Our own War Stories...

[Technocrat]

A friend of mine recently finished their course at Sandhurst, the British Army's officer academy, and was sent on their first tour to Afghanistan. After a couple of weeks patrolling Helmand, a Desert Hawk UAV (like the one below) developed a malfunction and went down near a village. His squad was ordered to head for the village, and recover the drone before it was potentially captured by local insurgents.

After a few hours of driving, the squad came to the village near to the UAV's last known location, and found the drone tied to a tree. The captain got the Lieutenant who'd been trained in Pashtun to have a word with the locals, who informed him that the Taleban had in fact already been through, and "dealt with" the drone. When they'd discovered it, the insurgents who found it believed the tiny planes to be piloted by trained mice, and in order to stop them escaping in the aircraft, tied it to the tree to stop it flying away.

Anyway, I thought it'd be interesting to hear what "war stories" cross the paths of people on this forum. I'm certain at least some of us have served in the forces, and many of us will have heard tales of relatives'/friends' roles in conflict. War is always more than the "bang-bang-bang" we get from Call of Duty, and these tales can often be touching, humorous or exciting, and do a great deal to make it more "real" in our minds than what we often get from media impressions of it. Plus, since my brother's about to head off to Sandhurst himself, it feels better to know what he's in for it more than simply dangerous or mundane.

 

[Amnestic]

After a few hours of driving, the squad came to the village near to the UAV's last known location, and found the drone tied to a tree. The captain got the Lieutenant who'd been trained in Pashtun to have a word with the locals, who informed him that the Taleban had in fact already been through, and "dealt with" the drone. When they'd discovered it, the insurgents who found it believed the tiny planes to be piloted by trained mice, and in order to stop them escaping in the aircraft, tied it to the tree to stop it flying away.

I smell a new Disney Pixar film in the making...

Sadly I don't have any tales of my own. Don't know any military types. My younger brother's meant to be heading into it but he's only a wee 14 year old at the moment.

 

[Dudemeister]

After a few hours of driving, the squad came to the village near to the UAV's last known location, and found the drone tied to a tree. The captain got the Lieutenant who'd been trained in Pashtun to have a word with the locals, who informed him that the Taleban had in fact already been through, and "dealt with" the drone. When they'd discovered it, the insurgents who found it believed the tiny planes to be piloted by trained mice, and in order to stop them escaping in the aircraft, tied it to the tree to stop it flying away.

I smell a new Disney Pixar film in the making...

Coming this summer, to a cinema near you. It's, Ratz!

 

[Nemu]

I have no war stories. My gf is a recently retired Captain in the Army, who graduated from West Point and is currently working on an anti-terrorism task force. SHE has stories.


Wait. No. I got hit upside the head with a beer keg during a robbery. Does that count? I have this great scar on my skull from it...

 

[Amnestic]

I have no war stories. My gf is a recently retired Captain in the Army, who graduated from West Point and is currently working on an anti-terrorism task force. SHE has stories.

Share some of her stories then ya silly sod!

 

[Nemu]

I have no war stories. My gf is a recently retired Captain in the Army, who graduated from West Point and is currently working on an anti-terrorism task force. SHE has stories.

Share some of her stories then ya silly sod!

She told me once about being out in the middle of the mountains for tactical training while she was with the 101st Airborne (for you TV/Book geeks, that's the division that "Band of Brothers" is famous for...). I'll try to recall it as accurately as possible:

The first day, everyone was given an MRE (actually, it was a MLRP-Meal, Long Range Patrol) and told that they would be out for 3 days, and that the MRE was to last them the entire time. Each one was random when it came to some of it's contents, tho the entree was selectable.

ANYWAY, the one she received happened to have a package of M&Ms for dessert, which was (I guess) a rare treat. She rationed her food, pocketed the M&Ms so that no one else knew she had them and set out on her training.

Apparently, the 2nd night she was out there, she was on guard duty overnight when it started to POUR. She heated up some water for a packet of coffee and tucked back in to finish off her post, but realized she was extremely hungry. She rummaged thru her pack, hoping to find a bit of food then realized she still had the M&Ms. She found the package in her jacket pocket and discovered it was completely soaked due to the rain, but she opened it anyway to eat the candy. When she did, she saw that all of the colours of the M&Ms had bled into each other and then away, leaving her grey M&Ms.

Despite this, she told me that they were the BEST M&Ms she'd ever eaten. The soldier who was on duty with her saw her eating them, I guess and was jealous that she still had food to eat at all. lol

(Maybe it's only funny to me, but I was amused--she tells it in much finer detail.)


If I recall correctly, this was the same soldier who had a rather funny story, too. maybe I'll save that one for later. =P

 

[fer-sure]

Sad story time =(

When my older brother used to work at a Telstra call centre, he told me about one of his mates, this really heavy set guy who had the strangest sense of humour but managed to crack some of the best jokes, like the good old "you're only as young as the girl you feel =)".

He was stationed in Iraq a few years ago when an attack happened, unfortunately, there were a lot of civilians around. He ended up accidentally shooting and killing a 10 year old boy that had made his way into the line of fire. After that, he dropped out of the army and couldn't handle the psych evaluations, he came back to Australia and has since been working in the IT industry. He told my brother that his heads all messed up now and that's why he acts so weird all the time.

=/ when stuff like this happens, I worry about my friend going into the airforce.

 

[-Orgasmatron-]

My dad got held at gunpoint by the IRA because they thought he was my uncle, my family is all Irish apart from my uncle who is in the BA, needless to say the local IRA lads weren't to happen when he came over for a family holiday. Luckily he went back to England early due to it all kicking off.

Also, another good one. That same uncle I was just on about fought in the Falklands, while he was there, his wife, my auntie, claims that a ghost started hanging out in her room and eventually spoke to her and said that it was called 'Stan'. Wasn't until my uncle got back from Falklands that she found out 'Stan' is what BA called unknown dead enemies. Stan went away as soon as my uncle returned.

Yea, I don't really believe in ghosts, but I dunno if my aunt would have time to sit around and make that stuff up. Make what you want of it, it's a cool story either way.

 

[Technocrat]

During the 1950s, my grandad was a navigator on an Avro Vulcan, a British nuclear bomber whose job it would have been to flatten Leningrad if the UK had gone to war with the USSR. Some of the things he used to tell us about were downright crazy - and the security was hilariously lax, too. In order to drop the bombs, the arming system was supposed to have keys turned by both the bombardier and navigator. Since that would involve lots of uncomfortable scrambling around inside the plane after takeoff, the bombardier usually just jammed a screwdriver into the arming mechanism before the bombs were loaded, so from takeoff, they were ready to go! Nuts to safety.

Usually, the Vulcans would spend their time patrolling the North Sea, waiting for the order to head East if war broke out. Conversely, the USSR would do likewise, and TU-16s would be patrolling waiting to squash the decadent West. Of course, there wasn't really a great deal of animosity between the plane crews. The Soviet bombers would often take a similar patrol route around the sea, so the planes would actually end up flying in formation with each other. My grandad kept bringing his camera along and taking photos of the Russians, and waved to them every time. After a few sorties, the Tupolev crews would do the same, and in some cases, they got to recognising particular bomber crews when they ran into them. They'd spend a few hours circling, wave goodbye, and then head back to their bases.