1.) Ooo, Burn!
“I am going to take a s— in a box and send it to your parents for sending me theirs!”
2.) Future Soldier
“One of our warrant officers took my glasses, drew a crosshair on one of the lenses and introduced me as a ‘future soldier’ to a colonel who was inspecting our training.”
3.) Garden Work
“My battle buddy and I were ordered to dig holes, so when we’re about to our waist he proceeded to turn on a hose. He started to fill the holes with water and told us to stay in the hole. Another drill sergeant walks by and asks him what he’s doing. He says, ‘I’m watering my petunias.’”
4.) The Bedroom Mystery
“We came back from a run one night, it just was starting to snow. We came back to see all our bunks and lockers had been thrown out. I being not the smartest Pvt. said ‘I could have sworn I made my bed’—drill sergeant was behind me. I painted a fence at midnight in the snow for three hours. I almost cried the whole time while painting that damn fence.”
5.) What a Gas Leak
“If I wanted to hear s—, I would have farted!”
6.) You… Uh… I Don’t Know
“We do a lot of aid training, such as CPR, wound healing, exposed intestines, chest hole fix, etc. The fun stuff. In training, one of the steps is to tell someone to call 911. Specifically point at them and direct them. In combat, this switches to pointing at someone to go get the medic.
We were all lined up at our bunks at the end of the day and the drill instructor was talking. The same as you can see in movies like Full Metal Jacket.
As his final words, he is dictating whom is going to do fire watch for the night. Fire watch is basically someone standing at the main door who guards sleeping recruits and also watched out for any fires or anything else that could kill us in our sleep. There are always two people on watch in our platoon of about 60.
He points at one recruit and says ‘You, go stand fire watch in the front.’
He points at another recruit and says, ‘You, get dressed for fire watch too.’
He points at a third recruit. He hesitates because he realizes that he’s already picked two. He suddenly says, ‘You…’ … ‘Go call 911.’
Funniest thing that happened in all of boot camp. He let us all laugh for about 3 seconds and then told ‘alright now… enough’”
7.) Poor Guy
“‘Assume the position!’
We were about to do punishment pushups; I forget why. But we were his first female company… and 80 women shouted ‘Yes, sir!’ very… enthusiastically. And threw ourselves onto the deck. While smiling.
Poor man turned a lovely shade of red and ran and locked himself in his office. No pushups were done because our female CC was laughing too hard and she had to leave the room as well.
From then on, she was the one who ordered us to do pushups.”
8.) Never Laugh
“The drill sergeants did this thing where they would yell ‘Freeze, recruit, freeze!’ We would have to stop whatever we were doing.
As my bunk mate was running back from the showers wearing nothing but a towel the DS screamed ‘Freeze, recruit, freeze!’ My bunk mate tried to freeze on one leg and then fell down, naked, and because he was following orders, just laid there naked. I laughed and my DS called me a cock gazer.”
9.) Private Parts!
“During roll call, there was a soldier who’s last name was Parts, so DS would read out loud, ‘Private Parts! Private Parts! Where is Private Parts?!’”
10.) Food Over Everything?
“Walking by the snake pit when I’m stopped by another MTI who asked if my TI cursed at us. I answered no as they technically aren’t supposed to, but they still do. The MTI then grabbed a banana off my plate and said if I wanted it back I had to answer truthfully. Food being a luxury, and I do love my bananas, I answered yes and he sent me on my way. Later that day in the day room my MTI comes busting in, ‘Which one of you motherf—— sold me out for a g–damn banana?!’”
11.) Vocals on Point
“If you drop your magazine again before putting your safety on I will kick you in the balls and make you sing like Mariah Carey.”
12.) Get Your Head Straight
“The Senior DS had us all bend over at the waist and put our heads between our knees as low as possible. Then he wanted us to all stand up as quickly as possible while shouting ‘POP!’ Once we did that, he said, ‘Congratulations men, you’ve just pulled your head out of your motherf—— ass!”
13.) The Fifth Element
“We were lined up in four rows, or ‘Elements.’
One day a lone soul lined up in his own element. The instructor came running around the corner staring at this guy. He got right up to his face and screamed,
‘ARE YOU BRUCE WILLIS?!’
‘No, …sir’ he whimpered.
‘THEN WHY ARE YOU IN THE FIFTH ELEMENT?!’
I had to use everything within me to not laugh.”
14.) A Barrel of Tits
“‘He’s so dumb, if he fell in a barrel of tits, he’d come out sucking his thumb.’
I’ll never forget that line.”
15.) Mr. Fluffy
“One of the first days in basic a guy in my platoon was standing at attention while having his room inspected by the instructor.
It didn’t matter how nice his room was because there was a large piece of fuzz/fluff on his shirt that immediately drew the sergeant’s attention.
‘Recruit Bloggins! What is that on your shirt?! Is that a fluffy!?’
‘Yes, sergeant!’
‘Why is there a fluffy on your shirt, Bloggins!?’
‘I must have missed it, sergeant!’
‘Missed it? It is so huge, how did you miss such a big fluffy!’ She picks it off of him ‘Hold out your hand’ He holds out his hand and she places it in his palm ‘This is Mr. Fluffy. Find a home for him, like a pill bottle or something. From now on, whenever I want to see Mr. Fluffy you must bring him to me.’
And so, for the rest of basic, every time the sergeant found a piece of fuzz she would yell out, ‘MR. FLUFFY!’ and Bloggins would have to march over to her and present Mr. Fluffy and she would formally hand him the new piece of fuzz to add to Mr. Fluffy. There was hell to pay if he didn’t have Mr. Fluffy with him at all times.”
16.) Do You Want To?
“We were shining our boots when a staff sergeant (called a Sergeant Instructor) from another platoon walked through.
Delbert, a friend of mine, glanced up from his work and made a microsecond of eye contact with the Sergeant Instructor.
SI: ‘Midshipman, why are you looking at me?’
Delbert: Silence.
SI: ‘Midshipman, do you like me?’
At this point I am listening and thinking, ‘S—, I’m not sure there is a good answer to that question.’
Delbert: ‘Uh, yes, Sergeant Instructor.’
SI: ‘Well liking leads to loving and loving leads to f——. Do you want to f— me, Midshipman?’
Delbert: ‘NO, Sergeant Instructor!’
SI: ‘Then keep your damned eyeballs off of me!’”
17.) Toilet Plungers in Hand
“My sister’s platoon had to march around carrying their toilet plungers everywhere. At meal time, the section seniors had to stand at attention, in the hallway outside the mess, holding out a toilet plunger… it was hilarious!”
18.) Holding Back Laughs
“My T.I. (Air Force) started his lighter right in front of the face of the dorm guard on duty and asked her, ‘You see fire, what do you do?’ It was priceless to watch his jaw hang open when she simply blew it out like a candle.
He took a second to regain composure and lit it up again, asking ‘There’s a fire in the dorm, what do you DO?’ She quietly answered ‘Fire, fire, fire?’ and he growled, ‘Well?’
Then she ran around the room shouting ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’ like she was supposed to and those of us watching had to fight not laughing and stumbling while going down the stairs.”
19.) Missing Parts
“‘Does it look like I have a s—sweep hangin’ between my legs?!’
In response to a basic trainee referring to her as a ‘sir.’”
20.) That Back Stabber
“My RDC (navy boot camp instructor) ripped ass all the time. It got to the point where she would always do it at the most quiet time just to beat us later for laughing. My favorite moment was when we were lining up for chow and she walks by and toots so hard the entire line heard it (80+ people) and as she hears people giggling, she whips around and screams, ‘WHO THE F— SAID THAT?!’ All the grins were wiped immediately only to hear her follow up, ‘some assh—’s talking s— behind my back…’”
21.) Pine Cones FTW!
“So, I was at basic in Fort Benning, and we were zeroing our weapons as a company. Zeroing a weapon is when you ensure it shoots where you want it to by shooting a paper target repeatedly. Sounds easy enough. Now, I am a terrible shot. I know this. Everyone knows this. However, I get even worse when I’m being screamed at. I spent hours on the line until, finally, there were only four of us cats who hadn’t gotten a ‘go’ in the whole company. We had three more hours of range time, and if we failed to zero, we’d be ‘recycled.’
‘Recycled’ entails having to revert to another company earlier along in basic training. So, not only do you lose your buddies, but you catch a couple extra weeks of training with a unit that knows you’re a s—bird of some sort. So, a fate worse than death.
After another unsuccessful grouping, my drill sergeant, without a word, picked me up from the prone position and stood me up. He looked at me and said ‘Go find me a pine cone.’ Confused, I took four steps, scooped up a pine cone and took it back to him. I presented him my findings, and he responded ‘Private, that’s not my pine cone, go find me my f—— pine cone!’
Keep in mind, this is a forest in Georgia, there’s a metric s— ton of pine cones. So I jog off and work on my ‘mission.’ This entire time, my DS is shooting all my rounds off, genuinely enjoying himself. Every pine cone I bring to him is not his pine cone. This continued for about 15 minutes while the rest of the company, sitting in a clearing eating MREs, cheered me on.
Finally, I breathlessly run up and hand him another pine cone, about to jog off to grab another. He looks at me, then the pine cone, then me… ‘STEVE!’, he yells, ‘You found Steve, private!’
I s— you not, I had never been more relieved in my entire life, until his face scrunched into a grimace.
‘Wait, private, where’s his family? … WHO THE F— TAKES A PINE CONE AWAY FROM HIS FAMILY!?’
So, terrified, I spend around half an hour scavenging for appropriate sized pine cones, while he fires maniacally. Eventually, I hunt down his ‘wife’ and his two ‘kids.’ (At one point I brought ‘Steve’s estranged son, Dennis,’ and I needed to do push-ups for causing Steve ‘emotional duress.’)
Anyway, he lets me fire (after I prop up the family to ‘cheer me on’), I go prone and I zero on the first iteration. He picks me up again, cracks the only smile I ever saw from him, and says, ‘It was all in your head, you dumb f—. Good job. Now go do push-ups till I’m tired.’ He also had me write my congressman later that day to apologize for wasting taxpayer money on bullets.
A pine cone saved my military career.”
22.) Nope, Not the Word
“I just want to stand here and stare at my privates!”
