Can you recount a particular incident from your service, which may or may not have been funny at the time but still makes you laugh?:
My first sea duty was aboard the aircraft carrier, USS Forrestal, CVA-59 for a Mediterranean Deployment in 1974. I was attached to RVAH-6 and my rate was AD-J (Jet Mechanic) where I worked out of my squadron’s P/P shop as an Aircraft Troubleshooter on the flight deck.
Can you recount a particular incident from your service, which may or may not have been funny at the time but still makes you laugh?:
During the time spent on Lampedusa records were kept about issues, shortages, and other things that impeded progress. There always seemed to be a shortage of parts and it wasn’t certain why that was. In the event of another ATLS deployment, the brass wanted to be sure that most of the shortage issues encountered on Lampedusa would be avoided. To accomplish this, a small group of us were selected for a temporary duty assignment at NAD Hawthorne NV where the remaining two ATLS were stored. This assignment pre-empted my assignment at RADSTA Miami for about four months. Our task was to inventory the two ATLS in storage and make sure any shortages were filled.
Can you recount a particular incident from your service, which may or may not have been funny at the time but still makes you laugh?:
It was a bright sunny day in Vietnam, and the word was out, “Bob Hope is coming to town!” The troops had waited all year to see Bob Hope, Les Brown and his Band of Renown, and of course, the “Gold Diggers.” On the day that the Christmas Show was to be given, my Squadron Commander summoned me to his office and gave me a mission. As the unit’s adjutant, I was used to getting some bazaar tasks, but this one was out in left field. The mission, “Captain, take this Black Cavalry Hat and personally give it to Bob Hope and asked that he wear it on stage.” Simple right? Wrong.
Can you recount a particular incident from your service, which may or may not have been funny at the time but still makes you laugh?:
The boss of the U-Tapao Control Tower during my first U-Tapao assignment (71-72) was MSgt John Finnegan. I liked him. I was the lowest ranking controller in the Tower (E-3 vs all others E4) and got more than my share of crap jobs, but understood and still liked him. My best ever practical joke was played on MSgt Finnegan at about 08:05 one morning in early 1972. I had just got off duty and was walking down the Control Tower stairs headed to the barracks. A few floors below me I could hear a lot of yelling: “Get back…Dammit…Stop it…Let go…Dammit…get back…M-fr…shit…Get off…”
Can you recount a particular incident from your service, which may or may not have been funny at the time but still makes you laugh?:
If there was one thing that could strike fear into any Marine recruit back when we actually received service numbers, it was the fear of being sent back for some mischief, thus prolonging our time in purgatory. I faced that very real possibility between Phase 2 and Phase 3 at MCRD, San Diego, and it was Mess and Maintenance week.
Can you recount a particular incident from your service, which may or may not have been funny at the time but still makes you laugh?:
My all time favorite story is from my time as a Radio Operator aboard a P-2 at P31-31 DET NI. One of our pilots, nicknamed Porkie by the enlisted because he was portly and had a chubby face, had an incident the previous day training a new pilot. As three crew later told us. The student was high on glideslope and close to landing. He repeatedly told the student to get it down, get it down. He failed to do so adequately, and Lt. “Porkie” got angry and yelled, “I SAID GET IT DOWN!” Now they were already over the apron (Ideal touchdown area), and he wasn’t about to make a long landing. So he pulled back the power and dropped it like a rock onto the runway. The plane hit so hard it had to be towed back to the hangar.
In 1917 the U.S. Navy built a full-size battleship in New York City's Union Square Park near the entrance to the subway and faced south. It would stay there for the next three years. The ship - USS Recruit - was commissioned as a normal seagoing ship, under the command of Acting Captain C. F. Pierce and with a complement of thirty-nine bluejackets from the Newport Training Station. It functioned as a recruiting office and training center with sailors training on the ship to demonstrate a small...
A letter containing an order from the President ordering me to report for induction into military service “influenced” me to show up at my draft board office in Ashland, Ohio, on 8 Feb 1968 for the bus trip to Cleveland with several other young men to be inducted. The government was drafting 50,000 men monthly at the time I was drafted.
You may know Chuck Norris is a champion martial artist, and movie and television star of titles such as Walker, Texas Ranger, The Delta Force, and The Hitman. A martial arts legend who has contributed greatly to the development and popularization of martial arts in the United States and around the world, he has a long and impressive martial arts career, both as a competitor and as a teacher. He is a black belt in Tang Soo Do, Brazilian jiu jitsu and judo. However, before he became a Hollywood...
Privates Joyce Kutsch and Rita Johnson became the first women to graduate from a modified Basic Airborne Course on December 14, 1973. In 2007, Army medic Specialist Monica Lin Brown was only the second female soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star. Eight women were admitted to Army Ranger School for the first time in 2015. All failed, but three were invited back for another try. Obviously, these were historical inroads in what had been the male soldiers' exclusive domain and...
On June 6, 1944, the Allied forces launched Operation Overlord, the largest and most complex amphibious landing in history until that point. Invading Hitler's Fortress Europe was no small matter, even with all the preparations and forethought Allied planners made in advance of the landings. In the years and decades that followed, D-Day became one of the most thoroughly studied and documented events of World War II. Still, it seems like more and more personal stories, fascinating accounts, and...
Senator Daniel Inouye served in the United States Senate from 1963 until his death in 2012. At the time of his death, he was America's second-longest sitting Senator, which is not at all surprising considering he could easily be considered one of World War II's hardest men to kill. Daniel Inouye's Early Life This Japanese-American, who faced discrimination and segregation, had every reason to sit this war out if he so chose with a bitter heart. But considering he was raised by a father who...
Many articles contained in this Blog were written by Together We Served’s former Chief Editor, Lt Col Michael Christy, and published in TWS’s Dispatches Newsletter.
