Stupid Moments revealed........

Never happened to me.

But when we used to get new guys into the Flight Platoon, we would always send them out into the hanger to get us some 'rotor wash' and a couple feet of 'flight-line' for our aircraft.

I worked for 20 years in the Nondestructive Inspection (NDI) career field and we, along with our compatriots in Aircraft Structural Maintenance (ASM), had a great one for "newbies".

A new Airman Basic would be assigned to ASM and as part of their normal inprocessing, they would be issued steel-toed boots (for obvious safety reasons). Once the newbie got back to ASM, one of the supervisors would pull them aside and ask them if the boots had been marked "No Defects" when they got them from Supply. Now of course, they weren't - no boots are marked this way. So the supervisor tells the newbie that they need to take the boots to NDI (us) and have them checked for defects.

Phase II - The newbie shows up at our shop and we can go in many directions. My favorite was to X-ray the boots (or simulate) and then let the newbie know that the boots are okay (and tag them "No Defects Noted"), but go on to explain that the boots will have residual radiation for the next couple of days (This always scares the heck out of them). When we still used old-fashioned pocket dosimeters (for measuring radiation dosages), we would give one of these to the newbie, show them how to wear it, and tell them to record the reading every morning when they put the boots on and every evening after they took the boots off. They were also told to immediately let someone know if they noticed any significant increase in the readings.

After a couple of days (sometimes less) of their coworkers snickering everytime they looked at the dosimeter, most of them got the joke.

Enjoy your modeling...

We had a SFC who used to be in a scout platoon of the 82nd Airborne, so you get the picture, this is one old, hardcore sergeant. Anyway, we were doing some exercises with the old, hand-crank operated radios from back in the day. Our sergeant walks up to a newbie and tells him to hold onto the end of the wires. Then he gives the handle a jerk and shocks the hell out of the kid. Later I walk up to him and asked if he knew what was going to happened when the sergeant asked him to hold the wires. He said, "yeah, but I was more afraid what would happen if I said no to the sergeant than getting shocked!"

I was way to busy having stupid moments in boot camp to remember any of significance. As I did about a million push-ups, you can well imagine. That and getting screamed at constantly. This was a few years prior to PC boot camp. . .
Let the stories begin. . .

Don

Oh, we had a whole list of things to send the boots out after once they came to the platoon. Just off the top of my head;
-box of illuminated grid squares
-batteries for the chem lights
-keys for the humvee/5 ton
-100 yards of gunline
-frequency grease for the radios

Now one of my pet peeves was when one of my guys would leave their weapon unattended . (This was during training, NO ONE I know leaves their weapon in a "real world" deployment) So, when I found a rifle and no Marine, I'd do one of two things; 1) remove the bolt carrier and pocket it, later to have an impromptu weapons inspection or 2) pull the bolt back and dump a handful of dirt/sand into the chamber for them to clean out. Sure, I got some dirty looks, but they quickly learned not to forget their weapon.

"-frequency grease for the radios"

Now thats a good one!

Well we sent a youg 1st lieutenant to tribute honor to the coffin of the unknown warrior's mother ... on a sunny italian august day ... with full dress uniform ...

I have to admit I'm one of the pranksters in our battalion. There's nothing like sending a freshman cadet (I'm a grad student and have at least 10 years on most of the other cadets) to find chem light batteries. It gets funnier feigning anger and starting to get "pissed off". Seeing three cadets running around our biv site bumping into one another trying to find the damn things is just hysterical. They're usually good sports about it. I'm just happy its my turn to dish it out now!

We had a snowdrop - an RAF Policeman - believe that he was flying transatlantic on a Chinook on flight refuelling trials back in the 80's, the previous attempt having resulted in the fatal crash of the aircraft due to unknown engine problems.
We had accident reports and signals faked and the more people that found out about it - the more people wanted to get involved - he was not a popular guy.
He attended safety briefings and I think he even had ditching drillls and was fully kitted out with an arctic immersion suit.
The whole thing snowballed out of all proportion
The guy was a nervous wreck when he turned up at Lyneham for his flight - with all his survival gear to be told that it was all a wind up and that he was flying to Andros on a herc - how we all laughed!
We were all evil bast@##s back then.
The reason for winding him up - other than the fact that he was a copper was that he had tried to stitch up a guy on my shift for a building insecurity at a time when the terrorist threat was high so payback was in order.

The moral of the story is to never underestimate the creativity of bored people that do not like you!

How about... sneding privates to bring back rotor wash, or grid squares. also aluminium magnet. We have also poured chem light "juice" on acft slime lights (formation lights) and convince them the light was leaking and needed to be reserviced leading to a circle jerk as he goes to and fro searching for slime light juice.
My personal favorite is to have 1 pilot rturn off and remove the acft key in flight and the other meat servo dumps the collective simulating loss of power. Passengers will come unstitched if they think the engines have shut off and the acft is going down. Pretty humorous considering the engine sound never stops...
Also fun to convince the infantry they have to continue pumping the APU handle or we'll crash...
I guess Im just easily amused,
Mog

As an "airwinger", it's great when some grunt comes up to you while deployed on ship and starts asking dumb questions about the aircraft.......some of our favorite responses have been...
--That "shiny thing on top" (ALQ-144) is a weapon that fires laser beams
--The big pod on the stub wing of a cobra (aux fuel tank) is a torpedo tube, since we are deployed at sea
--The aux fuel tanks have also been explained as napalm bombs
--And finally, we once showed two especially annoying grunts, in case the cobra lost communications, how the pilots could use the "auxiliary ICS" system by having them talk into the tubes next to the pilots' seats (the relief tubes!)

Some catch on that they've been had, but it's amazing how many others walk away thinking they just learned something really cool!

Our unit pulled the standard "flight line, rotor wash" stuff on FNG's, but we had a particularly creative young LT. with a sinister sense of humor who always got the best of the "cherries". We got a fresh WO1 into the unit who was immediately identified as an "attitude" problem. He didn't like the Army, had no respect for authority, and was only in the service to learn to fly so he could get a high paying post-service aviation job. Not the kind of guy you wanted covering your Alpha in a gunfight.
Lt. Sinister decided to have some fun...so one day he casually wanders into the Warrant's hooch and starts making small talk and casually "putzing " with the new guy's gear. Eventually he gets to the kid's issue .38 cal. Smith and Wesson and pretends to give it a casual field inspection; opens the cylinder and plays around with a few rounds. The kid takes notice and is visibly perturbed. "Snoopy RLO! " Lt. Sinister takes a cartridge and inserts the slug end into the muzzle end of the barrell and gives it a few light jiggles. New guy demands to know what is going on. Lt. Sinister replies, "Hey, it's no big deal.
Those supply guys are always messing with the pilots. It don't mean nuthin' "
"Whattaya mean?"
"Well, it's like this...see how the bullet doesn't fit in the end of the barrell?"
"Ya."
"A couple months ago we hit an NVA supply column up north and captured a ton of Chicom ammo. Their stuff is close to ours, but they use metric instead of inches. Like our 50 cal. is their .51 cal."
The light goes on for the FNG and he says, " So those @##&*$@ jerks. This junk is .39 or .40 cal. crap!!! I coulda been killed if I tried to use this!"
"Hey, settle down. They were just havin' some fun," offers Lt. Sinister.
" We'll see about fun ," screams New Guy as he crashes out the door on his way to supply.
Lt. Sinister retreats hastily to the club to surround himself with Captains and
senior pilots of the unit for the storm that is about to erupt. You all can imagine the rest of the story.

The Navy has those gags, too. Like : 20 fathoms of water line, fifty feet of chow line, padeye torque wrenches, a bucket of steam, relative bearing grease etc. Two of the better ones are the Mail Buoy Watch where the victim is sent to the bow of the ship in full battle station gear plus foul weather gear (very hot in the summer months), a sound powered phone, and a boat hook with instructions to keep an eye out for the mail buoy (the ship's mail is supposedly attached to it) and to snag it when the ship goes by. I've seen guys staying on station for hours waiting for it to come over the horizon.
The other is the Sea Bat. After a period of bad weather, word is passed on the ship's intercom that during the bad weather, a very rare sea bat was captured on the forecastle and that any crewmember that would like to view it should lay up to the anchor windlass room to see it. After waiting in a long line, the victim(s) is allowed into a room in which a wooden crate is waiting on the deck. Only one guy is allowed in the room at a time with hte bos'ns mate guard in there to ensure that the victim doesn't disturb the rare creature. He is directed to peer into the box, while he is bent over, the bos'n comes up behind him and whacks the victim in his hindparts with a wooden bat. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

in addition to some of the great ones already noted....
send to privates to ask the Plt Sgt for a PRICK E-7. or when PMCSing HUMVEE to check the Reverse lights...

While pulling security for a FA unit at Bragg I saw some great things. The guys had the newbee private check the rifling on the 105mm by doing an echo test. The private climbs on the barrell like hes riding a horse looks over the muzzle and yells down the barrell. "nope thats not right... lemme raise the barrell and see if that helps... No? ahng on lemme raise it some more..." Until the Barrell is almost vertical and the privates hanging on for dear life to the muzzel still screaming down the barrell. The Battalion Co. wasnt too happy when he saw that one. Ive also heard of an armor unit giving the newbee mechanic a grease pencil and a mallet then tell him to check for week spots in the armor by striking the armor with the mallet and listening to the sound it makes. After a small demonstration of what to listen for they cut him loose tellling him to mark all the spots by placing X's on the with the grease pencil. I heard to Co wasnt to happy when he saw his newly Dessert Scheme painted M-1with little X's all over it and a private whacking it with a mallet...

I have to add that I have fallen victim to the "batteries for a Chem Light" I was sent to the Supply Sgt for them who replied "Uh Hm... Im all out, why don't you run over to S-4and ask there." I quickly replied and ran over to S-4 who told me I had to fill out an I D 10 T form and get the Col's signature on it. "whats an I D 10 T form?" it s a hand written request that has what you need, the unit its going to and need the Col's signature. I was quickly kicked out of the Col's office when I gave him my I D 10 T form

These posts are great ...had a good laugh on all of them!

Dan

We tell our boot camps to say something into the "backup ICS" The "Backup ICS" is really the aircrews relief or pee pee tube. Some guys will put their lips right up to it.

We also tell our new guys to go down to the flight line shop and get a stack of 6113's. A 6113 is a flightline mechanic. So our new guy gets jumped on any mech who happens to be in that shop at the time.

I had prior warning before I checked in, so I was fortunate enough not to fall prey to either of these rouses.

We used to send cherries for left-handed headspace gauges for the 50 cals, camo dye for OG 47 fatugues for "special details", and my favorite was to send them over to the quartermaster for night sights for the LAW rocket launchers :)

We've tried to offer the newbies BA 1100 Ns that are SL-3 only with ST Rings and ST Ones but it takes too much explaining to really work well. Still, it's fun to try.

Another punishment was to simply state, "Go get your E-tool" and then have the Marine in trouble demonstrate their skills at preparing a fighting hole. Once they've completed that, they immediately fill it back in...hours of fun.