiger with a toothache. You must find the bad tooth and remove it with
your bare hands, in less than 30 minutes. Then you may go to the 3rd
hut where you will find a beautiful young lady. You may make love with
her.
The pilot went into the 1st hut and came out in 30 minutes with the
empty vodka bottle and staggered over to the 2nd hut. There was a
roar from the tiger then growls and screaming and crying. Finally
purring.
The pilot came out in 30 minutes all bloody, with scratches all over his
face and body. He staggered up to the Commander, soluted, and said
alright now where is that lady with the toothache?

__________________
In Omnia Paratus

I've never been in the service. I've never been a cop. But I have been a security guard. One of my assignments was the "Golden Eagle" motel, in Richmond, Virginia, across the street from the Federal Building, the departure point for buses leaving town for various military induction centers. The motel had three floors reserved for inductees, waiting for shipment to wherever they were headed. Floor four and five were reserved for males, floor seven for females. They were NOT to fraternize. Yea...right. A bunch of 18, 19, 20 year old's and I'm supposed to keep them apart.

While walking the seventh floor one evening, I hear the sounds of laughter and music from one of the rooms. I knock on the door, and a young woman swings it wide open and there are about 25 or so young people inside. Both sexes of course. "OK...let's all go downstairs." Management would decide what to do with them. I just had to get them there.

Anyway, we start down the stairs. It looked like I was herding cats. Every floor we came to, the crowd got smaller. By the time I got to the first floor I think I had two or three. Realizing it was a lost cause, I sternly warned them..."Don't let me catch you doing this again." "NO SIR!" and off they went back up the stairs...probably back to the seventh floor. Or wherever the party moved to, but I didn't see them anymore the rest of my shift anyway, which was all I really cared about.

__________________
John 3:16 .

One of our buddy's had gotten leave because of a bad hurricane in his home state of Texas. He had been recently moved to LZ English with the 173rd Airborne, and wanted to have a short visit with us on his way back into country. So-he was sitting in the air terminal at Guam looking for a way to get closer to us in the Delta. Looking around, he sees this plane load of newbees waiting to board for the last leg of their flight to Viet Nam, all sitting ram rod straight, not making a sound , all dressed in their brand new dark green jungle fatigues, and asks, "Hey, are you guys heading to Ton Son Nhut?" To this, one of the closest guys to him turns and says with foreboding seriousness, 'No man, we're goin' to NAM!

A cousin enlisted in the Air Force in 1953 about, a year after I
had. His folks got a letter from him. He said If he had just got
a little higher score on a test he could have been an OCCIFER.

__________________
In Omnia Paratus

A young man asked his Dad, who was a veteran, if he ever killed
any one. The Dad thought a minute and then said - probably, I
was the cook.

__________________
In Omnia Paratus

A friend of mine relates a story from his time in the marines..he told how he walked around a corner without looking and bowled over short lady DI. She was furious and told him the from then on, every time he saw her he was to hit the deck and loudly call out 20 pushups...this he did religiously, until one day they were in formation in front of high brass, and she walked into the area. Without fail, he hit the deck and started calling them off..I think she rescinded the order after that.

__________________
Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

Death from within

Just a little off subject, but worth it. Dispatchers in a small town with a volunteer fire dept. are told to tell callers who are calling about their cat being stuck up a tree to say, "lady, have you ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree? Don't worry, it will come down." The firemen are driving around in their shiny red truck soliciting donations for the department when a lieutenant knocks on an old lady's door. She answers with, "Oh thank God you're here! My kitty is up the tree in the front yard." Now he is asking for money so how can he refuse? Up the ladder he goes into the maple tree (think sap) in his clean, dress uniform. Yep, now ruined with sticky sap. He reached for the cat and gets deep scratches all over his arm from the frightened kitty. He throws his already ruined jacket over the cat and brings the gift wrapped feline to the ground. The old lady cries and thanks him profusely and then goes into the house to get a donation, returning with a shiny new quarter. They return the ladder to the truck and then proceed to flatten the cat when they back out of the driveway. I quickly got the hell out of there trying not to laugh too hard until I cleared the area.

This story reminds me of a day at the station.....

Our station gets paged requesting the 'Heavy Rescue Truck' for a cat stuck in a tree. Now, mind you, this is in the thick of a fairly large city and county that has animal control officers (paid) and about 50 volunteer dog/cat/whatever rescue groups.

I get on the station's radio and ask the dispatcher to repeat the call, she does, and I ask her on the radio to dis-regard our Heavy Rescue and simply notify animal control.

A very angry chief gets on the radio (from the comfort of the doughnut shop presumably) and very sternly insists that our Heavy Rescue respond as dispatched. I acknowledge over the radio and load the guys onto the truck. While en-route to the location, the chief calls us on the cell and asks what the he11 was I thinking to question the call. My response was that we were not equipped to handle animals (and cats don't much like me anyhow) He irately insisted that we '....get over there right damn now and get that damn cat out of the g--damn tree....'......I ended the phone call with 'YES SIR!'.

On arriving at the home, we find that the 'tree' is only about 1.5" inches in diameter, but reaches the top of a two story home. To make matters worse, the cat is at the very top of the tree....

The only ladders that the Heavy Rescue unit is equipped with will reach about 14 feet off of the ground and the tree likely will not remain standing once I am on a ladder at the midsection of the tree.

Well.....the Heavy Rescue is equipped with a high pressure foam system that produces a solid stream of solution about 7/8" diameter @ 600psi. I instructed the guys to pull a 50ft section of line and mount the solid stream tip.


Yep, you guessed it. The cat came out of the tree and took off running. The homeowner was really unhappy with the whole affair and she sure let me know about it. I told her that the foam was just soap and the cat would be squeaky clean when it came home and to please call animal control next time and not the FD.

We loaded up and headed back to the station. I had just turned on the last little section of road to exit the neighborhood when the cell phone started ringing.....it was the chief.....most of what he said is not fit for publication, but when he asked '...what went through your g--damn mind....' the only reply that seemed appropriate was "Chief, I did exactly as you asked. The cat is out of the tree." He hung up without any follow-up orders or instructions.

That was the last time that Heavy Rescue 11 got assigned ANY calls for service for animal control duties

*** Disclaimer - No animals were harmed in the removal of the cat from the tree. And no charge for the wash job either

__________________
On the Oak Savannah