This escalator scene reminds me of my LT walking down Rt Disney on Bagram
Used to crack me up walking with my LT down Route Disney because after the 3rd person he would just start saying “Hey, how are ya.”
Category: Politics
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Now that’s funny right there!
I almost used to feel sorry for any officer caught outside when classes were getting out at USMA.
That was made my afternoon!
That was totally Kevin. When I was in Germany, I was in an aerial exploitation battalion and we had a fixed-wing pilot captain there that was so laid back we had to take a pulse to make sure he was still alive. He insisted everybody call him Joe Cool when other officers weren’t around. Whenever we saw him walking down the street, we would immediately disperse into an elongated, single-file column evenly spaced at 7 or 8 paces apart. Instead of the “greeting of the day” he would salute and say “I fucking hate you, I fucking hate, I fucking hate you…”. He was awesome. Plane went down over in Iraq and KIA. All of the asshole O-types out there and that guy had to die. Friggin’ sucks.
@4, When I was a CPL back in the 90s my PL would keep stealing my hat so he could get around without all the salutes. He was Quartermaster branch detailed to the Infantry. Best damn PL I ever had.
Heh, definitely brought back memories of walking into the motor pool as the troops were leavign for lunch on command maintenance monday. My soldiers did the same thing to me. Also loved to catch me with anything that required two hands to carry. I think I was a first lieutenant before I figured out that the first one to try to make me salute while I was carrying something with both hands just volunteered to help the LT carry the CFC donation box to his office 🙂
We used to play that game with the Ensigns at NPS Orlando.
Ah, BAF, where you go to war and garrison breaks out.
I used to see the same pair of captains entering the Dunkins on post just as I’d be leaving with my refillable mug in hand, and they had theirs. The first two days I cupped the bottom of the mug in my left while saluting, but on the third I just held it in my right and raised it as they passed by. One of them toasted me back and said “catching on.”
I remember when I stayed overnight at BAF waiting for my flight home on midtour from A-stan (05), I got saluted at least three times coming back from the PX around dusk, and I was an E4 on that tour. Honest, I even double-checked the rank on my chest and hat to make sure I didn’t have some LT’s hat! That place and Kandahar were the most salute-crazy overseas installations I’ve ever seen! Yes, TSO, I was walking along Route Disney, what an appropriate name!
New XO on the Hangar Deck, pretty much had to sew his hand to his forehead. Next day the Hangar deck was no longer a Saluting Deck.
ahh Disney, how I loathe thee. On a brighter note, anyone else get sucked into robot chicken Star Wars parodies?
Worse than Route Disney on BAF was Camp Eggers in Kabul, the US Embassy Compound, heavily populated by Buzzards (*OOP* Bird Colonels). Any Enlisted Personnel walking across that Camp around lunch time would basically have to stay at “Present Arms” their whole journey, it was nuttier than a bucket of squirrel s%^t! Eggers, Phoenix, BAF, and KAF were the only salute installations I went to or through there, everywhere else, you didn’t even THINK of saluting! We had just arrived at KAF on a mission once, and I had a Buzzard with a gaggle of Field grade Ooficers come up behind me, and the buzzard was suddenly chewing my arse for not turning around and saluting him (We had just got there, I was leaning up against my truck, dog tired) I lamely apologized and saluted the ******** thinking “SNIPER CHECK, SIR!!” because on that part of the camp, “Hadji” could see right through the fence!
One night while serving as an aide I had to duck out to the commissary at FT Carson for some late night snacks. I was drawing salutes and stares from soldiers and families of all ranks and ages. It wasn’t until I walked back in the office that the secretary pointed out that I had grabbed to post CG’s goretex. Ooops.
Thank god on KAIA we did not have to salute. I don’t remember saluting on KAF though.
On my lunch hour one day, in 1992 long after leaving the Navy, I was waiting for a green light to cross the street and saw this Navy captain just coming to the curb to cross coming toward me. The mischief took hold of me and as I approached him, I snapped off a smart salute, which he returned, and said “What was that for?” “Pure habit, sir. Can’t help it. Six years of the Navy.”
I went on my way giggling. I’m sure that’s the only time he ever got a salute from someone wearing a buttercup yellow dress and fuschia earrings.
West Liberty on Victory. Long boardwalk from the chow hall back across the bridge over the canal to the TOC. I sported some of my wayward children spreading out to play the salute game. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed but I’m smarter than the average bear. So I just caught the first one and started a formation before he could salute and start the game. Caught all 18 or so before the could salute. “Now was there something y’all wanted to say?” “No sir.” “Very well, carry on. Dismissed” Never tried it again. The XO however, was fair game….
When we first went to the Shinseki beret brain child I can’t count how many enlisted people I saluted because of their bright unit crests.
Dressed up in my Star Trek costume, went to a Star Trek convention. It was a while back. Bones was still alive back then. My costume included black cargo pants bloused over paratrooper boots from the surplus store, and a black Eisenhower-style jacket that I made from a Vogue pattern, splattered with all sorts of made-up bling and rank insignia out of my vivid imagination, including a set of shoulder boards with fat-skinny-skinny stripes (not fat-skinny-fat), some Starfleet insignia pins, and the Starfleet communicator pin. I even made up a laminated ID, just in case.
I ran into two sailors in blues right out of boot camp who thought I was a Navy officer in some new uniform and fell all over themselves with salutes and ‘ma’ams’. I’ve never seen two grown men look so crestfallen when they finally understood that it was a costume.
It was SO tempting to milk that, but I did not do so.
Now that I think about it, they really brought the garrison to COB Adder when I was there 09-10, fun runs (Peachtree out of Georgia! Boilermaker out of Ithaca!) and all. We’d keep our M9s on us whenever we were going the DFAC and whatnot, and it wasn’t uncommon at night for the E4s to be saluted or to salute each other since it was just safe to assume the other guy was an O-5.
We loved doing it to the butter bars from the Point who thought they were the reincarnation of Patton.
We had a SFC go ROTC on us and he became the unit mascot (SPOT!). Yeah, he was 11B to the core and all of the admins, cooks, maints, and supply loved walking past him and saluting his nice shiny dot. In the end, after about three days, he actually didn’t give us the reply of the day as per Battalion tradition. He actually DID say, “go f*ck yourself.”
Used to do the same thing at DLI to a Navy 1-star every morning on the way to class. He knew it and laughed at us; nice guy…
@21 I dated an Annapolis grad who went to DLI with me. One day, she was walking to class when she was stopped by a fellow boot brown bar, Army, 1 each. The Army 2LT demanded to know my girlfriend’s date of rank. The Ensign, dedicated to friendship among the services, obliged. Hearing that my GF’s date of rank was later than hers, the West Point grad informed the Navy that she needed to salute her. My Ensign’s reply was something similar to General McAuliffe’s reply to the Germans’ demand for surrender, just not as polite.
One of the many reasons I couldn’t stand BAF, or Eggers. Camp Phoenix wasn’t as bad cause the officers tried to avoid you more than you did them. KAF didn’t salute unless it was at least a full bird, nobody complained about it but a few new LTs to the deployed scene.
Robot Chicken Star Wars parodies are always hilarious and this whole scene has me rolling every time.
Is it just me or does it strike others that there Sith Lord would be right at home at TAH?
If the Sith Lord is like that, hells yeah he would fit in perfectly here.
We used to play that game with the Ensigns at NPS Orlando.
Some traditions never die. No Xenon, no credit, getting drunk off your ass after comp, and fucking with the Enswines and DILDO (Direct Input Limited Duty Officer) instructors.
Too bad NPS moved to Charleston instead of Great Lakes, then you could have “Buzzard Night Fridays” after Pass-In-Review at the club on base with all the little girl boots…”Hey baby, I’m a third class! Aren’t you impressed?”
@27.
Jonn Lilyea. Sith Lord. Hmmm. Both are two words. Both have an even number of letters. The first word of each contains four letters and the second word of each begins with L. Coincidence? I think not!