Iron Gump

Repeat · Post by **Repeat** » Tue May 09, 2006 1:01 pm

since becoming a counselor, I've realized that one of the reasons we don't do cool things is because the people that HR hires are often too special to accomplish it or not interested enough to treat it seriously.

Sandrat · Post by **Sandrat** » Tue May 09, 2006 1:24 pm

Soccer wrote:since becoming a counselor, I've realized that one of the reasons we don't do cool things is because the people that HR hires are often too special to accomplish it or not interested enough to treat it seriously.

Like Grunt used to say, let me hit the lottery and we'll make that happen.

Spanky · Post by **Spanky** » Tue May 09, 2006 2:20 pm

Yeah you can pretty much ask a question about 1996-2004 and Rat and/or I can give you the honest story as to what happened. The RC deal was quite entertaining. Rat had a first hand view of that one.

Sandrat · Post by **Sandrat** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:56 pm

The Final Death of the RC Program...story number two.

After a full week with no RC program, Bonehead begins to test the other remaining aircraft. It needs a little work, but after a few days and a couple of test runs, it's ready for flight.

For about a week, all is well.

Until this.

We're sitting in the B-52 office trailer on a warm spring day. The door opens and its the CEO (the one before the poser that nearly ran USSRC into the ground from 1999-2000). We all liked this guy - he was a good friend to AC and never, ever missed a graduation at the lake.

He walks in, removes his aviator sunglasses (former USAF guy) and chuckles. "So how many RC airplanes do you guys have left/"

Top Kick: "Well, hell. Ol' Bonehead's up there flying the last one. He crashed one a couple of weeks ago."

CEO (laughing): Well, you're at zero now. He just crashed that white one.

Top Kick (screaming fit getting ready to happen - neck coloring red): "What do you mean, sir?"

CEO: That guy misjudged his altitude, or thought he was gonna hit my car, something....

He pauses, pulls up a chair and proceeds to do what all good pilots do best - talk with our hands.

CEO "I'm coming down the road (across from the Rocket Launch Pad) and I see him flying around. The plane's doing loops and rolls, really pushing the envelope. He drops it low, and I'm watching him fly, so I'm going really slow, about ten, fifteen miles an hour."

"All of a sudden, I see the plane snap out of a nice tight turn heading right for my car. I hit the brakes, and I honestly cannot believe what happened next. The guy has plenty of speed, and the plane would snap straight up into a climb, right?"

"Bonehead dove it straight into the ground, it bounced once and skidded in front of my car, trailing a stream of balsa wood shards and fuel."

CEO then shakes his head. "If I hadn't been laughing so hard, I might have stopped to help him clean it up.....Then I thought it was too good not to share."

And the sharing continued at graduation where the CEO spoke briefly about the wonderful week filled with "land survival, flight simulations, and real life accident investigation after Bonehead destroyed his second aircraft in three weeks."

Funny thing....Bonehead didn't last the summer....

MAYTAG · Post by **MAYTAG** » Wed May 10, 2006 6:46 am

well it sounds like you should have had someone else flying those planes lol

Spanky · Post by **Spanky** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:16 am

Rat, you had left by the time we had started using the SGTMAJOR for this particualr program. Instead of playing the FP during E&E.....we set up a POW camp and SM became the hunted.....JERRY BIN LADEN!!!!

I'll send you the photos of that.

Sandrat · Post by **Sandrat** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:29 am

Yeah, I have pictures of Jerry in that get-up. I'd almost completely forgotten about the FP storyline for E&E and Patrolling events that we did!

Repeat · Post by **Repeat** » Wed May 10, 2006 4:22 pm

Sandrat · Post by **Sandrat** » Wed May 10, 2006 4:56 pm

Friendly Partisan

The original patrolling event required Mach 3 teams to negotiate a compass course, patrol to a rendezvous point and link up with a friendly partisan (Jerry) who didn't speak English, to lead them to the E&E course start. Great training!

Repeat · Post by **Repeat** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:03 pm

I have a memory of doing an event that I THINK predates the SAR, in which we split our team into two squads, Alpha and Bravo, and went running through the glassy plains to rendezvous after taking care of separate missions, blowing up a fuel pump and using walkie talkies...

I have no idea what this mission was. I just remember being out near the botanical gardens in the daytime, running around. This is August 2001, I believe.

MAYTAG · Post by **MAYTAG** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:25 pm

that soundsreally close to the present seal ops

Repeat · Post by **Repeat** » Wed May 10, 2006 5:31 pm

except it was done during the day, involved radios, and I'm not sure where the team that wasn't blowing up the fuel pump went - I suppose it's possible that it's similar to the current Mach III Seal Ops - especially since I'm pretty sure whatever year it was that we did that, we didn't have Seal Ops at night.

Sandrat · Post by **Sandrat** » Wed May 10, 2006 8:37 pm

Wow. Amazing how the present SEAL ops sounds JUST LIKE what we did before. See the Aviation Challenge Rules and employ the AC Golden Rule here.

Sandrat · Post by **Sandrat** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:19 pm

Another good old Iron Gump story....just sit right back and you'll hear a tale.

Now, I should point out that there are some very funny R rated stories from the AC archives, that due to the nature of their content cannot be shared in such a forum. When you're dealing with counselors, these things tend to happen. I sometimes wish I could share some of those stories, however, the following PG stpry will just have to do.

Enjoy:

---------------------

Another Day At Land Survival

Okay, back in the day when Land Survival really meant trying to survive trainees, mosquitos, and dealing with the Sergeant Major on a daily basis, there came a Lead Counselor for Water Survival and his counterpart the Lead Counselor for Land Survival. This is very early in the summer of 1996.

I happened to be the Water Survival guy, and another counselor (Callsign changed to protect the guilty) named Flick was the Land Survival guy. I've already stated my military background, well Flick had some military background as well. He was an E-5 (Sergeant) in the Alabama National Guard and specialized in intelligence. His unit was a "round-out" brigade for the 82nd Airborne Division.

Well, I used to wear my Army parachutist wings on my flightsuit - this absolutely irked Flick, because he didn't like my wearing them. I earned them, I should be able to wear them, right? But I digress. So we're out at the Land Survival area with the Sergeant Major (Jerry) and he's telling stories and we're talking about airborne operations.

And the conversation goes a little something like this:

Jerry: So, how many parachute jumps do you guys have? I have over three thousand!

Me: (honestly impressed) That's awesome, I just have 27.

Flick: Well, I have 28!

Jerry glances at me quickly, smelling blood.

Jerry: Where did you get your wings, Flick? Bragg or Benning?

**NOTE: Fort Bragg stopped doing airborne (parachutist) training in the 1970s - they only work with Spec Ops and HALO now.

Flick: Bragg! It was the best!

Me: When did you go? I went as an ROTC cadet in 1990 to Benning.

Flick: 1989 at Bragg. It was awesome!

Me: Did you do the 250 foot towers?

**Fort Benning has three of these puppies. They take you up under a deflated canopy and they let you go, letting you practice the actual landing you'll make the following week. The score: Benning 3, Bragg 0

Flick: Yeah! I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes! It was hard.

Me: They didn't have sand under the towers? Like two feet deep?

Flick: Nope!

Jerry has now resumed digging firepits, and while I'm sawing posts to fence the fire area in, the conversation continues....

Jerry: What drop zones did you used at Bragg?

Flick: The big one.

Jerry: They have names, Flick. Which ones....

Flick: Uh....uh....uh...... (Flick now looks at me....I stare blankly back at him)

Jerry looks at me: You ever jump at Bragg?

Me: Nope. I almost got the chance to go strap-hang with some of my buddies and jump at Sicily Drop Zone.

Flick: Yeah! Sicily! That was it!

Jerry: What chutes did you jump with?

Flick: Round ones!

Me: T-10 Charlies and MC1-1Bs, Sergeant Major.

Jerry: Hey Flick..grab those post hole diggers. I want you to dig holes two feet deep here, here, here, here, here, and here. Sandrat, you come with me - we need to fix those shelters down the hill.

We leave Flick. The shelters are in good shape, because I'd already worked on them early in the week with the Sergeant Major.

Jerry: Don't you need to go check the lake or something?

Me (understanding): Yeah, I think I need to check the lake.

Jerry: I'm gonna let that (expletive) dig holes all day. I can handle someone who overblows their military career a little and brags, but when you don't know what the hell you're talking about and you brag, that really pisses me off!

***

Flick dug holes from roughly 1000-1800 hours that day. And he never again mentioned anything about jumping out of a perfectly good airplane....

Sandrat · Post by **Sandrat** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:39 pm

Last Iron Gump of this week - 10 May 2006.....

The Streaking Trainee

On a brisk Tuesday morning, I walk into the AC compound past the F-14 with an obligatory pat on its nose and a "Good Morning, Baby." As I walk in, I meet several counselors and a team of trainees. They say good morning, and the counselor pulls me aside. She was my WSO during counselor Top Gun and she's laughing while we talk...

Me: What's so funny, Fuze?

Fuze: What til you hear what happened last night!

Me: Come on....

Fuze: Some Mach II kid streaked the barn. They stopped him before he got into the girl's side, but just barely.

Me: Does the Program Manager know about this?

Fuze: Yeah...but he just laughed about it. The kid is threatening to do it again tonight.

Me: We'll have to come up with something.

*****

After a long day of sims, and having a Night Team, I'm getting ready to put my trainees to bed when the subject of the streaking trainee comes up.

Mama's Boy: We've got to do something about the streaker. He's gonna do it again.

Fuze: Any suggestions?

Phonics: I have an idea. Anybody got a disposable camera?

Me: We can't take a picture of him streaking, you idiot! What are you thinking!

Phonics: No....we don't take a picture....find one in the lost and found bin that's empty...no film, but the flash still works.

Bonehead: Waitaminute! We go into the room in about five minutes, get all the trainees out of their bunks, yell and scream at them, and then turn off the lights.

Mama's Boy: I'll hide under the bunk by the door while their eyes are adjusting the darkness. When the kid streaks, I hit the flash button and we'll scare the crap out of him!

So, with the empty camera in hand Mama's hand, they go into the room and yell at the trainees...make them stand at attention...and tell them that anyone caught streaking will be dealt with immediately and sent home.

They hit the lights and storm out of the room, with Mama's Boy quickly sliding under the bunk by the door. The rest of the crew is standing outside LIndbergh Bay....I'm sitting at the door of Bong bay waiting for my Mach IIIs to get to sleep.

We see the flash go off, hear a bunch of boys dying with laughter and then Mama's Boy comes out of the room.

Mama's Boy: Oh my God! He whispered to his buddies he was gonna streak and go out the window....He stood up on the top bunk, pulled off his clothes and jumped down to the floor......

"When his feet his the floor, I hit the flash button.....and I swear....I swear....he jumped five feet straight up in the air and back into his bunk without touching anything else......"

Moral: Don't even think about streaking at AC.

Boomerang · Post by **Boomerang** » Wed May 10, 2006 9:49 pm

LOL these stories are classic. I remember the days when any time a sleep bay got too loud a counselor would come in yelling and making everyone stand at attention. Don't know how my bay in 96 Bong never had too guess we were quiet when we talked. I do remember one night the bay next to ours had it happen the counselor was yelling so loud we all almost jumped out of bed in response.

ACluvR · Post by **ACluvR** » Wed May 10, 2006 10:10 pm

OMG! A streaker? Crap, the only thing we ever got in trouble for (although a lot of trouble for) was the food fight... Funny how the PM didn't seem to mind too much though, lol.

Repeat · Post by **Repeat** » Thu May 11, 2006 12:42 am

wow, I don't think I've had to deal with a streaker yet... That's pretty darn funny.

Space Nerd · Post by **Space Nerd** » Thu May 11, 2006 4:03 am

Just look what you have to look forward to!

Spanky · Post by **Spanky** » Thu May 11, 2006 8:25 am

In the summer of 1996 we had a M3 team break down a bunk and put it in the latrine on the male side, bottom floor of the Barn. I seem to recall that the team also did a spirit miison on their last night there. Motivated E&E out of the facility and performed to their well trained standards.