Servicepeople behaving badly

Site Issues 2007 Archive Room
#21

These are a couple of stories from the Paras during the Falklands campaign in 1982.

As the troops dug-in on the slopes of the hills surrounding San Carlos Water, they had a ringside seat to the air attacks against the fleet in the bay. At one point a group of A4’s having been discouraged from attacking the ships, decided to strafe and bomb the Paras positions. Shorlty after they flew away a Harrier passed over in hot pursuit. The Paras opened up on the Harrier with small arms fire.

A nearby journalist called out for them to stop “…he’s one of ours!”

“We Know!..” repied one of the Paras as he continued shooting"…but where was the f****r when we needed him?" :smiley:

On another occassion (I think it might have been during the assault on Goose Green), a Para stepped on an anti-personnel mine which caused him to lose the bottom half of his leg. A nearby medic ran accross to give hime first-aid:

“…I’ve lost me leg!..me fg leg!..I’VE LOST ME FG LEG!”

“No you haven’t mate!..” responds the medic in soothing tones “…It’s over there!” :smiley:

#22

Several recruit companies (including mine) were given a big treat in 1970 by being shown a film for entertainment (Zulu!) at our army base.

After assembling in the theatre we were addressed by an officer about how we had to behave ourselves because later there would be women present in the audience, being the wives of officers and NCO’s on the base. Presumably OR’s wives were regarded as incapable of understanding the subtleties of Zulu!.

After the officer left, the RSM took the stage and translated the officer’s instructions into language we could understand, along the lines of “There’ll be women here tonight and they’re the wives of real soldiers, not a useless shower of shit like you pathetic excuses for soldiers. You will treat them with the respect they deserve. If any of you bastards fuck up I’ll fuck you up like you can’t believe. In particular, there will not be any comments, groaning, moaning, or other noise of any type. Understood?”

We understood.

A woman duly walked into the theatre towards her seat in the best part reserved for the wives of real soldiers.

Somebody started moaning, in a most longing and sexually suggestive way. Soon a few hundred blokes were moaning, equally suggestively, but not in unison. Because NCO’s were running around the theatre trying to catch the offenders, but the moaning was always where the NCO’s weren’t. It got worse and worse as more women came in. Until we were all pissing ourselves laughing so hard that we couldn’t moan any more, while the NCO’s were in a fury. We all copped punishment the next day.

The silly thing is that up to the point that the RSM told us not to moan, groan etc, no recruit had thought of doing anything but just watching the film.

#23

Here’s one for you…this soldier was a real crybaby!

German Army Drafts 4-Week-Old Baby
Reuters
BERLIN, April 10 (April 10) - The German army sent a draft notice to a four-week-old baby named Lucio, ordering him to report for duty within the next 10 days, before realising it had blundered.

A spokesman for the army said the notice had been sent erroneously because a clerk typed in the wrong date of birth for the boy from Aubstadt, in southern Germany.

“It was an accident,” an army spokesman told Reuters. “Somebody entered the wrong number into a computer. There was no harm done. We realised the error the same day and called up the family to tell them to throw the notice away when it arrived.”

#24

Was the moaning due to the presence of the O.R.'s wives, or the site of the Zulu brides dancing on the ‘big screen’ ? :cool:

#25

Peter Masters (formerly No 3 Troop, 10 Interallied Commando) describes a similar incident during WW2 in his book “Fighting Back”.
In his case a French commando unit and a French Canadian unit got into a pub brawl. This brawl escalated after one French soldier got stabbed by a Canadian. Apparently the French commandos went back to their camp to get their hardware and staged an imprompto life fire night exercise against the Canadian camp with all their weaponry including 2" mortars.
The German/Austrian exiles of No.3 troop were called in to seperate the fighting units.

Jan

#26

A few years ago some clerk in the Bundeswehr made a real blunder:
A second lieutenan (Leutnant) was supposed to be promoted to first lieutenant (Oberleutnant).
So far so good. The problem was that the cleark who filled in the commision certificate made a small spelling error and added the two letters “st” into the rank, writing the new rank “Oberstleutnant”. So the young second lieutenant found himself having been promoted to LIEUTENANT COLONEL! Since by the time the mistake was discovered the papers had already been signed by the president of the Federal Republic of Germany, they were fully valid and not retractable.

Jan

#27

I hope he was up to the challenge of his new rank!

#28

I can’t remember my source for this WWI story, but it was reported as a true event.

Given the Australian predilection for raiding enemy trenches in WWI, it might be true.

An Australian soldier goes AWL, or overstays his leave with the same result. On his way back to his unit in the trenches, he arrives, unarmed, at an adjoining English unit. He borrows a bayonet and cosh or truncheon. He heads out across No Man’s Land and returns with a German prisoner. Then he heads back to his unit, figuring that returning with a prisoner should reduce the punishment awaiting him.

#29

I’m about 98% sure (it’s a few years since I read it) that this event is from Roland Griffiths - Marsh’s “Sixpenny Soldier” (also published as "I Was Only Sixteen) recounting his experiences starting as an under-age 16 year old volunteer with the 2nd AIF serving in the Middle East, Greece and the SWPA. A great read and a very different perspective on war to a lot of other books.

While in the Middle East as a 16 or 17 year old virgin he is detailed as picquet or orderly or some such for an Australian officer’s party, which has Australian nurses attending (as is the right and privilege of male officers!). Well into the next morning, when the party has long since died, he is patrolling the grounds when a drunken Australian nurse in a dishevelled and (I think) semi-naked state approaches him. Her opening comment is along the lines:

“Do you want to fuck me? Everyone else has.”

He declined.

#30

This very nice let-down is from a bloke I worked with years ago.

He was training as a pilot with the RAAF in Australia during WWII.

He says he wasn’t terribly bad as a trainee pilot but he was unlucky enough to be the only person aboard a single seater in an unfortunate event involving trying to land some yards below where the ground actually was, and another misfortune involving a propeller on his rogue single seater aeroplane chewing up other aircraft. And some other unlucky events which caused varying degrees of damage to RAAF aeroplanes.

I forget the exact number of aircraft that he destroyed, as distinct from merly damaged, in his misfortunes (perhaps two or four?), but it was one less than the magic number which shall soon be revealed.

He was called in to see the C.O. who said something along these lines.

“Mr X, you have destroyed Y number of His Majesty’s aeroplanes. Should you destroy another, you will qualify as a Japanese ace. This would be a severe embarrassment to His Majesty. Therefore, reluctantly, we cannot allow you to continue your pilot training. Not because of your undoubted potential as a pilot, but solely to prevent embarrassment to His Majesty.”

#31

I think he had to do some fast learning!

Jan

#32

It would be interesting to see how his career has faired overtime since the promotion.

#33

Something reminded of this, which got an Irish soldier charged with some offence (‘conduct prejudicial’ if nothing else, but I think it was more serious.). The details might be a bit sketchy but I think the guts of it is right.

Big Bird in Sesame Street is bright yellow with red legs.

I think it was Mary Robinson, either as Irish President or in one of her later roles, who was reviewing a guard while she was dressed in a bright yellow suit and red shoes.

As she’s going along the line some Irish soldier says, reasonably loudly, something like,

“Ah, and here comes Big Bird.”

#34

Something reminded of this, which got an Irish soldier charged with some offence (‘conduct prejudicial’ if nothing else, but I think it was more serious.). The details might be a bit sketchy but I think the guts of it is right.

Big Bird in Sesame Street is bright yellow with red legs.

I think it was Mary Robinson, either as Irish President or in one of her later roles, who was reviewing a guard while she was dressed in a bright yellow suit and red shoes.

As she’s going along the line some Irish soldier says, reasonably loudly, something like,

“Ah, and here comes Big Bird.”

#35

Guess it went rather slow after that compared to before :lol:

#36

Big bird…that’s funny.
We used to call our old CO “Milhouse” due to his uncanny resemblance of Milhouse from the “Simpsons” cartoon.