Practical Jokes

[John Sukey]

Bulliten board at 101st Abn ( an officer jumped first to test wind conditions)
Day one; Colonel so and so, Weather Control officer
Day Two; Captain so and so, Turbulence tester
Day three; Lieutenant so and so, WIND DUMMY

[Rick]

We had a standard operating procedure for new officers coming on the Carrier. We would get them lost then ditch them on the ship. Every time they would ask directions someone would send them on a wild goose chase. If you saw a young officer carrying a duffel bag everyone gave them the run around. I've heard the record was a copula days but I think and hour or two was more believable.

I was standing a watch with the OD who was also the XO. We got a young boot and I was to escort him to his destination. So I took him up to the 03 level and asked him if he could wait a minute while I went to the head. Instead I went back to my watch standing by the XO. The XO eventually asked me if I had got our young officer lost. Thinking I was in trouble but would be in more trouble if I lied. I said I had. The XO actually smiled and just said good. Didn't know he had a sense of humor and was relived he didn't call the Marines to throw me in the brig.

To me the best practical jokes are the ones that could come back on you but when you get away with them they are the funniest ones. Have had jokes pulled on me several times and I really enjoyed them. If you can't laugh at yourself and see humor in things life would be boring indeed. Those that couldn't take a joke were miserable as no one would ever let up on them.

[sop2510]

The engineering spaces on a nuclear sub (everything aft of Frame 85) were normally off-limits to non-nuclear personnel, except when someone was getting qualified in submarines. The start of every patrol always had three or four NQPs (non-qualified pukes) showing up looking for a can of relative bearing grease.

[Dan Shapiro]

Did sort of the same thing with our Morse intercept operators. When one took a break and went to the can, "someone" would wander over to their radio, pick up the headsets and rub carbon paper over the earpieces. You could tell who had been around a while. On returning, first thing they did was rub their headset earpieces over their trouser leg.

On mid-watch the other 'fun' thing to do was take flash paper, wrap some around a guy who'd fallen asleep at his position. We'd wheel this HUGH CO2 fire extinguisher up behind the guy. "Someone" would yell FIRE!, at which point another person would flick a match onto the flash paper. The victim would jerk awake in time to see themselves enveloped in flames and then suddenly become doused in a really cold fog.

Funny thing was, no one usually feel asleep on mids............for some reason.

[Dan Shapiro]

On another note about 'stupid things the military does'............

One day, while at my desk going over reports, a hugh package landed in the in-box. The routing slip had my name on it, indicating that I was to review the attached planning documents, make recommendations and pass the package along. At the time, being just an E-4, I was rather proud that someone would want my humble opinion on anything. Not seeing anything I had any expertise in, I merely initialed next to my name, dated it, and passed it out.

No hit, no foul, right?

About 10 days later, I get an envelope from Planning. Inside is the routing slip, along with the following message.

"The document attached to the enclosed routing slip was set to you in error. Therefore, please draw a line through your name on the routing slip, then erase your initials and date/initial your erasure. Return documents to planning ASAP."

It's been over 30 years, so I believe the statute of limitations has run out. I can now confess that I did not erase my initials and initial my erasure. I just made an erasure mark on the paper and dated it.

[Rick]

The old ships had sea water running down a trough under the commode seats. So you could drop a lighted wad of news paper in the first and sing hair all the way down the line. Never saw these myself ,ours flushed, but the Chief told me the story. If I was lighting the paper I sure would of wanted running shoes on but how fast can guys be in the sitting position with their pants around the ankles.

Maybe an old salt will chime in and tell us if this ever happened.

[Dan In Indiana]

Does a guy taking a dump in an empty GI coffee can, putting it under the Hut Commanders [me] bunk while I was out to the pisser before hitting the rack count? This was in Nam, during the "warm" part of the year when it might get down to ninety degrees of a night. I tossed and turned for a half and hour before I started looking for whatever was making that gawd awful odor. Finally looked under the rack and then started a string of words that might be in a dictionary today. Then all the lights came on and the laughter started. Lots of field days, and racking the "grass" [ the sand at Chu Lai] for a couple of days after that. Walked into the shop next day, the MSgt. in charge must have heard of the incident as he was chuckling big time.

[Griff Murphey]

Rick, if you ever get the chance to visit the USS TEXAS BB-35 in Houston, it has those old fashioned "trough" heads with seats above the troughs.

We had the same arrangement ashore at the MAU camp in Subic bay, near Cubi Point, but since the structure of the head was wood I never heard of anyone trying that burning paper bit.

[sop2510]

The brown-water sanitary tanks on the 616 Class ballistic missile subs were blown to sea with high-pressure air. This was accomplished by the Forward Auxiliaryman from the pipe tunnel below decks in the Operations Compartment. There was a manhole in the deck just aft of the crews' berthing area where he would climb down into the pipe tunnel. The tunnel was about six feet deep.

One day, an auxiliaryman was blowing the sanitary tank, not knowing that someone had isolated the pressure gage. He would open the air valve, tap the gage, open it some more, tap the gage . . . . There was a 700 psi relief valve right next to his head. When it lifted, it filled the pipe tunnel with a brown mist full of toilet paper particles and other unmentionable items. The stink was what you would expect. The poor guy came crawling up out of the tunnel covered with the nastiest stuff you ever saw - or smelled. No one would go near him until he wrapped himself up in plastic and headed into the showers.

[Liam]

In support of wargames in West Germany in the 1980's our little team of two Jeeps with trailers would be wrapped in white engineer tape and posted on some high ground with line of sight to the platoon CP. The white tape made it known to both sides of the "war" that we were to be left to do our jobs and not be messed with. Well, this white glove treatment led to some long shifts with little excitement. On one occasion, without going into too much detail, we managed to simulate the loss of a CEOI from one of the participating infantry units. Losing one of those COMSEC bibles was worse than losing a weapon, as was made evident by the lengthy and intense search of that unit's previous bivouac site. As I recall, a notional arty strike was called in - before the COMSEC NCO could gather everyone and do a physical count - and the recipient's of the faux barrage were let in on the joke.