Craziest war story you've heard...

[morfiend]

I have a story!

  There's a lanc that still flies not far from where I live. They take the lanc to several airshows during the season and when ever they prep the lanc for flight they invite and old vet to see her as she warms up.

    He shows every time and stand in a special place they have for him so he's not disturbed. I saw this gentlemen a couple years ago and as soon as the merlins fired the tears started to flow.

    So I asked a friend about this as he used to work at the museum and he told me the old gentleman was a tail gunner in WW2 and had survived the war. At that point I asked no more and stood in silence to watch this fellow.


   Later on I happen to see the old guy leaving and walked up to him and told him "thank you",he smiled and nodded back to me.

   That simple nod was more meaningful than any story he could have ever told me!


   

[Swoop]

Alright then, continuing the repost of the epic adventures of Stumpy and Jock.

For those of you that don't know the Army Dog Unit(NI) was run run by the Pet Corp(R.A.V.C.) but all the handlers were volunteers from every other unit in the Army, I'll stand corrected, but I don't know of any other unit where you'd have found such an all arms mix and they were a truly eclectic and...erm...interesting bunch.

Anyhow, the permanent Pet Corp presence was tiny, and the only other Pet Corp we came across were dog trainers they imposed on us from Melton to get some operational time under their belts and their GSM. Mostly the guys were OK but their presence was a pain in the arse as someone had to accompany them on ops. However ,one particular arrsehole full screw (cpl) arrived and was put in charge of the biggest section in the Bde.  Now, not only was this unfair on the incumbent, a Plank who'd been dogging in the Province longer than Gerry Adams' had a beard, but it was unfair on the Pet Corp tube to leave him to the tender mercys of some of the cut throats and brigands that inhabited the Section at the time.

Anyhow, it took about three weeks for this tube to annoy just about everyone in the Brigade, which was some going given that we were spread far and wide, but the issue that sealed his fate was his treatment of the dog he'd been given when he arrived.

Now, dog handlers, whatever you think of them (and I've heard all the comments over the years) have one thing in common. You can spit in their eye, p!ss in their beer or molest their children, but, the dog !!! Don't shreck with the dog !!! and certainly don't mistreat one of the guys favourite dogs, 'specially if someone's out too get you.

The dog in question was a gorgeous, smokey grey, long haired shepherd who'd been in the Provence for a couple of years and was everyone's favourite . Unfortunately the Tube got him when his previous handler RTU'd.  And he mistreated him.

So, anyway, one day me and two of the other handlers arrived at the place from our one man swamps elsewhere in the Bde to cover for some big local op that the sections dogs were out on and to our relief found the the Tube had departed on a weeks leave that morning. While the other two turned the accomodation over looking for the hidden beer and porn stashes I went out to the kennels and renewed my aquaintance with the dog and found him in crap state. His coat was in rag order and he had patches of weeping skin the size of your hands under his coat. The poor cnut was miserable. I took him in and, over some of the beer the other two had liberated, we formed a plan.

It was a fairly straight forward plan I have too say. We decided to shop the t*at.

(cont...)

[Swoop]

Now, when it came to dealing with the Pet Corp ye had to be careful as a 'Them and Us' culture existed sometimes, so instead of going through the Pet Corp BDE Sgt ( "could'nt contact him, sir" "Thought this was a case you'd want to see straight away,sir" ..ahem..ahem) we grabbed a van and took the dog straight to the vet, a Pet Corp Captain, who went truly and awesomely, shreckin ballistic, hit the roof, and launched into a tirade as only a Rupert with a yah yah accent can. 'Facking' Unit handlers this and 'Facking' Unit handlers that.....blah...blah..facking blah...who's facking dawrg is this anyway !!

'It's Cpl ******'s dog, sir'

An extremly pregnant paws (geddit ?)

'WHO's facking dawrg !?!?'  Realisation dawning.

'Erm, Cpl ********'s dog,sir. Y'know, one of your facking handlers. Oh, and a trainer to boot.....sir!'

Well, his eyes just about popped oot his heed, he went a funny shade of purple, let out a strangled curse that sounded like 'STRAGAbutterOLODDO !!' and stomped out the room !

'Ha !' we thought 'Fcuking result !'

But, it wasn't to be. The usual Pet Corp cover up ensued and the Tube remained in situ. But, he knew that we knew that he knew that we knew what he'd done to the dog and despite the bollox about 'rare skin disorders' and other such cobblers the dog was properly cared for after that.

And......

The Tubes nemesis was just arriving in the shape of the meanest, funniest, and it has to be said, the most downright shreckin ugliest Argyll and Sutherland Highlander you ever saw who took over as the Section 2i/c about this time.

Now, the town where this section was based was quite big and on a Friday and Saurday night the two local tribes would entertain themselves by getting p!shed as arrses until closing time and then meeting in the main street where they would club the fcuking daylights out of each other until they all got bored. The SF view of this was 'Fine, saves us doing it.' The end result was usually some martyrs to either 'Ra Cause' or 'Quain and Coontry' in the A&E (emergency room) and few broken windows. Then a new Unit took over.

The new OC (Officer Commanding) decided he was having none of this and started deploying bricks into the town at shutting time to control the unrest, the end result of which was it went on longer and the PBI got bricked by both sides.

One particular night it really did get out of hand and someone in their wisdom decided to 'SEND FOR THE DOGS !!' which the Ops Room duly did.

Now, obviously, who ever sent up the the cry didn't expect the rag bag of Heinz 57's, doey eyed alsations and baby loving labradors that turned up but the flap had obviously go the better off him.

'You lot, get in there and do something !!' he commanded the ugliest Argyll and Sutherland Highlander on the planet and pointed towards a heaving throng of celtic and rangers scarves, DPM and assorted weaponry.

'Wharra fcuk dae ye expect me tae dae ?' came the reply, 'it's butterin search dugs a've got, no butterin grizzly bears !'

'Well I don't fcuking know !!!' came the reply, 'Do something !!'

So he did. He got the dogs back in the Rovers and went back to camp.

After a 'debrief' the next day which was liberally puncuated with lots of 'Ah dinny butterin' care, suurr' , 'Dae whit the butter ye want surr' and 'Thur ma butterin dugs an thall dae whit Ah buttering tell tham, surr !' the ugliest Argyll on the planet arranged to have some guard dogs brought down from Long Kesh for the weekend bun fights.

Which brings us right back.....




........ to the Tube.

(cont...)

[Swoop]

Guard dogs or 'Snappers' are the GSD's that joined the Army but were too aggressive to be trained as anything else. The best ones were kept for training the handlers at Melton and UK deployment. The psycopathic, crocodile on legs, barely controllable death machine remainder went to Long Kesh to guard the Maze prison. These weren't to be fcuked about with and I doubt there's many GD handlers going about that don't carry some kind of souvenir from the day their Snapper decided he was going to be boss for the day.

Anyhow, I pitched up at the camp one day and saw there was something going at the football pitch beside the kennels. The pitch was right on the edge of the camp and surrounded on all sides by six feet chain link and topped with the usual barbldee wire. There was as entrance by the kennels and in the far corner a thirty foot high block built sanger with a door at the bottom. The sanger wasn't used usually.

When I got there I found the ugliest Argyll in the world standing watching the Tube who was lecturing the four snapper handlers who'd arrived from Kesh for the weekends fun.

'Ut's ra same uvry weekend' he glottled when I asked, 'yon coont teechin the boyz hoo tae suck eggs. He'll be oaf in a meenit. Live baiting yon bear thair.' he indicated a particulary impressive killing machine who was balefully sizing up the Tube.

'Livebaiting' was a technique that Pet Corp trainers used for GD training instead of the full padded suit and helmet. They put themselves in a position where they could run from the dog and get to safety, say, up a tree or the like, before the dog got too you. It stopped dogs getting 'suit focused' but you had to use it with care.

'Aye, livebaiting, ra posin' coont' says the ugliest Argyll on the planet when I asked him, 'he'll start at yon half way line an' run like butter when the dugs released and hide in the bottom of yon sanger. T*at. Watch, hurr ee goes.'

Sure enough all six foot four of gangly Tube saunters out to the half way line and starts jumping up and down and baiting the dog which by this time was gnashing,howling and doing summersaults on the end of the lead,

'HALT,HALT,HALT !! OR I RELEASE MY DOG !!' click 'GERRUMMM!!!' and woosh !! the dog took off like a hairy guided missile and the Tube started legging it for the sanger. I glanced at the ugliest Argyll on the planet and saw a smile spread across his puss...

'What the fcuk are you up too ?' I asked, saying nothing he took his hand out of his pocket, opened it and there was a key !

'Don't fcuking tell me !?!'

'Aye, key tae ra sanger door. Watch this !'

And we did, with a horrible fascination, as the Tube reached the door of the sanger and started tugging on the handle just sort of stiffly at first then more and more franticly as he gazed, horrified, over his shoulder at the ever closing death on legs. Giving up on the door he started legging it along the fenceline, arms going like pistons and his knees damn near reaching ear level. The dog, which looked as though it was about to go supersonic, tried to change direction, tripped, and went rolling arrse over tit which gave the Tube time to get half way along the fence before the pursuit was on again. Everybody was transfixed, including the handler who belatedly took off after his dog and joined in the chase.

The Tube gained the corner but instead of using the extra posts there to climb out of the way he careened round the bend and started tearing down the next straight. The dog, seeing this, took the direct route and headed to intercept him, there seemed to be a dreadful inevitablity about it, but, last gasp, the Tube saw him coming and did a most impressive full stop and volte face for such a gangly fcuker and bolted back for the corner as the dog smashed into the fence where he'd been mere seconds before, recovered, and shot after him again. Christ my heart was in my mouth as we watched the Tube gain the corner and start scrambling up the post, a look of complete terror on his face as he watched the land based hairy cruise missle go airborne and...

'OOOOO, YA CNUT HE'S GOT HIM !!!!' as we all averted our gaze.

'Naw he's naw,' said the ugliest Argyll on the planet, who was grinning from ear to ear by this time, 'he's only nailed his combat jaiket.'

and sure enough there was the Tube, hanging on to the barbldee wire for grim death with 90lbs of snarling fur and fury hanging and jerking from the arrse of his jacket for the few seconds it took for the handler to get there and wrestle a now completely berserk dog off him.

Fcuk me ! I was completely drained, but, the scupcakes soon started kicking in.

'Rat'll teach ra posin' coont !' grinned the ugliest Argyll in the world, who, just too finish us off completely walked towards the red, sweating, shredded Tube as he approached and telling him.

'Haw, ****, yuu'll bay needin thus if yur livebaitin'

handed him the key !!!

Marvelous.

[Meatwad]

Somebody was telling me a war story about how they fended off two enemy combatants and all he had to defend himself was a small knife that was hidden in the crack of his butt to make it look like he was unarmed. He won but they stole his rucksack though and got away somewhat injured. I doubt he would lie since no body lies about war stories so it has to be true

[SIK1]

how do you know it was a lie?

 

I can't let you do that to a genuine friend... I still believe him...

Somebody was telling me a war story about how they fended off two enemy combatants and all he had to defend himself was a small knife that was hidden in the crack of his butt to make it look like he was unarmed. He won but they stole his rucksack though and got away somewhat injured. I doubt he would lie since no body lies about war stories so it has to be true

Funny thing is that gentleman owed up to his fabrications and has gone on to what appears to be a fine young man.

craz you're not doing yourself any favors by defending the obvious fabrications of "your friend". The ball point pen thing doesn't even come close to passing the smell test. As for the Bravo two zero story it is obvious that he ripped it off.

It's one thing to enhance something you were actually involved in. It is entirely another thing when someone makes themselves out to be something they are not. And, if he claimed to have been awarded a medal and was not he may be in violation of the stolen valor act.

[JimmyC]

Ferkin hilarious Swoop

[Scherf]

Heheh, dawrgs.

Have you seen the one where the handler and doggums are ordered out to work with "them"?

[Swoop]

Yes.  And you haven't read this whole thread.

[Swoop]

Volume 3:

At the time I was with the Army Dog Unit every handler had to do guard dogs, Snappers, first as a sort of probation before you went onto the specialist role, Wagtails or Groundhogs. You did two weeks at Melton and then ended up at Kesh/Maze. We were supposed to do at least six months there with the Snappers but I, luckily, only did about three before I retrained. I say luckily because apart from the daily risk of being chewed to fack by some grumpy hound, the job itself was mind numbingly boring. We did 24 'on' patrolling the inside and outside of the big wall round the Maze, 24 'standby' in camp when ye did training, admin and the like and 24 'off' when you could sign out of camp after 0930 to go..ahem..shopping, and then go on the screaming p!sh in good old Lisburn.

When I arrived at Kesh I was teamed up with a dug called Shadow, a veritable shreckin horse of an animal. I'm no joking!  You could have saddled this facker and ridden him round on patrol.  Anyhow, after I'd taken him to a quiet place with his muzzle on and leathered the fack oot of him with an aluminium feed bowl, he accepted I was the boss and I never had much of a problem with him. In fact I did quite well in trials with him too.  But, after I'd been told I'd got my Spec Dog place Shadow went to a new guy and I did the last shift with one of the 'pool' dogs.

The pool dogs had their own 'ward' in the canine looney bin that was the Maze kennels and you could tell their history by how many little red 'handler with a cross through' tallys they had painted on the kennel. The one with the most tallys was Khan, which is Arabic for 'Flesh rendering, bone crunching, blood supping, bringer of death'.  The big, mad, hairy, people eating f*cker had only ever had one handler, an even bigger, even madder, much hairier, people eating Royal Hampshire who'd been RTU'd (returned to unit) for biting some handbags from HQNI in Kesh disco.  Khan would lurk in the bed box at the back of the kennel and if he even suspected that someone was near he'd come charging out and literally throw himself against the fence and go into such a frenzy of barking and aggression he'd make himself puke. Stone mad. They even had his feed bowl on a chain so's they could feed and water him and if the Vet needed to see him they had to put knock out drugs in his grub! Why they did'ny just shoot the poor f*cker I'll never know.

'That'll be your dog 'til you leave Jock' says the Section Cmdr, indicating Khan who was hanging from the ceiling and bending the wires of the cage apart with his teeth.

'You ARE f*cking joking right !?!' I says as Khan slams against the fence and covers me in flecks of frothy spittle.

'Yeah, just kidding, yours is down here, he he !'

Sphincter relaxes.

We left Khan puking his load up and then attacking it, just 'cos he could, and went to a kennel at the end where there was a dog called Rinty. No tallys on the kennel, no kamikaze "am gonna kill ye" antics, just a rather bored looking GSD sitting in the middle of the run watching the world go by and humming to himself.

'Whats the story with him then Sarge?'

'Dunno Jock, just arrived from Melton the other day. Seems ok though''

'Right, he'll do.  It's just for a couple of days anyway.'

Anyhow, I pitches up to collect Rinty for our stag (watch) and goes into the run.

'Hello son, who's a good boy ? Wanna go on stag..blah..blah...blah'

The dog just looked at me blankly and yawned.

'F*ck me.' I thought 'got a real live wire here.'

So, I clipped him up and and with a 'Hurumph' from the dog we headed for the first stag which was round the outside of the nick.
F*ck me I've never met a more boring dog in my life. I chatted to him, told him me best jokes, offered him a ball and showed him the tadpoles in the puddles.

Nothing.

Tickled his ears, showed him some rabbits, promised him a squeak and tried to get him involved in a peeing competition.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

I got back to the office after the stag.

'Fcuk me, that Rinty's the most boring dog on the planet !' I said to the rest of the guys who were sitting round the table playing Risk.

'Mmmm, s'that right.' they muttered. Bored.

'Kin'ell.' I thought ' maybe it's me.

So, a whiley later we goes out for the second stag and this time its internal. The army was responsible for the security outside the nick and the first 'catwalks' which were an area between the inside of the wall and the first fence. Just bare earth areas about twenty feet wide and a mile long. Mind numbingly boring.

I'd given up trying to engage the dog in conversation and I was blethering to meself as we were wandering along and, without really thinking about it, I checked the dog by giving his lead a tug to get him into heel.
#
'FCUK ME !!!' he turned and nailed me quicker than a shrecking rattlesnake !! He only missed me arm because of the loose sleeve of my waterproofs but he got a shrecking big mouthful of that and started tugging backwards like a barsteward.

Thinking 'Hmmm, this is an interesting little situation ?' or some such I tried to choke him off with the collar but the cnut just pulled harder, growling like a maniac. I could'nt get the baton oot me flak jacket so thinking 'This is getting shrecking serious.' I whipped out the pistol and whacked the cnut right between the eyes. That make him let go! He took three steps back, shook his heed and with the most blood curdling shrecking snarl I've ever heard, he launched himself at me again.

'AAARRRGGGGHHHH YAAA CCCUUUUNNNNTTTTT' I squawked as I stepped back, tripped over a rock and landed on my arrse.
'AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE !!!!' I squealed as I dodged my head to the side and the jaws slammed shut beside my ear. The cnut had missed my heed but had got a grip on the hood of my waterproofs and was snorting and grunting in my ear.

Panic ? Me ?

Yer shrecking right !!!! Squealing like a girlie about to lose her knickers I got the twa*t in a head lock and we started rolling about the ground in a scrap that, as far as he was concerned, was to the death. I'd lost my grip on the lead and dropped the pistol when I'd fallen and I was getting desperate. I got a hand free and started trying to get a grip on the cnut anywhere I could when, as I got a hand underneath him, I found them.....


Doggy bollox !!!...

'YESSS!!!' I thought and got a grip on his nut sack and did my best to seperate them from his body !!

'OOOOOHHHHHHYYYYYYAAAAAAAFFFFU UUUCCCCKKKKKEERRR !!!' howled Rinty and leapt off me like a scalded cat, or a near debollocked dog I suppose, and started running in circles as he tried to get a look at his apple. I scrabbled about and retrieved the pistol and as I went to c*ck it I tripped over the rock, again and landed on my arrse, again. In what I can only descibe as a blind panic I crawled to the wall got my back against it, cocked the pistol and in a voice that sounded just far too shrill yelled.

'COME ON YA FCUKER !!! MAKE MY DAY !!!' or some other Clint Eastwoodish bollox!

But, by now the dog was sitting whinging and licking his nuts and, thinking that shooting the tw*t might spoil my Spec Dog chances, I pounced on the shrecker, wrestled a muzzle onto him and tied the cnut to the fence.  Once the hoo-er was secure I sunk to knees and whimpering like a girl tried to get a cigarette oot.

'Oi, Jock !!' came a shout. I was completely confused. I looked around.

'Oi, Jock !! Up here ye daft cnut !!' I looked up. Two beaming Sapper faces were looking down from the watch tower.

'That was brilliant Jock, gonna do it again ??'



Fcuking Engineers. I fcuking hate them !!

[SysError]

Was his name Brian Williams? Was he on the same plane when Hilliary was "shot at?"

Yeah, that's the ticket...

So it turns out that as we get older and older, our memories of ourselves get sharper and sharper.  Thing is though, as we get older and older we are more and more likely to misremember events and to even fill in any gaps that might develop in our memories.  We have a tendency to exaggerate.

Unless there is photographic or film evidence to the contrary, we tend (at least initially) to not believe any suggestions that we have misremembered events or accept any accounting of events that would contravene our own.
 
What is interesting about Brian Williams and Hillary Clinton is that they eventually came around and acknowledged their exaggerations/faulty memories.  That is somewhat atypical.  I suppose public figures have more pressure on them and they want the whole thing to go away as quickly as possible.

Far more typical is Bill O'Reilly’s reaction.  O'Reilly is on record as saying that while he was a war correspondent in the Falklands in1982 that he experienced combat situations.  Some of his stories are quite hair rising.  O’Reilly:

“I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us. I had to make a decision. And I dragged him off, you know, but at the same time, I'm looking around and trying to do my job, but I figure I had to get this guy out of there because that was more important.”

There are a few other stories, but I assume you get the idea. 

The problem is that no one in the Falklands remembers him there, his bosses at the time do not remember him being there and his photographer has no recollection of the events.  Even Bill O'Reilly does not recall any of these events in his books.

I am sure that when O’Reilly first told these stories that he was convinced that they had actually happened.

People forget, they misremember, they exaggerate, they construct events that never happened and cannot figure out that they do not happen.  People also knowingly lie.

Give people a chance to come to terms with their error(s) before you condemn them.


craz07’s friend, however, may need professional help.  Assuming other people’s identity is real dicey.


Other than that, if Grand papa’s war stores seem a bit livelier over time, just smile and offer to transcribe his recollections.

[zack1234]

Yes.  And you haven't read this whole thread.

 

[ebfd11]

[craz07]

Gee you'd think you guys had your 3rd bottle of scotch yet

[craz07]

probably swingin off your chandeliers throwing poop typing these last few posts