War stories/memorial thread

[bulletpaluza]

Assuming you are comfortable telling us about it, give us your real life war stories.

Also let me say and speak for anyone on ODT we appreciate your service and sacrifice and appreciate the awful things you saw and maybe had to do just to live and be here today. But on the same note you or men you served with should have their story told and memories live on for the younger generations to gain appreciation for the land we walk on. People are forgetting at an alarming rate our freedom wasn't free, lives were cut short so we could have what we have.

So if you have a story weather heroic or sad or just want to tell the story and/or name of a fellow brother that was lost in combat to keep their memory alive this is your thread if you are willing to share.

If you don't want your name associated to a story and feel comfortable PM me the story and I will post it 100% anonymously. And all PM's will be deleted by me.

 

[Freshly Minted Georgian!]

I'll tell you the only war story my grandfather would ever tell me. WWII, Italy. Lots of peacocks around and if you haven't been around them, they like to roost up high and are loud as hell. Early early one morning a peacock starts crowing, woke a bunch of guys up. It was roosting up on the chimney of a small farm house nearby. After quick discussion they decided they didn't want the alarm clock any more, grandpa takes his carbine and drops this bird. Now peacocks are good sized birds and this one fell over, graveyard dead, right down the chimney, completely blocking it. A minute later smoke starts coming out of the windows, then around the door, then out spills the whole family into the yard. The mama was apparently raising holy hell with the papa as if it were his fault which his squad all got a tremendous laugh over. Despite not speaking Italian most of them apparently knew exactly what being chewed out by your wife sounds like!

 

[MRM]

Well there was that one night...
You ever have that up armored humvee door that just wouldn't shut unless you slammed it?
Sometimes even then it wouldn't shut on the first go?
Well at that point in time, the enemy would blow up an IED and blow up another one nearby if everyone gathered near it.
Well one of the third country national drivers got blown up about five tractor trailers up from the rear of the convoy where I was.
We got up there and two other third country drivers had the guy out of the truck.
He had expired from the concussion, but, was otherwise intact.
We tossed him in the back and were going to move up a bit, but, that darn door wouldn't shut.
I slammed that door several times before I figured out his foot was the problem.

 

[Gunanddoglover]

I didn't serve so I personally don't have any. I can tell you what my dad said about the WWII tank battles in Afrika (intentionally spelled that way). The smell of thick smoke, petrol and exhaust from the tanks, and the ordinance did not compare to the smell of rotting bodies.