-
If you enjoy the forum please consider supporting it by signing up for a NES Membership The benefits pay for the membership many times over.
What is the worst Detail you ever had in the Military?
- Thread starter Skysoldier
- Start date
After a heavy 122mm rocket attack on our 2/27 Firebase south west of Da Nang in one night in march of 68, myself and a small work party had to load 2 or3 KIA's into a 6x6 truck and make a speed run on the morning ammo resupply run in to Charlie/ med ( or maybe B med ? Can't remember for sure)to drop the bodys off ,will never forget the way those poor guy's bodys ( what was left of then) sloshed around, sounded like, and how it brought home just what a horror war is ,and how badly we wanted to give them as much dignity as we could . . . . Will never forget, and to this day I still get sad and shed tears for my brother Marines.
Last edited:
Until you've mopped a parking lot in a rainstorm or swept a dirt field, you haven't had a s***ty detail.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Tapatalk
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Tapatalk
Last edited:
Tough to find a worse one than that.
I wasn't on this detail, but one of my squads was: the UN War Crimes people dug up and autopsied the bodies from a Kosovo massacre in 1995 or so and needed a security detail. I sent one of my FDC guys with a squad and a couple of trucks.
They were back after barely two days, so I didn't get a chance to see them out there; I was going to run mail out the day they got relieved. But they didn't want to talk much about it when they got back, and every one of them wanted to burn their boots.
M60
NES Member
I heard that! Youth!
There is a degree of sarcasm in there, but those are things I actually had to do...
Perhaps in my quick reading of the thread title and failure to fully read the thread, I missed the intent. If so, my bad.
Last edited:
Maybe a slight lack of situational awareness for not reading before posting, especially when the poster right before you was speaking of loading bodies into a truck. Duties like the one you spoke of sound like normal corrective training if you stepped on your dick and just growing pains as a Private, we've all been there Marine.
Recover and drive on man, I'm sure you didn't mean it to be disrespectful to anybody.
Semper Fi
RLTW
That is affirmative, which is why I offered a sincere "my bad." Lesson has been stored in the BHG.
No disrespect intended to anybody.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Tapatalk
KBCraig
NES Member
Probably the most amusing detail I ever had was playing guide to the porta-potty company in REFORGER 88. Me in a jeep with a driver, hauling ass all over the countryside with Hermann chasing us, to pick up cans that had never been touched, only to place them where they would never be touched. We chased 3AD all over western Germany, and their battle plans sure must have confused the OPFOR, because even Team Blue couldn't figure out what they were doing.
I can't touch this one. My experiences, though uncomfortable at the time, are no match for the experiences some of you have had. My Hat's off to you!
Artifact
NES Member
Oh, ok. No...when incidents like that happen on deck which are fortunately rare, each squadron sends a few men onto the deck to, as quickly as possible, restore the deck back to flight ops capable. This was back 1978. They may have teams like that now but when there are several dozen aircraft flying around that need to be recovered, there's not a lot of time to get things back in order.
dustoff22
NES Member
When I first arrived in country (Vietnam) I flew with an old crusty Chief Warrant Officer who'd been there 7 or 8 months. Several of my first missions with him I wasn't sure I could get used to the blood and dismembered and torn up GI's we'd evacuate from the jungle. Haystack as he was called told me that I'd get used to it and it'd be business as usual. He was right, after awhile I got used to it. Amazing how we can adapt to otherwise unpleasant things. I guess you can be glad it was your only venture into that kind of darkness.
Last edited:
KBCraig
NES Member
Thankfully I wasn't on the range, but many friends were and had to clean up, when an M1 Abrams lost sight of the range safety fans and scored 2/2 kills on M3 Bradley CFVs at Range 301 in Grafenwöhr (1/11 ACR).
They only had to clean up one (where the driver was killed by a sabot through the driver's compartment). The other one hit the 25mm ammo storage, and it burned into a molten blob of aluminum.
Not as bad as some, but "SHIT BURNING DETAIL" - Viet Nam. 100 deg heat/humidity.
But the fun part was, we did it UPWIND from the officers tents. (couldn't be helped heh heh heh)
But the fun part was, we did it UPWIND from the officers tents. (couldn't be helped heh heh heh)
M60
NES Member
During my second tour with FMF West - Pac, they pulled the Third Marine Division out of Nam and sent us by ship to Okinawa. Made me an MP. I went home on leave for Christmas and returned to Oki a day early. CID came into the MP barracks and asked me to uniform up and head out to the mortar range, knowing that I was still on leave. When I got to the mortar range, there was a green stateside platoon and a 2nd Lt. all standing at attention. The Lt. had fresh meat stuck to his field jacket, so I knew this wasn't going to be a cake walk . I asked what had happened. Through the sobbing, the Lt. said that one of his men had lodged a round in a mortar tube and that the Gy. Sgt. had tried to dislodge the round from the tube. When it dislodged, it had taken off about half of the Gunny's head. I picked up as much as possible of the damage, to return it with the body. Two things I'll never forget from that day at the mortar range are the look on what was left of the Gunny's face and the piece of skull, rocking in the wind, on the edge of the cliff. Such a waste of a human being. Looking back over time, I realize that I have never told this story before.
Having spent a total of 15 months at Fort Benning School For Boys, it’s now clear I led a sheltered life.....
Digging through a garbage dump knee deep in random. . . garbage. Looking for someone's pistol they lost during an on base work detail. Platoon leadership with brains kept their guys out. Not mine though! Oh yea, this was in Baghdad. What is the punishment for losing a weapon you ask? Temporary rank reduction for a few months.
An NCO lost a .45 on an M113 while we (3-7 Cav) were at the border In Germany. As they started looking for it, a rumor went around this NCO had it out for the Plt Sgt and the pistol might have been stashed, not lost.
The Troop bivouacked in place while CID was called and started interviewing everyone. The vendetta turned out to be baseless rumor. Six days later, the pistol was found in the maintenance log loose leaf binder. The track had been searched 5-10 times previously. This became a “Non career enhancing event” for the leaders involved.
That sucks. Six days?
NODs on a drop zone, night jump. Idiots had us police-calling Sicily DZ in the dark for HOURS until they realized how much more sensible it would be to just go to sleep and wait for dawn. Sure enough, we found the damn things about ten minutes after sunrise.
