War stories?

Personal ones?

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Original post by mtw Personal ones?

It would be preferred. Personally told by a friend would be ok as well.

My father was a corpsman during the fire at Camp Fuji in 1979. He was fortunate enough to escape unscathed, which made him unfortunate enough to be one of the key rescuemen during the initial stages of the fire. He still has fairly regular nightmares about it. There is actually a rather good picture of him that was used in several major publications stateside, but I can't seem to find a copy of it on the internet.

Almost twenty years later, he was again unfortunate enough to be stationed at Camp Schwab. Now he was an officer in charge of a company of corpsman. Another training mission, this time to Thailand. Naturally, my mother is still on Okinawa taking care of us kids. While shopping, a fellow wife offers her condolences on the loss of my father's arm. Several frantic hours later, we finally find out that my dad was lifting his arm to let his dress jacket fall onto his shoulders when he lobbed off half a centimeter or so off the tip of his finger in a metal fan.

Not war stories as such, but I find them interesting.

CM

A family member was drafted for WWII. During bootcamp, there was a drill where soldiers to crawl under barbwire while live ammo was being fired overhead. One of the soldiers infront of him spooked and stood straight up, ending his life by a gunshot wound to the head. The drill had to continue and the drill instructed ordered the troops to crawl over the dead body. He freaked and decided to crawled over the 'advancing' troops to escape the dead body. He was later dismissed from the army.

Back when I was stationed with the 33rd Northern at Antietam, I used to run bullet-huckles for the hoosegow. If I was ever late to a positioning, the sarge would have my knickers in a sling. I had to wake up at 0400 every morning just so I could roll out before my hammock got flooded. War is hell.

When my grandpa got out of germany hated the nazis with a passion so he totally kicked their asses. He made the Stars and Stripes a way better newspaper then whatever those Nazis had.

Uhh, yeah he was an army reporter... Ok fine maybe it's not a war story.

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Original post by Binomine A family member was drafted for WWII. During bootcamp, there was a drill where soldiers to crawl under barbwire while live ammo was being fired overhead. One of the soldiers infront of him spooked and stood straight up, ending his life by a gunshot wound to the head. The drill had to continue and the drill instructed ordered the troops to crawl over the dead body. He freaked and decided to crawled over the 'advancing' troops to escape the dead body. He was later dismissed from the army.

I really doubt this.

Not only is it stupid to use live ammo in training like this (accidents happen, ones that don't require people to stand up like the guy in your story either), but for a lot of WWII we were very tight on supplies like ammo, I don't think they would be using it like you said.


My grandpa was in WWII but he never talks about it much. I know he held some records in running in army training though...

My grandfather was in Vietnam, as an engineer on the front lines, but he's never volunteered any information on his time there, and I've never asked.

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Not only is it stupid to use live ammo in training like this

I don't know about WW2 but they used live ammo when I went thru bootcamp in 1998.

I never went to war, all my stories have to do with the freaks I served with and the stupid innane crap we used to do all the time. Like 23 days in field, out of doors, living on my tank, with no shower FOR 23 DAYS; that's b.o. like you wouldn't believe. I never scrubbed toilets with a tooth brush but we stripped wax off the floors with our dog tags. Millions of pushups, run till you think your gonna die.

Two notable things happened to me in the army; I broke my leg when I fell of my tank one time and I was the gunner when my tank crew shot the second highest score in the battalion on tank table eight. I hit the long range mover at 2200 meters with one shot. That got me alot of respect back then.

Military life is awesome, I think every young male should sign up for a tour. At the very least you learn how bad life can really suck and at the best you can make great friends and do interesting things.

I've seen Iraqis surrender literally by the thousands (not meant as a slight against 'em, it was a reasonable thing to do), and the light of the midday sun completely obscured by the midnight black clouds of burning oil fields.

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Original post by nonnus29 Quote: Not only is it stupid to use live ammo in training like this I don't know about WW2 but they used live ammo when I went thru bootcamp in 1998.

I did some live ammo training too. It also involved getting up and running around ("I'm up, he sees me, I'm down"), but it was only one squad (4 or 5 guys) at a time, so it was still pretty controlled.

It was not a war, but i remember me lying on a roof, a tree above me and some little branches falling over me, cut by bullets. Yikes, pretty scary.

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Original post by Binomine A family member was drafted for WWII. During bootcamp, there was a drill where soldiers to crawl under barbwire while live ammo was being fired overhead. One of the soldiers infront of him spooked and stood straight up, ending his life by a gunshot wound to the head. The drill had to continue and the drill instructed ordered the troops to crawl over the dead body. He freaked and decided to crawled over the 'advancing' troops to escape the dead body. He was later dismissed from the army.

Wasn't that a scene in that insect movie with Doogie Howser? Space Troopers or something.

CM

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Original post by Conner McCloud Wasn't that a scene in that insect movie with Doogie Howser? Space Troopers or something. CM

Similar, but in that the squad leader took a troopers helmet since it was broken and tried to repair it (in the book he took great interest in the armour the troopers used) during the live round excercise, the recruit without the helmet was then shot in the head and training was stopped immediatly,

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Original post by Drazgal Similar, but in that the squad leader took a troopers helmet since it was broken and tried to repair it (in the book he took great interest in the armour the troopers used) during the live round excercise, the recruit without the helmet was then shot in the head and training was stopped immediatly,

Oh, right, thanks. Sorry for the interuption, carry on.

CM

anecdotes, more than stories.

My grandfather was wounded in the maquis when he joined the resistance. A few inches to the left, I wouldn't be there. He was awarded some medal after the war, but refused it. Post-war 'resistants' was just full of bullshiters, he didn't want to have to do anything with it.

My other grandfather was in the navy, a radio operator, and escaped several naval squirmishes, not least when they had to flee the harbour when germans invaded Britanny, amid a stuka bombardment.

My oncle (son of my second grandfather) was also in the navy, on submarime destroyers, and did the atlantic convoys.

The grandfather of my brother's ex-girlfriend had his life saved by a bible he carried in his breastpocket, during first world war. Although I must say, after seeing the evidences, it lookes a bit fake :)

None of them really talked about it. I only knew most of it after they died.

Apart from that, I had my share of shitty times at the army, as well as god times. I wasn;t particularly a good shot, but we had some morons with us. They usually hand us three bullets before entering the range. The dude forgot to set the selector to single shots, and fired a burst. He was not expecting that (and being a bit thick), the gu shoot up, and bullets went ricocheting on the ceiling. He spend the rest of his military service cleaning toilets.

This may just be me, but I'd much rather clean toilets than get blown away in the frontlines in some godforsaken place.

I'd rather serve a country I felt loyal to then spend my life as a coward cleaning toilets [smile] Hell, if I ever move back to the states sometime in the next 8ish years, I'll probably give the army a go. It's not about a president, or oil, or anything, it's about serving an ideal you believe in, and honouring your country by doing so.

My father was in the Green Beret in Vietnam. He said that they suspected some important person of helping the Viet Cong, so they shelled the lawn in front of his mansion and killed all his deer.

My dad was a weather forecaster for the South Vietnamese (we're Vietnamese). He rarely talks about it, and I don't have any war stories per se. However, while escaping Vietnam due to the war, my family did leave on a boat, and along the way we were intercepted by pirates who took everything except our clothes and my dad's English dictionary.

He later on obtained an EE degree in the US. Quite amazing, I think.