Funny Deployment Stories And More...

[armyvetwolf]

Hey where in baghdad 2005-2006, I was there then aswell, what unit? hmmm
I was in 4ID then.

I was at Fob Falcon for 6 months then Camp Liberty for the rest of the 6 months, i was with 504th MP BN/42nd MP BDE, we fell under 3rd ID and 4th ID.

 

[SGT.Sunshine.]

No shit, I was in 4th ID after battle hand off from 3rd ID, I was in liberty then Falcon as it got blown to pieces from the Alpha Alpha going up during the Ramadon morter fire Then back to Liberty. 1-12IN 4BCT 4ID. I thought you looked familiar, any ways I remember turning over detainies to your little holding pen at liberty all the time, also signing out a pair of shackles to escort one of our joe's to the brigg in kuwait for assault on an NCO. I will never miss route Irish.
Oh man they got so dumb with rules there, I remember wanting to lose it, two friends had just ben incinerated in their Abrams and two more wounded, they were close so I get back to the FOB and I am walking and puffing a butt, then had some shit heal yell "no walking", and smoking. I meen wtf is that?

 

[armyvetwolf]

Yea, falcon they made us wear full battle rattle at certain times of the day...then made us wear our eye pro cuz they didn't want us getting eye infections from the sand. I was at falcon when they mortared our Motorpool. They wouldn't let me go back to my room which was just a few feet from work where it happened. Was at the DFAC when they mortared us again and all the marines ran out screaming OOORAHH after the mortar...my CO was cowering under the table....LOL. I wore DCU's both times i was deployed. And had my boonie cap on a lot. I was a mechanic but in a MP unit, so i did both MP work and mechanic work outside the FOB. At Liberty i did a lot of guard duty, near BIAP, towers, Mayor Cell and checking all the iraqis at the gate. Route Irish sucked balls!

 

[Jimmy1]

Route Irish, classed as the most dangerous road in the world at one stage. I remember going down it one night. Some dumb civie smuck missed curfew and you could see the look of horror in his eyes as about 20 red dots appeared on his windscreen, lmao.
What was the princes palace called near the entry to route irish in Baghdad, well I was in there one day when they set off a suicide bomb at the check point. The force rocked our truck and almost blew my sunnies off.
Irish sucked arse your right.

 

[Tim Cake]

I was at Camp Cropper, near Saddam International Airport. Route Irish was very scary indeed. The USAF should have carpet-bombed it and the surrounding buildings into oblivion.

 

[Sludge]

Somewhere off the coast of Columbia, 2000:

So these bastards from the other ships in the ARG send their new booters to me (As in " Hey this guy is a dipshit and Sludge is the only FC on that wreck...let us send this dipshit to him for a few weeks. The grouchy ass will straighten out..."}. You know, worst kind of booters like the ones that are waiting on the pier at the next port o' call, or show up on a helo with the mail. Dunno bout the other branches, but only the dumbest of the dumb Firecontrollmen show up like this.

So, I get a pair of jokers for a month. Contrary to popular belief amoungs the rest of the crew, I am a busy sonovabitch underway. I'm doing my job AND playing Gunnersmate, Operations Specialist, and Master At Arms. (This is the price of being active duty, qualified, and holding a valid clearance on a goddamned reserve platform....)

So I do what I always do, I set the booters to cleaning shitters and standing "coffee watch" for the bridge and CIC midwatchsdtanders. This lasts a few weeks until I get some time to work with these guys on the gunmounts and at least get them qualified to be expendable on the .50s or 25mms. Both showed promise, so to help them get accquainted with shipboard life, I sent them both off on the standard self guided tour...

""Oi, shitbrick! Get yer ass belowdecks and ask the storecreatures for a 2lb tub of relative bearing grease."

Traditionally this keeps them busy for a few hours as every department plays along and sends these NUBs on a squid-style wild goose chase. NUB A returns after 45 minutes defeated. I ofcourse led him to belive ol' FC had no sense of humor and enjoyed cussing out NUBs. NUB B was gone for six hours before I got worried. I hopped on the bitchbox and started asking around.

"Anyone seen NUB B?"
"Uh, yeah, few hours ago FC2. Why you need him?"
"He's MIA somewhere, put the word out to look around for the dude. He either gave up and racked out, or he is lost with the snipes."
"Roger that."


Five hours after that, NUB B shows up...
Its 0300 and I am halfway through six hours of staring at a 45 year old surface search radar and learning spanish from our translator. NUB B is filthy. Greezy. Sweaty. Stinky....and holding a large can...

"FC2, here's yer goddamned relative bearing grease. The snipes say you owe them one."

By this time everyone onboard, leathernecks included know what is going on. This kid was sent to areas of the ship I had never even heard of. Yet, there in my hands was a little under half of a 5lb tub of grease circa 1950.

I wiped a rag over the old school label....


"Grease, multypurpose, Type A"



And, of course, the fine print on the can reads something very similar to:



"Manufactured by the Relative Bearing and Gearing Company under Contract to the US Navy."

 

[CAFTT0607]

Iraq 2006-2007 and 2009...I agree, route Irish did indeed suck....just sayin'

 

[SGT.Sunshine.]

I remember our CSM and his dumb assed idea to make us go on a rotation every day during day light and police up trash by hand on route Irish, that lasted all of two days before enough brass said hell no!

We used to act as security for the buffalo missions, for E.O.D. using an Abrams on point and one at the rear and we would get blasted every time we drove down the route though lucky for us they hadnt really gotten into the E.F.P. use yet, so the cruder IED's didnt have much effect on the tanks, biggest thing was scorched CARC paint and shattered road wheel hubs, except for the 500lbs air bomb rapped in sixty pounds of C-4 they buried and detonated under my friends asses knocked the turret off side ways, I do recall chatting with a friend from my old neighborhood who had joined 2 years after me and ended up in the same Battalion, with me on CP into the green zone and had a vbied suicide bomber about 40 yards away pull his parking brake handle and send us off our feet and vaporized the IA who had walked up to his window. Also I forget how many times The 88M's would come hauling ass in to the CP still on fire with half the tires and panels blown off. Those were the days, Then our Capt.Funk got blown to bits with a camera crew from I think it was CBS news, Crazy thing is, my 08-09 deployment was actually much more intense. Sorry if i'm making any one uncomfortable I actually had forgotten that I had forgotten about the Capt. until a few weeks ago it just popped into my head, kind of bad when it becomes so routine that horrible things are forgotten due to many more worse situations, I actually spoke to the counsler about that. I was kind of miffed that I could forget for 6 years a day like that.

The mind can be a strange thing.

 

[reddevil1111]

ok enough about the road. You guys jacked a good thread here. Back to the sea stories! Not every thread needs to be about IED's and contact reports. I like to smile some as well ok?!

 

[armyvetwolf]

ok enough about the road. You guys jacked a good thread here. Back to the sea stories! Not every thread needs to be about IED's and contact reports. I like to smile some as well ok?!

Thanks Red, we tend to do that a lot on here. I know i started this thread to bring humor but it does bring back memories for a lot of us, good and bad.

But speaking of stories, there was this guy i knew, big MP national guard guy, E-5/SGT. When i met him he was a wounded warrior in Baghdad, gimping around. He told me the story how he got a "non-combat" related injury due to stupidity. His LT authorized them to bring a "hot" weapon onto Camp Liberty one day. It was a .50 cal malfunction, round got lodged in the barrel and couldn't be cleared. So they brought it onto the LSA so that an armorer could look at it. Well, the armorer wasn't around at the time. So SGT Snuffy, who is not an armorer, decided to see if he could remove it. He grabs a sledge hammer, while everyone is looking, walks up and straddles the barrel and proceeds to tap it gently with a sledge hammer, 1, 2, 3....BOOM! Barrel explodes, round goes up in the air and lands in the dirt. From his groin to his thighs and arms, he received "shrapnel" from the barrel. Round didn't touch him. No one else was hurt. Needless to say, the dude almost shit his pants. From then on they nicknamed him "Sledge". I called him "gimpy" as we became best friends for the rest of the deployment. I gave him rides everywhere and brought him food on duty. He was one tough soldier. But that story was funny as shit....LOL. Hell, even he was laughing telling the story.

 

[reddevil1111]

We Marines consider the .50 to be heavy arty. I carried one on a forced march once with 2 other guys. We took turns humping the reciver, barrel and tripod with t&e. We also carried the cleaning gear, barrel gloves and 600 rds of ammo as well as 40 pd packs. Longest 50 mile hump I ever did. We had to do part of it in MOPP level 4 gear. (nbc boots,pants,jacket, gas mask with hood and gloves). Pure crap that it was we had to rip out the filters in the gas mask to be able to breathe. Oh the fun times I recall now a days. I try to recall more of the jokes and stunts we pulled but for some reason they are hard to recall. I really enjoy the sea stories the rest of you have been telling. I hope to hear lots more.

 

[Wagon]

One time ashore on liberty....I got drunk and fell down.