If you're passing through Florida (Tampa area) give us a shout if you don't mind hanging out with the Thai contingent of war brides and the troops that married them

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That was some of the worse duty I have ever had to pull, probably the worst. Right up there with riding the garbage truck on post in Korea.SAEP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 9:26 amOf course, the other kind can happen, too.
This happened just before I joined the unit, so it is a second-hand story, and should be taken for what it's worth.
Our company area was built on the beach of the South China Sea, so it obviously could not dig holes for latrines. Instead, crappers were built using 55 gallon oil drums cut down to about 1/4 height, with an outhouse built above several of them. The container had an inch or so of diesel, and every day or so the drums were hauled out, a little gasoline added, and the contents burned off. Of course, this also required that some lucky soul had to stir the contents to assure complete combustion. This wasn't terrible as long as there was a breeze and you could keep upwind, but if there was a dead calm there was nowhere to hide. Hence, the general expression for any unpleasant job was "shit-burning detail".
On the night in question, a warrant officer went out to do his business, dropped his drawers and sat down.
Unbeknownst to him, there was apparently a rat perched on the edge of the can, surveying the buffet before him. The rat apparently felt that his personal space was being invaded from above, and proceeded to bite the offending member just behind the head, then scampered, honor satisfied, off into the darkness.
The resulting screams apparently had little manliness associated with them. And having to get the rabies series (a dozen very painful shots into the stomach muscles) just added insult to injury.
It was notable that, for several months afterwords, in a unit made up of volunteer flight crews who generally considered themselves to be something in the badass category, night-time visits to the crappers was accompanied by a remarkable amount of flashlight-shining and general thumping and banging on the structure.
Takes a while to get the smell out of your uniform, too.Laager wrote: ↑Sun Nov 18, 2018 12:12 amThat was some of the worse duty I have ever had to pull, probably the worst. Right up there with riding the garbage truck on post in Korea.SAEP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 9:26 amOf course, the other kind can happen, too.
This happened just before I joined the unit, so it is a second-hand story, and should be taken for what it's worth.
Our company area was built on the beach of the South China Sea, so it obviously could not dig holes for latrines. Instead, crappers were built using 55 gallon oil drums cut down to about 1/4 height, with an outhouse built above several of them. The container had an inch or so of diesel, and every day or so the drums were hauled out, a little gasoline added, and the contents burned off. Of course, this also required that some lucky soul had to stir the contents to assure complete combustion. This wasn't terrible as long as there was a breeze and you could keep upwind, but if there was a dead calm there was nowhere to hide. Hence, the general expression for any unpleasant job was "shit-burning detail".
On the night in question, a warrant officer went out to do his business, dropped his drawers and sat down.
Unbeknownst to him, there was apparently a rat perched on the edge of the can, surveying the buffet before him. The rat apparently felt that his personal space was being invaded from above, and proceeded to bite the offending member just behind the head, then scampered, honor satisfied, off into the darkness.
The resulting screams apparently had little manliness associated with them. And having to get the rabies series (a dozen very painful shots into the stomach muscles) just added insult to injury.
It was notable that, for several months afterwords, in a unit made up of volunteer flight crews who generally considered themselves to be something in the badass category, night-time visits to the crappers was accompanied by a remarkable amount of flashlight-shining and general thumping and banging on the structure.
Try to get a spit shine on your boots or get the smell out of them after you spilled some of that nasty liquid on them. I tried for awhile then ended up tossing a good pair of Cochran Jump boots and those darn things were expensive as heck. Worth the price, but back in the day they were close to $100.00 and that was the amount of our jump pay per month.SAEP wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 12:58 pmTakes a while to get the smell out of your uniform, too.Laager wrote: ↑Sun Nov 18, 2018 12:12 amThat was some of the worse duty I have ever had to pull, probably the worst. Right up there with riding the garbage truck on post in Korea.SAEP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 07, 2018 9:26 amOf course, the other kind can happen, too.
This happened just before I joined the unit, so it is a second-hand story, and should be taken for what it's worth.
Our company area was built on the beach of the South China Sea, so it obviously could not dig holes for latrines. Instead, crappers were built using 55 gallon oil drums cut down to about 1/4 height, with an outhouse built above several of them. The container had an inch or so of diesel, and every day or so the drums were hauled out, a little gasoline added, and the contents burned off. Of course, this also required that some lucky soul had to stir the contents to assure complete combustion. This wasn't terrible as long as there was a breeze and you could keep upwind, but if there was a dead calm there was nowhere to hide. Hence, the general expression for any unpleasant job was "shit-burning detail".
On the night in question, a warrant officer went out to do his business, dropped his drawers and sat down.
Unbeknownst to him, there was apparently a rat perched on the edge of the can, surveying the buffet before him. The rat apparently felt that his personal space was being invaded from above, and proceeded to bite the offending member just behind the head, then scampered, honor satisfied, off into the darkness.
The resulting screams apparently had little manliness associated with them. And having to get the rabies series (a dozen very painful shots into the stomach muscles) just added insult to injury.
It was notable that, for several months afterwords, in a unit made up of volunteer flight crews who generally considered themselves to be something in the badass category, night-time visits to the crappers was accompanied by a remarkable amount of flashlight-shining and general thumping and banging on the structure.
"It makes a fellow proud to be,
What as a kid I vowed to be,
One ought to be allowed to be
A sol-ol-ol-dier! (At ease!)"
SAEP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 11:59 pmLaager wrote,
"I was retied as an Staff Sergeant E-6, and made a tad over $1,600 dollars a month (without jump pay),"
Humph. Spoiled kids. Now, in my day, we had it rough. I retired...
Well, no, I never went lifer so I didn't retire. But at the end of 3 years, as a Spec5 I was getting 334 bucks a month basic pay. An E-6 with 20 years would get about 540. Combat pay and flight pay made a big difference.
Going to the All-Volunteer Army made a big difference in pay levels, that's for sure. It's amazing how little you have to pay the troops when the alternative is jail time, at least for the first couple of years. At the time, as I recall, minimum wage was 3 bucks an hour, so minimum wage was 480 a month, but that did not include room and board (such as it was). If you were lucky enough to be stationed at a post with WWII barracks which really needed to be torn down, that wasn't much compensation.
Granted, this was before the inflation of the 70's, but still.
"Though miracles come high today,
We have the wherewithal to pay.
It takes them off the street, you know,
To places they would never go
alone;it gives them useful trade,
The lucky boys are even paid."
SAEP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 21, 2018 11:59 pmLaager wrote,
"I was retied as an Staff Sergeant E-6, and made a tad over $1,600 dollars a month (without jump pay),"
Humph. Spoiled kids. Now, in my day, we had it rough. I retired...
Well, no, I never went lifer so I didn't retire. But at the end of 3 years, as a Spec5 I was getting 334 bucks a month basic pay. An E-6 with 20 years would get about 540. Combat pay and flight pay made a big difference.
Going to the All-Volunteer Army made a big difference in pay levels, that's for sure. It's amazing how little you have to pay the troops when the alternative is jail time, at least for the first couple of years. At the time, as I recall, minimum wage was 3 bucks an hour, so minimum wage was 480 a month, but that did not include room and board (such as it was). If you were lucky enough to be stationed at a post with WWII barracks which really needed to be torn down, that wasn't much compensation.
Granted, this was before the inflation of the 70's, but still.
"Though miracles come high today,
We have the wherewithal to pay.
It takes them off the street, you know,
To places they would never go
alone;it gives them useful trade,
The lucky boys are even paid."
My son-in-law did 10 years on active duty (EOD) and left as an E-6, of course out of the ten years he was AD he was deployed six times. Blown up by IEDs a couple of times and shot at least once. I believe it was three IEDs and shot once on four different deployments
Stercutus wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 7:36 amMy son-in-law did 10 years on active duty (EOD) and left as an E-6, of course out of the ten years he was AD he was deployed six times. Blown up by IEDs a couple of times and shot at least once. I believe it was three IEDs and shot once on four different deployments
Not trying to be a big meanie but I am highly skeptical of this.
I had to stop referring to any of my active duty years as “doing time” or I did time there”.SAEP wrote: ↑Sun Dec 30, 2018 7:18 pmWhile Laager's comments about choosing the Army or jail are quite correct, what I was referring to when I wrote about jail time was the draft. I suppose that if I had said "the alternative was jail or going to Canada" I would have been clearer.
While it is true that overall about 2/3 of the troops in Vietnam were RAs (and for those who don't understand this, people who enlisted, voluntarily or "voluntarily", had an RA (Regular Army) in front of their serial numbers, while draftees had a US), this is something of a misleading statistic.