Doper Vets (and other ex-servicemembers), check this out (if you haven’t already).
What I’d like is a rundown from that list of the stuff that you did, and are/were no longer allowed to do.
NOT stuff you saw others do.
NOT stuff you heard of others doing.
19. May not call any officers immoral, untrustworthy, lying, slime, even if I’m right.
The proper response to a lawful order is not “Why?”
Must not use military vehicles to “Squish” things.
I am not allowed to mount a bayonet on a crew-served weapon.
I should not use government resources to “waterproof” dirty magazines.
No dancing in the turret. This especially applies in conjunction with rule #113.
The following items do not exist: Keys to the Drop Zone, A box of grid squares, blinker fluid, winter air for tires, canopy lights, or Chem-Light batteries.
*also includes: keys to the Turret Lock, a box of reticles, anti-freeze for the Thermal Imaging System, railhead passes, track lube, firing pin extractors, prop wash, cans of “squelch” for the radios, or a funnel to “fill” the radio
When operating a military vehicle I may not attempt something “I saw in a cartoon”. (In my defense, it was something I’d seen Evel Knevel do years before).
My own, not on Skippy’s List:
May not engage Port-a-Pottys with the main gun of an M-1 tank.
I may not practive “quick draws” with a loaded M-16, even if the safety is on.
I may not speculate about whether a “nuclear capable” missile would really represent a deterent if it were not nuclear.
Pornographic magazines do not qualify as “special weapons” training manuals
I may not perform the duties for which I was trained if I am assigned to supervise host nation personnel, even if those personnel are performing the duties incorrectly
IANAVet, but when I saw this the other day, I had to print out and post in my office “If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.”
If one soldier has a 2nd Lt bar on his uniform, and I have an E-4 on mine It means he outranks me. It does not mean “I have been promoted three more times than you”.
I had a problem or two with a fresh from the Academy Ensign.
Nerve gas is not funny.
Neither is tear gas used for CBN training. I was yelled at twice for going in the gas chamber without permission. Once I had a terrible cold, there is nothing like having every bit of snot in your head cleared out by a good whiff of tear gas. The other time I made a bet with a guy over who could last longer, we got chased out so it was a draw.
Should not show up at the front gate wearing part of a Russian uniform, messily drunk.
Or as an E-5 in the Navy wearing a Air Force 1st LT cap back to the ship from the bar.
The following items do not exist: Keys to the Drop Zone, A box of grid squares, blinker fluid, winter air for tires, canopy lights, or Chem-Light ® batteries.
That’s too easy, evrybody has stories about sending the boot camps on wild goose chases.
---- Pay attention to who you are screaming to at 2:00am. I was wiggled under and through a few pieces of pipe stretched out on my stomach aligning a motor to pump with a cigarette in my mouth sweating my ass off. I’d been at it for about 14 hours from when the pump shredded itself. I heard somebody ask How’s it going? My answer was “How the fuck do you think it’s going this miserable piece of antique shit.” (or something like that) Why is this a problem? It was the ship’s Captain. They really wanted to light off the number three boiler and couldn’t until this pump was on line for the emergency firefighting foam. He took my tirade in stride, but I had a very interesting conversation with my LT the next morning.
---- When throwing out broken parts in the dark, do it from the fantail, not amidships. The splash made one of the lookouts almost call for man overboard.
---- I am not allowed to wear Sgt. stripes pins on the collars of my coveralls instead of the crow and double chevron. (Hey it’s all E-5 right?)
---- As the #1 nozzleman in the fireparty we are not allowed to chase down the new Warrant Officer in a fire drill jabbing him in the belly into a corner, then calling back fire under control and ending the drill in three minutes.
Another blueshirt who’d had problems with an Ensign or three.
And not on Skippy’s list -
I am not allowed to tell, during All-Hands Radcon training, that radiation is good for you, because it prevents Alzheimer’s Disease. (Well, if’n you get cancer at 55, and die, you’re not going to get Alzheimer’s at 75, now are you?)
These are from the stories my dad tells about his stint as a navy avionics repair technician in the 1970s:
Not allowed to send new LTJGs to the quartermaster for any of the following: a coil of chow line, transistor fluid, cans of vaccuum to refill the cathode-ray tubes.
Not allowed to charge up several high-voltage capacitors and strew them on the workbench, then ask the LTJG to clean up the workbench as a “safety lesson”.
Not allowed to laugh when the LTJG gives himself several nasty shocks by failing to follow safe clean-up procedures.
Not allowed to electric-arc-weld my belt buckle to the workbench, even if it WAS an accident related to #2.
Not allowed to repeatedly correct the CMDR(O-5) teaching TACAN maintenance.
Even if he’s wrong in messy and potentially fatal ways.
Even if I know I’m right because I was the electronics assistant to the inventor of the TACAN on my last duty post.
Not allowed to make 2AM requests to “turn off that damn steam pump so I can sleep” even if my bunk is located directly under the #2 catapult.
Not allowed to use the saltwater tap to make coffee in the Petty Officer’s mess, even if I “like it that way”.
Not allowed to use safety nets as hammocks, even when off-duty.
I must never taunt an armed marine.
Especially if he’s guarding the building with the radiation symbols and the “guards authorized to use deadly force” signs.
Not allowed to claim the Marine dress uniform is more than sufficient proof of homosexual influence at the highest ranks of the Marines.
Not allowed to go to bars and drink only water for the purposes of blackmailing my shipmates at a later date.
These are things that I have tried to get my friends in the military to do (and they still haven’t…for the most part):
Can’t have flashbacks to wars I was not in. (The Spanish-American War, War of 1812, Revolutionary War).
I am not authorized to initiate Jihad.
I will no longer perform “lap-dances” while in uniform.
If I take the uniform off, in the course of the lap-dance, it still counts.
I should not confess to crimes that took place before I was born.
Must not make T-shirts up depicting a pig with the writing “Eat Pork or Die” in Arabic to bring as civilian attire when preparing to deploy to a primarily Muslim country. (Diosa Note: The friend I tried to convince to do this also insists that my Arabic tattoo says “Eat Pork or Die”)