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Tell us some stories...

Please if you are a veteran of any war and have some stories or if you know a veteran who has told you stories or if you have read some stories that have affected you share them with us.
I read a story several times and have cried from it. It was Christmas in Nam and this nurse was just as jittery and excited as everyone else because there were 2 xmas trees; 1 in the nurse's station and another with patients. Because everyone was in the holiday spirit everyone was getting drunker and higher than usual. Even the patients with gun wounds in their bellies had a glass of wine. All the nurses decided to decorate the victims' beds with misletoe and red stockings even if it was "ugly as hell". All but one patient had a stocking.The nurse decided to give him her stocking which was a gift from a friend back home. A boy of 18 with no arms was asleep unaware of the festivities when suddenly he woke up on xmas morning to find every patient opening their stockings and ejoying the lil bits of candy.
Well this boy starts to cry but not out of joy. He's crying because he received a letter from his young bride saying that she gave birth to their first child. He would NEVER be able to hold his child. :cry:
 
My dad had some stories while he was stationed in China/Burma/India during WWII.

Stuff like going onto a battlefield after the main battle and seeing severed heads of enemy dead stuck on tall poles to intimidate the enemy if they tried a counter-attack. That always stuck in my mind when I was told it as a kid. The weird things you remember.......

I cannot imagine something like that happening in today's conflicts. By the US forces I mean; we're politically correct and have to fight as such. The enemy has no such qualms.

Anyway, I also remember stories of my dad and his buddies fishing in India with sticks of dynamite and the giant jumping spiders in their tents. AND the prickly heat, oh the stories of wicked prickly heat………. ;)

So Adam, no real exciting combat stories that my dad wanted to share with me, and now he’s gone from this earth. I think there were some things he just didn't want to remember. Not too uncommon for combat veterans.

I’m sure you’ll get some other stories here. If you want some REALLY horrendous stories of combat; search online for stories of trench warfare in WWI. YIKES!
 
lol bout the tnt
in the Nam they fished with nades :jester: nice!
oh i hate being near spiders...but they are cool...but thx for the contribution fry
 
Here is a "war story"

my Dad (who was in the Navy, but during peacetime (1959-1961))
is currently a bagpipe player with a Scottish bagpipe band.

the Band is the "Penn-York Highlanders, Ladies From Hell Pipeband"

The story is about the "Ladies from Hell" part..

The story goes that during WWI the Scots were fighting along with their English counterparts, fighting the Germans in Europe..
the Scot's standard military dress included..kilts!

The first time the Germans saw the Scots in battle, they laughed at them..
taunting them and calling them "ladies" because of their "skirts"..

the Scots then proceeded to destroy the Germans in battle..

after that, the Germans called them "the Ladies from Hell"

Scot
 
haha nice! better than their traditional way of fighting in "barbarian" times...naked! no clothes to be grabbed or left in wounds to cause infections.
 
one of my uncles was in the small boat navy, small boat being the crew was small enough that the admirals cook was also the crews cook, which he says is the best gig in the navy cause you eat alot better than those on carriers and such. they were on patrol off of Japan(years after WWII), and a typhoon had blown through. they spotted a big ball floating out in the ocean and they hooked it and drug it in....it was a float and on the other end was a lobster pot, completely full of lobsters that had gotten blown out to sea. the admiral yelled down "COOK, do you know how to cook lobsters?" the cook answered "HELL YE.....i mean YES SIR!"

same uncle, they always took fishing poles out on patrol with them cause the patrol usually consisted of heading out to a spot and sitting there for a day or two and heading back to the base....really boring stuff and the admiral didnt really care.....well thats till they went shark fishing.....seems they hauled a good sized shark into the boat....well it started thrashing around starting to destroy stuff. the only side arm on the boat was in his CO's locker so he ran down below deck and asked the CO for his 45....the CO said what in the hell do you need that for? and he explained the situation...so the CO went up on deck and dispatched the shark.....they werent allowed to bring sharks on deck any more......

my father in law volunteered for the Navy during Korea rather than being drafted into the army.....at first he was in the Philippines and they always had to place the legs of their cots in coffee cans and than fill them up with aviation fuel to keep the ants from crawling up the legs and into bed with you.....he said when ever you heard someone start cussing and banging around in the middle of the night its cause the fuel had evaporated and the ants had joined them for bed.....a few months later he got stationed in Japan and said thatwas great compared to the Philippines....other than they had to eat with the Austrailians for the first part of their time there.....mutton brains and kidneys on toast for breakfast every morning wasnt good.....lots of boiled onions and mashed pumpkins(instead of potatoes) he was never happier than when they stole a bunch of butter out of the sea planes the spent all day hauling out of the water....finding a can, buying some chicken from a local market, heading down to the beach and build a bon fire, get the butter boiling and deep fat frying the chicken in butter....best meals he ever ate.....he was really happy when the US airforce finally built a mess haul and he could start eating with those guys.....he said the Aussies were great ppl but their taste in food was horrible......
 
My uncle was stationed as a mechanic in Okinawa Japan (sp?) during Nam. He'd heard a rumor that if you voulenteered instead of being drafted you'd get an easier assignment, it was true. He spent most of his time listening to rock music on armed forces radio and tripping on LSD. I'm glad he didn't get sent to the real meatgrinder to kill women and kids, or himself.
 
American troops didn't go Vietnam to kill women and kids.
 
  • #10
American troops didn't go Vietnam to kill women and kids.

which is true but they did because they were scared...kids became bombs and carried AKs and the *****s brought satchel charges and 'nades etc.
 
  • #11
My favorite liquor store clerk told me a good 'nam story. Everyone was drinking/smoking for New Years, and he had a bottle of wine in one hand, and one in each pants pocket. He had been assigned to check up on everyone, so he crawled up in a guard tower to ask how those guys were doing. They said they were smoking, so he told em alright, just don't let anyone sneak up on us. He then turned that bottle of wine upside down, and fell 30 feet out of the tower onto his back (landed in sand though). He woke up the next morning with both bottles still in his pockets, and his hand still clutching the empty bottle that lead to his fall :D
 
  • #12
lol thats what they did in the Nam...smoke dope and drink..
 
  • #13
for a feel good story. my cousin is full time guard and has been to Iraq and Afganistan as basically a tank mechanic. when he got to Iraq about 2 years ago the base commander found out he can swing a hammer better than most and spent his time there turning quonset huts into office buildings by building partitions.

the base commanders there had been looking ofter this older gal and her kids right next to the base, she was the only sunni in a shite neighbor hood or the other way around. and the guys kept an eye on her to make sure she didnt have to deal with to much trouble. well one day the base commander takes my cousin to see her and they look over her place, dishes stacked on the floor, bedding piled in the corner, things like that cause they had no furniture.

when they got back to the base the CO asked my cousin if he thought he could build the gal some furniture....he said will be easy enough and in his spare time over the next 6 months he built a wardrobe for the bedding, a few dressers, a kitchen table....things like that...nothing fancy, mostly made out of plywood....though he did scrounge a counter top from somewhere and turned it into a nice table top. anyways one day they show up with a truck load of furniture and surprised the gal, hauled it into her house and set it up. through an interpreter the CO told her that my cousin had built it all for her in his spare time and she broke down crying and thanking him......i guess she even offered her oldest daughter to him to bring her to the states to be his wife though he didnt figure his current wife would be to happy about that so he declined......he was not expecting the CO to give him 100% credit for doing it all, sure didnt figure he deserved it as he had nothing better to do withhis time anyway.......
 
  • #14
good to see some terrorized/scared people getting good things for them. 'Specially out there.. Good for your cousin doin some good deeds for someone he doesnt know. He seems like a good man!
 
  • #15
i got a nam story...
this surgeon was workin on this patient...he'd been shot up horribly...lost gallons of blood...some MPs (military police) bring a VC wounded to have him treated for interrogation. well this Charlie wakes up to see he's in a US MASH and grabs a bottle and smashes it in his stupor (the drugs the nurses gave him) and walks over to the wounded bleeding soldier and cuts his throat with the bottle... well the surgeon went nuts drew out a .45 smashed it in the charlie's mouth lifted him up by the gun and blew his brains all over the tent.... F'd up!!!
 
  • #16
Not really a story, but on my German side, my Great Grandfather was forced to fight in WWII as a German soldier (which, of course, was under the control of Hitler).
My Grandfather was very young at the time and remembers the air raid sirens going off in Wuppertal (his home town). He would have to follow the standard procedure of finding cover etc.
My Great Grandfather passed away (he was not killed in the war) but my Grandfather is almost 70 and in great health. I'll have to ask him for a good story. I keep telling him he should write a book.
 
  • #17
heres the problem with vets mate..at least i know it is for Nam vets...: once they start talkin bout their story they will cry until their eyes are dry, so they wont do it. dont pressure your g.pa (if hes a vet) but coax him gently.
 
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