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Most unusual thing you saw in country?

21K views 119 replies 83 participants last post by  ordnance21XX 
#1 ·
For me it's GOT to be the DC-3 they've got rolling out of Kandahar.

After watching Apaches, Chinooks, Blackhawks, Tornados, etc. taking off and landing all day, out of nowhere comes....



Turbine retrofitted DC-3. The first time it had us scratching our heads saying "did we really see that?"
 
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#31 ·
I was a AF Sentry Dog Handler and when I first arrived in country, Sept. 67 at Phan Rang AB, . My first couple of days were spent on Kennel Duty, (washing Dog crap down the gutters.) We had an old Vietnamese guy that helped out and one day i was hosing down the crap and this huge beetle, (probably 2 " long) came running up the poop gutter. The old Viet guy started yelling something, ran down the gutter, grabbed the beetle, broke off the head and popped that bug, sans head, right into his mouth. When he started crunching that thing, I lost my breakfast right there. For a minute I thought he was going to scarf my vomit. That made me realize we were REALLY in a world of s**t.
 
#33 ·
Wow, there are some really interesting stories in this thread. My story pales in comparison to the others but anyways, as a 18 year old American stationed in Germany back in the 80's, I saw several things that were very different from what I saw growing up in the states. Some were pretty cool and some were not so cool. For instance, when you went into a McDonalds, you could get a beer with your burger and fries. In the summer, the girl's tops came off at the beach. As you walked down the street, you would see people urinating anywhere they could find a place. It was legal as long as you didn't face traffic while you did it. We used to party at the clubs until 4AM and drink heavily with 15 and 16 year old Germans who had to be to school the next day (this was legal too). We had to be up for P.T. the next day, which was even harder. People in their 80's would be seen riding bicycles wherever they needed to go, sometimes miles and miles away. Being an MP, I had the honor and pleasure of working with the German Polizei on several occasions as a liason between them and any American GI we came into contact with. Over there, they don't need search warrants; all they need is probable cause and they can kick in your door and basically do what they want as far as going after criminals or people they suspect as being criminals. Think what you want of that but they have very little crime in Germany.



Motown out



ARMY1
 
#37 ·
I was stationed in Dong Ba Thin with the 18th Engrs and one day I saw a yellow/black interior 65 Pontiac GTO convertible cruising down QL1. It stopped at the white mice road check and then cruised on down toward Cam Ranh. One of the guys said it belonged to the son of the man who owned the banana plantation up toward Nha Trang. He also said he also had a corvette roadster. It just seemed surreal.
 
#38 ·
I saw something like that at Quan Loi in late '68-early '69...
Coming up the Road was a '56 Ford Crown Victoria...With Two Blondes In It!
We Stood There, Tattered and Dirty, Gawking...
They Ignored Us, Like The Dog-Doo We Were... GI6
They Were French, from a Big, White Villa on a Michelin Rubber Plantation...on their way to the Airstrip, where they had a Private Plane to Fly Them Back and Forth to Phnom Penh.
It was Definitely...Surreal!
Later, I Learned Why the Villa Kept All It's Lights On All Night Every Night...They Paid Off the VC/NVA, so they were never Mortared...And, in effect the Villa made a Great 'Aiming Stake' for the VC Mortar Teams!!!
What A Crazy 'War'!!!

GITEN

CAVman in WYoming
 
#41 ·
Just a couple of the strange things in iraq:




Note the women washing dishes.

Also saw a kid molest a donkey, found out dogs are terrified of green lasers. The usual.
 
#42 ·
Just a couple of the strange things in iraq:




Note the women washing dishes.

Also saw a kid molest a donkey, found out dogs are terrified of green lasers. The usual.
So are Iraqi drivers. Craziest thing I had happen was my lead gun-truck running literally THROUGH a Hesco barrier on MSR Tampa @ 55mph. Gunner broke several ribs when his chest hit the spade grips on his M2. That night sucked...
 
#45 ·
Nice pics Vandal!!!....say what you want about GW...but he LOVED the grunts and he will have my utmost respect till the day i die..


Finding a German WW2 STG44 assault rifle on a dead serb in Bosnia...GI3 guy even had spare mags too....the ONLY time i ever really thought HARD about getting contraband back into the states...it was a bit rough, and the finish was worn down to nothing, but it worked...we fired all 3 of the mags out of it and it was a blast...

another guy in a different village had a PPSh43 subgun and several drums...those were more common.

being a gun nut in a war zone was kinda interesting
 
#46 ·
By 1969, Bien Hoa AFB was like a little city.
Paved roads, huge BX, movie and snackbar complex

3 corps SF HQ was to one side and we had free use of all facilities when back for the occaisional stand down.

I was at the BX collecting stuff to take back to the team when a truckload of Blackhorse guys showed up.
They were just in from the bush and were dirty, bedraggled, and worn out.
They wanted a snackbar meal and BX stuff.

The effin' AP's showed up and had them to know that they were not welcome nor allowed to use any facilities due to their appearance.

All I could do was stand there with my jaw hanging open.
 
#48 ·


One of the few things I snapped a pic of. The biggest sandstorm I have ever seen.
 
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#50 ·
Was up in Sangin right next to FOB Jackson on the island. Hadji decided to start sending mortars our way. All of the sudden I hear this really weird whistle and look up. This metal cylinder goes across the sky flipping end over end like a punted football. It lands and explodes. Turns out it was a homemade mortar tube and when hadji tried to use it the mortar got stuck at the end of the tube and took the tube with it.
 
#51 ·
CE1371, . . . y'all need to give us a heads up on those kinds of posts.

If I'da had my coffee in my hand when I read about the home made mortar, . . . I'da been takin' a shower.

That was good, . . . just wish you had had a camera, . . . would love to see a picture of that.

Thanks again, . . . made my day !!!

May God bless,
Dwight
 
#52 ·
Not long after we got to our FOB in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan we heard on the loudspeakers for everyone to get to the bunkers but not the usual incoming siren announcing the near daily rockets. Well it was because there was a tornado passing through! It wasn’t that wide but it was an honest to god cloud to ground funnel cloud. Who knew they got those here!
 
#53 ·
I was in Afghanistan on a patrol driving around. We drove by some kids playing in the garbage in the middle of town, which is pretty common over there. I see this 3 or 4 year old girl chewing on something. As I watched I realized what it was.... It was a condom... Awe I only hope it wasnt a used one.... She was chewing on it like it was a chew toy or a piece of gum.
 
#56 ·
During early 1968 at Chu Lai I watched one of our F4s try to land without any landing gear. The aircraft had wing tanks to land on. They foamed the runway and set up the arresting gear. The plane came down perfectly on the foam, hit the arresting gear and the hook pulled right off the tail. The pilot hit afterburner and accellerated in a huge billowing fireball and black smoke from the fire the fuel in the tanks created. Then , like the phoenix he pulled the plane up out of disaster and took it out over the ocean where he and his rio ejected safely. To make things even more interesting a couple of weeks ago I was preparing to install a security system at a local VFW and while talking to an old SeaBea found out that he was on a project that day lengthing the runway and saw the same event. Small world guys.
Semper Fi
Art
USMC 66-72 RVN 67-68
 
#58 ·
Rode subs; no "country" to see!

1978 Rota, Spain. The King hadn't kicked all the nuke boats and ships out yet, so old Henry Hogbody (SSBN655) was in floating dry dock doing a refit. Now Rota is also an air station, has a HUGE runway, could take off 4 C5s at once, 2 going side-by-side east & west, was the first place on east side of Atlantic the Space Shuttle could abort and land at.

I'd seen a couple of C5s cycle through no big deal. I'm standing on the wing wall of the floating drydock when I hear the loudest, most god-awful roar in my life. Look north toward land expecting to see a C5 but no, it's a Spanish Marines Harrier going straight up! Down low, doing a slow crawl hover those things don't need cannons, they just kill you with sound!
 
#60 ·
Look north toward land expecting to see a C5 but no, it's a Spanish Marines Harrier going straight up! Down low, doing a slow crawl hover those things don't need cannons, they just kill you with sound!
Tell me about it, spent many years working Harriers in the Marine Corps. As bad as it was in base housing at MCAS Yuma, going on board an LHA was worse...berthing was right under the flight deck. DI5
 
#59 ·
Okay, "in country" was Groton, Conn. Sub base where Nautilus was home ported. Nautilus and Seawolf were older 2 screw (propeller) boats. With 2 screws any ship can be maneuvered to/away from a pier or mooring, no tugs needed. All the later subs were single screw and had to wait for the tugs to come up river and help the fancy expensive nuclear turds away from the pier. Uncle really hated anyone banging up their expensive sonar domes.

So this attack sub, the Trepang I think, is waiting and waiting and waiting. Captain climbs up to top of sail, scans around, tugs are still half a mile down river fighting an out going tide. Captain sees he's tied up to the down river side of pier. Orders all lines cast off, boat slowly floats away from pier with the tide. Get about ten feet of clearance, orders All Back Full, screw churns up the Thames River, boat slides backward into the channel smartly. Hard over on the rudder, boat now bow south pointing at Block Island Sound. Ahead Standard, foam off the screw, boat heads down river, blasts past tugs still coming up to help. Captain gives One Finger Salute to tugs and heads out to sea!
 
#64 ·
After a couple of months you do seem to get used to the bleeding from your ears. DI5
 
#65 ·
LHA? I was on an LKA waiting for my nuke school seat. Luckily we were stuck between San Diego and Seal Beach, but if we had been carrying the normal Marine contingent it would have been sardine time, just like a sub!

Being a geezer, I saw Mike8 boats, and the JEFFs were just in R&D.

The video is a forward launch, maybe 30% the noise of a pure vertical takeoff. Those are incredible.
 
#66 ·
Yup vertical movement is pretty noisy, lots of energy needed to suspend all that weight. The vertical take off and landing capability is just a tactical capability that isn't used all that much. It takes so much fuel that they don't like to use it unless it's advantageous to the situation. In the Gulf War the normal procedure was to launch from the deck in a normal fashion with a full load of fuel and only enough ammo to defend themselves. Then they would land at a forward refueling point and top off their tanks and take on a full load of ammo. Then they would fly to their combat area.

I played tag between the Peleliu (LHA-5) and the Tarawa (LHA-1) for a little more than three years sea time. Heck they were like a stadium compared to subs! Hot racking is standard sleeping conditions for you guys.

The most cramped I ever experienced was during the first Gulf War. We were packed pretty tight, racks in the troop's berthing were 4 high and the sailors were hot racking in their compartments. We carried about 125% of the normal crew and deployed Marines; something like 3500 on board instead of the normal 2800. We had chow lines that extended from amidships (where the chow hall was) all the way to the aft end of the hanger deck and back.
 
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