Fish in a parachute

Apparently, this is a thing – Specialist Matthew Tattersall of the 2d Battalion 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment took his pet fish on his last parachute jump with him and his commanders are not amused, according to the Army Times;

“The way I see it, if you do the crime, you’d better be willing to do the time,” Tattersall said. “They certainly, if they absolutely wanted to, the punishment could have been far worse, so I’m not upset about anything. I understand that there were going to be consequences for it.”

Tattersall, who had already written a 1,000-word essay about the importance of airborne safety and professionalism in the Army, also could be bumped down to E-3 if he breaks any more Army regulations.

“If I make one mistake, they take my rank,” he said. “They tossed me a bone when it comes to not taking my rank.”

His problem stemmed from the fact that he took a selfie over the drop zone with his pet and posted it to social media.

We had this guy in our platoon in the 82d by the name of Billy Owens. He had a stuffed King Kong gorilla that was probably 20 inches high and posed in the classic King Kong manner – you, know, the upraised arms. Well, Billy wanted Kong to get a jump in, so he packed the toy on the top of his ruck and tied an artillery flare parachute to old Kong, so when Billy exited the aircraft, he got Kong out of his ruck and tossed him free. Well, artillery flare parachutes aren’t always cooperative, so poor Kong streamered in. But the safety folks on the ground thought that Kong was a real paratrooper and they yelled at the poor dumb monkey to “pull your reserve”. Kong hit with a loud thud – ambulances and safeties rushed to the scene of Kong’s impact only to discover that it wasn’t a real jumper, but a toy. Owens owned up to the trick and he’s probably still out on Sicily Drop Zone trying to push it to main post. But there was no social media and no cell phone cameras, so the push ups were the only punishment inflicted on poor PFC Owens.

So the lesson, I suppose is to keep your antics off of the internet, guys.

Category: Dumbass Bullshit