What was the dumbest thing you did while in the military?

[CAL]

Believe it or not, I was pretty much a straight arrow during my time in the military. Of course there are the "almost" stories of the officer's wife, the underage CSM's daughter, but I never really did anything (at least that I will admit in an open forum :P ) all that dumb. Here's what I can think of for right now - I'll think of more later.....

As a young private in AIT, I was under 21. My MOS was 31S, and AIT was almost a year long. Because of that they allowed you to have a POV after you "earned" it by passing through different phases. Of course, what does a young private want to do with his weekends? Drink and get laid, of course. Well, this story centers mainly around the drinking part. Being under 21, it fucking sucked when your buddies went out because you were always the designated driver and you couldn't get into some places. I quickly grew tired of this so one night a lightbulb illuminated over my head and I hatched a plan.

For those of you that remember the ID cards that were used before the current ones, the back was where your info was such as blood type, DOB, etc. The back of this ID card contained a key flaw which allowed me to carry out my plan - it was in black and white. I went to Office Max (or whatever office supply store that was there) and got lamination paper, razor blades, and a few other supplies I would need. Then I gathered up a buddy's ID card that was over 21 and made some copies of the back of it. I returned to my lab (actually my barracks room) to complete my project. I would cut out the copy of the ID card that I had made and used the razor blade to make it as exact as possible. Then I would apply a very light coating of glue so it would stick to the back of MY ID card. This would prevent it from slipping while being laminated. After it was aligned perfectly, and the glue was dried, I put the lamination paper around my new ID card . Then I took an iron and ironed the ID card. From there I once again used the razor blade to shave off the rough edges. The final product was an exact copy of the ID card. On the front was my acual ID, so it had the hologram and everything. However, on the back was where the trickery was. The back, of course, now had me at an age of over 21. The modification to the ID was virtually undetectable, especially at night or in a dark room when trying to gain access to a club or something. :twisted:

Because of the success, and how word travels throughout the barracks, other under 21 soldiers started coming to me to make them fake IDs. Basically I started a fake ID ring that involved a couple of my buddies that were over 21. This went on for awhile, and I slipped into a comfortability with it. I got sloppy and started leaving all the evidence -the ID copies, lamination paper, razors, etc. in the desk that we had in our room.

One afternoon, as I was approaching the barrack one of my buddies came racing out to warn me that the jig was up. Apparently, the senior drill sergeant decided to have an impromptu inspection. During this inspection, he checked the desk and found the motherload of my workings. He got the idea pretty quickly, but luckily my roommates didn't squeal on me, although there were some items that had my name on it so of course I was the target. I quickly took out my ID card and removed the part that had been modified. Of course the drill sergeant was waiting for me and before I could make it to my room, he asked to see my ID card. I quickly presented it to him and he examined the back of it. I thought I was fucked, but after some questioning, he let me go.

Apparently, when the drill sergeant was a couple rooms up the hall, my roommates were able to grab some of the most incriminating evidence and dispose of it. What was left, however, was a copy of the back of one of the ID cards. The DS ran a check to find out who's birthdate it was and it turned out there were two people in the company who had that birthdate. I don't know how we got out of it, but after questioning the troopers nothing ever came of it. From that point on I quit the dissolved the fake ID ring.

[italyjumper]

Youre a lucky mofo you didnt get busted...That would have been super ugly for you bro..I had some guys do that id thing when I was at campbell. They got hammered for it.

I will not answer this question as the offending parties are still on active duty and some come to this board.

Needless to say, I had a major screw up but we fixed it pronto and breathed a huge sigh of relief...

later I will tell you the story of how I single handedly knocked out comms for an allied nation during an operation in Kosovo...lol

[Skyshark]

I think I have been out long enough that I can talk about this now.

In 95 our Battalion all received new hum'vees. Well, my 1SG had ordered a troop carrier one however a command one was delivered. Yep, he was pissed, because all te calls he made to Battalion and Division went unheard and he was stuck with it. So, one afternoon he came to me and a couple of my buddies and asked us if we knew where we could get our hands on a troop carrier. We sid no 1SG. He asked usagain and we were were all silent and looked at each other. We then stated that we didn't know at that time but we could find out. So, we went on a scenic drive in te 1sg's vehicle around Division.

Now I don't know if it has changed or not but when you drove up to Gavin Hall (Division HQ) there used o be a dirt road off to side right before theturn off and it was sort of wierd way out to area J. It was about 10 feet int the woodline behind the Division Motor Pool. well, we decided to take a nice drive back there, and wouldn't you know it there was a small walk through gate into the motor pool that was only locked by a small pad lock. Right inside the gate was about 5 brand new troop carrier Hum'vee's. :twisted: . Question was, how were we going to get our hands on one of them. We went back to the barracks to figure it out. We decided that it would be best NOT to take one of them but to grab a shit load of tools and just go take the parts we need and swap them out with the ones we didn't need on the current vehicle we had. Thank God the hum'vees wer interchangable. We went back that night totally blacked out, cut the pad lock, and spent the next 3 or so hours swapping the hard top with the canvas and benches.

next morning PT formation, there was a troop carrier sitting in the 1SG;s spot he came to us and asked us where we got it. We told him we didn't know what he was talking about and that it was best if he didn't find out anyway. :twisted:

He gave us the day off to sleep and all. Good Times!!

[Recon133]

Got involved with an MP's wife at Bragg. Honest to God, I thought she was divorced. Almost got caught in the rapid fire position. Close encounter of the "Max" degree.

[VoTrooper99]

I did a couple things on the sly in OSUT...at least I thought they were on the sly.

I was the platoon "scribe" (aka- Paperwork bitch) from day one of basic until about week two of the AIT section. I was relieved of that duty for "misconduct". Hey, but my intentions were good. The scribe has to set the duty roster (KP, CQ, etc) through a numerical system. There is no room for judgment or discretion.

After the weekend pass following graduation from the "basic" portion of training, I broke my toe in the barracks when it got jammed under the bathroom door. It was swollen and purple and hurt like a bitch. We had a 10 mile road march to do the day after next.

I did not want to recycle. I didn't tell any of the Drill Sergeants.

I was concerned about the road march though...on a broken toe. Anyone who had duty on the road march day was to make up the march the following sunday. That would buy me about 5 days. The whole platoon, including the guy who was supposed to have KP was telling me to put myself on KP so as to buy myself some time. I did it, and got caught. I did however, get those 5 days I wanted.

In hindsight, I should have just done the march. Toe still purple, I did the make up. I also ran a 2 miler (diagnostic PT) in 13:30 a few days after the make up march. It fucking hurt, but I did it.

So there were about 4 of us making up the march on sunday. The Drill Sergeant had the platoon guide watch us as we did 10 miles on the track. Hence more trouble. The other 3 guys wanted to skip about 3 miles of it and say we did the full 10. The guide was going to go along with it as long as the time looked good.

How the hell was I gonna say no? I said I didn't like it, and protested a bit, but caved to the other 4 guys. When it was over, the Drill Sergeant knew something was up, but couldn't prove anything. We got away with it. I still didn't like it.

Stayed on the straight and narrow for the rest of my time. I wouldn't rat on anyone, but I also didn't participate in any of this crap either anymore.

Then there was the casing...but I'll get to that later.

[ABN MP]

When I was at Bragg we were playing OPFOR for a huge MOUT exercise. On of the MP Companies were Air Assaulting in and then clearing rooms to find a High Value target. Well we were suppose to try and take out some of their outer security. Well we were sneaking up on one of them and they started to light us up. My squad leader says throw smoke to egress. I grabbed the wrong smoke and saw a RED CLOUD go up. I am still not sure why they issed me this one because everyone knows that Red is real world casualty. Well everyone freaks out and the choppers fly away after putting out the rappellers. They got the situation sorted out and continued with the exercise. My PL got chewed out, I got chewed out, LOL.
The OC who had set up the whole exercise ended up becoming my PSG later and he just laughed about it after he found out it was me. But that was a ROYAL FUCK UP!

[RiserBurn]

I think the dumbest thing I ever did was ETS...

Damn I miss that shit.

[Tuna]

This was kinda dumb...

This was even dumber...

I have a couple other "dumb moment" stories, although like the above clips, the stupid acts were usually being performed by someone else- I was just observing. (Those were both done by guys in my unit while we were deployed.)

Other dumb moments include a guy walking up to two 55 gallon drums by the MSR to get a closer look and see if they were IEDs (they were), a Black Hawk crew hovering close to a flagpole so the doorgunner could nab a Somali flag (he did) and ending up with a blade strike, and a other such moments of hilarity...

[CAL]

This was kinda dumb...

This was even dumber...

I have a couple other "dumb moment" stories, although like the above clips, the stupid acts were usually being performed by someone else- I was just observing. (Those were both done by guys in my unit while we were deployed.)

Other dumb moments include a guy walking up to two 55 gallon drums by the MSR to get a closer look and see if they were IEDs (they were), a Black Hawk crew hovering close to a flagpole so the doorgunner could nab a Somali flag (he did) and ending up with a blade strike, and a other such moments of hilarity...

So that was you in the videos?

[Tuna]

Not exactly. The car jump was one of our other teams. I had a small hand in the airsoft one- after all, it takes quite a bit of peer pressure to get a private to shoot himself in the nuts...

[SpongeBob]

later I will tell you the story of how I single handedly knocked out comms for an allied nation during an operation in Kosovo...lol

That was you IJ....?
Damn...I got blamed for that bro.....j/k....

[rifle-cop624]

I can neither confirm, nor deny that there may or may not have been a particular Chief of Staff's daughter that got boned.

[RIFLEMAN24G]

During convoy OPs last summer in Iraq we had a blue on blue situation with FOB Remagon, except my truck which was being towed and out of action. I sat and watched. Real embarassing for us. No one hurt , thank God.

[NoWhereMan]

the dumbest thing I've done is go to Vegas when I was supposed to be in the box at NTC... sometimes it's good to be the DIVARTY commander's driver for a rotation :twisted:

[Ironic-Mike]

Number One: Start out as a Leg (Sorry Bros)

Number Two: Not Going for Ranger School. I bet I'd be Sgt Major of the Army by now if I had.