Alright then lets here them. I guess I'll start off with one in the "worst" catagory:
The Curse: I have seen it in action. In 1987 2nd Plt. Aco. was prepairing to embark on a float to the Carribean on Operation Solid Sheild. For several months prior to the departure date the Plt. had been prepairing the Tanks to go. Many long hours of P.M. Finally the departure date had arrived, we were ready, the Tanks were ready.
The Plt. was to be picked up on Onslow Beach by the L.C.U.s from the U.S.S. Siapan. Now in good Marine Corps fashion The Plt. was on the beach the night before the pick up. So, of course, the Navy was late in picking us up that morning, now being normal Marines and having down time chow came to mind. The Tanks were all lined up on the beach and the Plt. was eatting MRE's, well almost the whole Plt was eating MRE's.
We had a maintance man with us, a Cpl. He came around from the back of the Tanks eating Apricots out of his canteen cup. The Plt. went into an uproar. We could not beleive what he was eatting. He was told to get away from the Tanks with them and why. He was a non-believer and threw some of the juice onto the turret of one of the Tanks.
Well about that time the Navy had arrived. The word came down to mount up. The radio came alive, apearently the Tank that was juiced had no power and would not start. The Mechanic was called up to get it going, he could not. Lt.Morris had to call to the rear to get another Tank. {embarressing}
Meanwhile the Navy was waiting. {Crap} We held up the Squids for about 2 hours or so. The entire float had nothing but problems. To this day I do not eat them.
J. D. You can type it, just do not eat them. We had nothing but problems on that float. A Cpl. in the plt. almost drown on the well deck in the tank, they tried to write me up for a AWOL. We were on ship the middle of the ocean where was I going to go? I also got stuck on mess duty twice. All kinds of other stuff. On our way back the USS Stark was hit, so we got no liberty and headed in that direction.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: SgtShaw86,
King Voodoo That Soda Sponson brought back an old memory. Many years ago at Camp Lejeune. In Aug. it was really freakin hot, and we had not gotten much rain lately. As usuall we were in the field, the 03's were also out and about. Aco. was off to side on the road checking track.The 03's were passing threw on foot.They knew we had 2, 5gal. water cans and asked if they could have some. While they were filling up with the warm water my gunner and I pulled the tarp back off the bussell rack, exsposed the big cooler full of cold drinks. Man they were good on a hot dusty day. You should have seen the face's on those 03's ! God I loved being a Tanker!
This may not be so exciting to 1811/1812 types. But my best adventure was the day I got to sit in the Gunners station of an M1A1 and squeeze off 8 Sabot's!
Like I said to a tanker it's business as usual, to to this engineer it was definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done.
I know that bridge-layers aren't TANKS per-se, but they are built on the hull, so here is a funny one. We had this gung-ho 2nd lt who thought he was of course the smartest Marine in the Corps. He had just received our bridge layer, and wanted to have some fun, so he decided to actuate the bridge to "test things out". Well the BRILLIANT Lt that he was, he FULLEY exended the bridge (read VERTICLE) and THEN decided to lower it out. we all screamed at him to stop, but he ignored us. Of course gravity took hold and the bridge came CRASHING down, and slammed him face first into the the portal, knocking out 8 teeth in the process, and causing some serious damage to the connecting point between the layer and the bridge. STILL makes me laugh a little watching the whole thing happen.
Funniest Adventure- After Blue/Green work ups for 24th MEU. LCU pulls up and drops the ramp. M1A1 with plow. FNG driver pulls down the ramp only to find that the plow hits the deck. FNG, makes up his mind to just gun it and low and behold, pushes the LCU right out from under the tank. SPLASH!! Tanks don't swim.
We got there, and had to call back to 2nd Tanks for two more 88's to pull it out. Thank God nobody got killed. We kept the picture of the two tracks and a tube sticking out of the water posted for the whole float.
Well, I have not been to the sandbox yet but we had a cross training with some grunts teaching them how to utilize us in a urban enviroment. Well needless to say jumping in my drivers hole my pistol slipped out of my holster onto the front slope (Which the grunts were all to delighted to show my Lt) and i caught HELL for it. So, in between running our training with the grunts, everytime we stopped i was made to look for a 'smooth course' (Smooth on one side, course on the other) rock...not too big and not too small...after about 2 hours i actually found 2 of them and the look on everyones face was priceless. They stared for about 30 seconds in disbelief
Brand new bunch of troops, brand new Lt., so let's go do some night driving before they're good at daytime driving. It's pitch black, we're using night vision. At least with the old night vision, depth perception wasn't so great. "You have a left turn up ahead" sez I from the suicide seat. "Right Here?" Goes the driver Here's what it looked like the next morning. This was around 87-88 in Camp Pendleton. I could probly still take you to the spot, but don't recall the name of the training area.
God I loved being a Tanker!
FNG driver pulls down the ramp only to find that the plow hits the deck. FNG, makes up his mind to just gun it and low and behold, pushes the LCU right out from under the tank. SPLASH!! Tanks don't swim.
