Vista - Military humour.....

I know that many people here have, like me, served in the forces in our respective countries. I have always held the opinion that force's humour is some of the funniest in the world.

So come on people, let's hear some laughs.

I'll make a start......


I joined the RAF way back in 1964 and was posted to one of the stations (Air bases) flying Lightnings. As a lowly little mechanic I got picked for all the jobs which nobody wanted.

On this occasion I was picked to assist a senior (Godlike) instrument technician to run his display during a station "open" day, when the public were allowed in to see where all their taxes were spent. I was told "Just stand there and don't bloody touch anything"

During the afternoon a young lad approached and pointing at an ASI (Airspeed Indicator), asked what it was. The following conversation took place....

"That my lad, is what we call a knotometer. You can see the word knots on the front"

"How's it work then?"

"This knotometer is placed in front of the pilot on the instrument panel, like that one over there. From the back of it runs a piece of string, all the way to the back of the aeroplane. A knot is tied in the string at each inch of length. Now then, when the pilot is flying along and he gets some problem with his machine, he just looks down and takes a reading from the knotometer. When he lands, he tells his ground crew what his knotometer was reading, say 250, and they just count 250 knots back on the string, find the fault and fix it"

"Gosh, thanks mister" and away he went, happy as larry.

The Godlike person turned to little me and just said two words.

"Learn lad"

And over the next 30 years I duly learnt

I'll see how this thread goes before posting other stories.

On ex in Germany.

Me and my mate were on stag.

He needed to go for a shovel recce (a poo).

So off he went.

2 Minutes later I hear a scream so I lock and load and went to see what the problem was.

My mate came running back pulling up his trousers being chased by two wild Boars.

It took him ages to wipe the poo off his legs.

The thing with military humor is You have to be there to truly appreciat the moment.

Well I've not been in the forces myself, but heard plenty of stories from my Grandad who served in WW2 from D-Day onwards.

While in France, him and his squad found an abandoned apple cider farm, so they stopped of their for the night. While there they thought they'd try some of the cider, but got a bit too carried away. While they were "slightly" inebriated, they lit some fires and kept drinking only to then have German squad come across them. How they survived that I don't know, but my Grandad had a laughing fit while telling it.

I have some from when I was in the Marines.....But I will have to think about how to post them

My favourite comes from my dad who was stationed at the RAAF Butterworth Base, Penang, Malaysia during the late 70's.

A RAAF instructor was drilling a couple of local Malay recruits on a air-defence gun emplacement. It was a dry fire drill. At the exact moment the Malay recruits enthusiastically shouted "Click, Bang!", an F-111 performed a dump and burn, lighting up the night sky with it's afterburners. The Malay recruits screamed in fright and ran off into the night.

One week later, the military police were out on a routine patrol. They stumbled accross two cold, hungry and dishevelled Malay recruits huddled together in a rice field. Upon seeing they were discovered, the two recruits immediately started to tearfuly plead with the MP's not to be taken back.

The perplexed MP's who had no bloody idea who these two were, asked them why they didn't want to be returned. Through sobs and pleas of mercy they explained that they had shot down a plane, were very very sorry, it was an accident but they could not afford to replace it.

Once the MP's stopped laughing, they took them back.

Any connection between your signature [Only the skilled survive] & being in the Marines?????

Yup

It also applies to life in general...

I served at an RAF base named Gan (Maldives) during the late '60s. At the time I was there the transport aircraft used between the UK and Singapore was the venerable Comet 4c of RAF Transport Command.

One of the attendants was a very lovely young lady who shall remain nameless. The ground crew at RAF Lyneham decided to play a joke on her and duly rigged up a tape player in the forward toilet, instructing the Air Eng on what to do during the flight.

During the flight the attendant was seen going into the toilet and a couple of minutes were allowed to pass before the tape was switched on.

Apparently the lady in question was sitting there quietly minding her own business when, from between her legs, came this voice saying "Oi Lady, do you bloody mind - I'm trying to work down here!"

I believe she nearly tore the door off trying to get out.

My uncle served in the German forces, and there's one funny anecdote I remember. For some reason, you can find it on most joke sites but my uncle tells me it really occured to him:

My uncle had just been accepted into the army, and was stationed at a training camp somewhere around Cologne. The first day, the instructor asked his freshmen some random questions.

So then, my uncle was asked, and he was asked the question: "Why should one not smoke when on military territory or near a weapon storage?" My uncle, always having been quite cheeky, answered: "You're right Colonel, why shouldn't one!"

I attempted, while in the US Navy, to learn Russian. Didn't work for me.

Anyway, the next year our ship was traveling across the Atlantic Ocean heading for the Mediterranian Sea.

I am up on the signal bridge taking in some sunlight. A Soviet freighter is nearby. The Executive Officer, second in comand, calls up to the signal bridge using the IC1 intercom system and asks the young new officer up there to get the name of the ship using the big binoculars up there.

So he looks at it, and sees the name. Tries to spell it to the XO. 'Backwards R, a U shaped letter..'. Must have driven the XO nuts, because the next thing I hear is the XO asking the young Lt. jg if I was up there.

The duty signalman looks around and sees me about 25 feet away, and points.

The Lt. jg says I am up there. XO asks over the intercom for me to get the name of that ship, he doesn't have all day.

Oh great. So I go to the binocs and look. Walk over to the intercom and tell the XO the name of the ship. I use my best Hollywood Russian accent I can muster up. The XO thanks me.

The Lt. jg freaks out. well, he didn't yell or anything, but he would not turn his back to me, but he exited the signal bridge and went below to talk to the XO. Rapidly as he could go and maintain Officer Decorum.

"Yes," the XO said, "we know he knows a little Russian. Stop being an idiot Lt."

That guy was very paranoid for several months after that. Didn't like to be anywhere near me unless another officer was with him.

Good grief, the Navy knew I had taken the language course via USAFI. I could never figure out why it upset him so.