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Questionable Military Discipline
10 years ago
Many, many, MANY Moons ago, I was based at Bitburg AB Germany working on F-15s in the late 70's. About two-thirds of the two years I spent there I was on second (1600 to 0000 hours) shift or on mid (0000 to 0800 hours) shift. Mid shift got particularly boring and, not surprisingly, "odd things" happened at times. In two cases it was over the radio comm. net. My shop shared a frequency with two other shops. We hardly heard anything from them most of the time but...
One night the guys were doing some odd noises and sound effects over the radio. This went on for some 15-20 minutes until someone from Job Control called out:
"Hey, how about some radio discipline!"
The second this guy got off the key someone keyed up and COMMANDED:
"Radios, 'TENHUT!!"
I was glad I had the dispatch van I was driving stopped as I, like many others, I'm sure, was on the floor rolling around losing it laughing! A couple of days later I hit up a guy I know who worked at Job Control and asked him who was to poor smuck who called for the "radio discipline". He told me it was one of our full colonels.
"Okay, what happened when the 'Radios, 'TENHUT!!" bit came back at him?" I asked.
"Well, he stared at the mike with this absolutely stunned expression on his face while the rest of us were dyin' laughing!" he told me.
The second "incident" came weeks later. Again, a boring night and the guys decided to go with making various animal noises over the air (I really did kind of wonder what the Soviet radio intercept types thought of our "antics") and after some time of this going on all of a sudden someone came on and called out "AAH AHH, EEH EEH, TOOKY TOOKY!"
For the next half an hour, at least, all you heard over the radio was:
"George, George, George of the Jungle strong as he can be!" and so on.
Ahhh for the days of odd military humor.
One night the guys were doing some odd noises and sound effects over the radio. This went on for some 15-20 minutes until someone from Job Control called out:
"Hey, how about some radio discipline!"
The second this guy got off the key someone keyed up and COMMANDED:
"Radios, 'TENHUT!!"
I was glad I had the dispatch van I was driving stopped as I, like many others, I'm sure, was on the floor rolling around losing it laughing! A couple of days later I hit up a guy I know who worked at Job Control and asked him who was to poor smuck who called for the "radio discipline". He told me it was one of our full colonels.
"Okay, what happened when the 'Radios, 'TENHUT!!" bit came back at him?" I asked.
"Well, he stared at the mike with this absolutely stunned expression on his face while the rest of us were dyin' laughing!" he told me.
The second "incident" came weeks later. Again, a boring night and the guys decided to go with making various animal noises over the air (I really did kind of wonder what the Soviet radio intercept types thought of our "antics") and after some time of this going on all of a sudden someone came on and called out "AAH AHH, EEH EEH, TOOKY TOOKY!"
For the next half an hour, at least, all you heard over the radio was:
"George, George, George of the Jungle strong as he can be!" and so on.
Ahhh for the days of odd military humor.
I found out. Boredom brings out the...weirdness in people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQEVGhVN9oc
One cold and clear night I was almost done doing the diamonds, loading the birds with the codes for the new day. Normally I have to walk the route, but with most of the craft in good shape I managed to get one of the trucks (less walking and the dang thing had a working heater!)
Guy comes on the radio about 0200: "This is a weather advisory, at 0900 it will be 45 degrees below zero Fahrenheit."
That's pretty cold. I keyed up and asked (having been in the weather the last three hours) "Well, what's the temperature 'now'?"
He's quiet for a minute figuring in the wind chill and what not and comes back to me with, "Right now it's 40 below."
I just couldn't let that go ... "You mean you bothered all us working types to tell us an hour after we're off-shift it'll be five degrees cooler?"
He keyed up already laughing into the mike - be fore someone took it away from him - "This is Captain So-n-so - Who was that?"
Like I'm going to answer (I'm crazy, not stupid!) But after a minute of him demanding who had made fun of him and his five degree report a new player keyed a mike ...
After they held the mike open and silent for almost 30 seconds, a new voice simply said: "Heh heh heh" before dropping.
Our poor misunderstood Captain went into orbit without even needing a booster pact and the other of out maintenance channels became very busy with five degree captain jokes ...
I had one more laugh when I went in. My shift sup was in the 'boss' chair reading when I came in ready for a break.
"That was you," he accused.
"All but the last part," I admitted. Being in the comm/nav shop meant we could and did pick up most things aircraft related, including radios that normally went in the trucks. One was sitting behind him in fact, so I knew he'd heard me.
"Oh, I knew the last wasn't you, you see that captain and I have been at odds a few times so I appreciated you setting him up, because that last part was me ..."
Was based in German 83-85 in my old mobile comm. AFSC and during an exercise was setup close to the HF (high frequency) radio (KWM2 radio) guys on the 1800 t0 0600 shift. There were 24 stations on the Net and the operators were to do some radio checks every hour (they staggered things so that they weren't "stepping" on one another). In all but one case the pattern was they called the farthest station from them, one close by, and a couple kind of in the middle in distance. The exception was one gal who insisted on calling all 24 stations and, as you might figure, after a couple of nights with that happening 12 times with everyone on the Net having to listen to it.... So, on this one night she was going through her rotation and I saw one of my HF guys still holding the mike in his hand long after she had checked with him. That did not bode well.
Now, all the station operators had a call sign and this gal had an "interesting" one hers was..."Bowlegs".
HEY don't get ahead of me!!
As she finished her last station check my guy keyed up and said in a good and loud voice said:
"HEY woman, where'd you get them BOWLEGS?!!"
Ummm, for the remainder of the exercise she called one far, one near, and two in the middle for her checks. Wonder why (Squirrel effects expression of confused innocence)?