Reply #15: Grid squares and pulse stretchers

[jmowreader]

Our standard newbie jokes in Berlin were:

* "Go get me a box of grid squares." Grid squares are the lines on a military map. One of our MPs took a map, cut it up along the gridlines, and put the pieces in a box.

* "I need a pulse stretcher." Such a thing does exist--but it's a 28-pin integrated circuit. I kept one in my desk drawer because the look on the newbies' faces when they saw this thing (they were expecting something that looks like a piece of medical equipment, not a little hunk of plastic with metal things sticking out the sides of it) was priceless.

* The EMHO report. We typed up this memorandum and had Master Sergeant Moist sign it. It stated that the daily EMHO report was the most important document the unit generated. It said that incorrect EMHO reporting was responsible for a loss of over $27 million in the last fiscal year. It said that any soldier turning in an incorrect EMHO report would be punished severely. It scared the living shit out of a lot of new people. It also gave instructions for the EMHO count: go to each subsystem and ask the subsystem supervisor for his or her EMHO count, then put them on the EMHO report form, sign it, date it, make three copies, put one in ORMA's EMHO box, one in the watch officer's EMHO box and one in the EMHO box in the comm center. What it didn't say was that EMHO stands for "early-morning hardon."

* Helicopter watch. This was the best one of all--for the newbie, that is. We only did this in the summer when it was nice outside, and we only did it on swing shift. The field station overlooks two lakes--the Teufelssee and the Wannsee. What we told the guy was that he had to go up on the roof (easy to do--a door opened out onto the roof) and look to the west because the communists flew helicopters out of Potsdam and we had to be vigilant. And he had to stay up there until it got dark. And, of course, the second it got dark the guy would run down to the watch office yelling "I didn't see any helicopters but you shoulda seen the sun setting over those two lakes!"

The best one I ever heard was the poor fucker at Fort Bragg who got sent out to look for a skyhook...and got caught by Lieutenant General John A. "Fat Jack" McMull. Fat Jack looked like a cross between the Pillsbury Doughboy and the Michelin Man and he had a very unique sense of humor, and the only reason they kept him around was that he was unbelievably competent. Good thing for him he retired before Dubya Bush was inaugurated. Anyway, Fat Jack found out this guy wanted a skyhook, so he got him one. Called the kid's battalion commander and told him that if his skyhook wasn't utilized properly he was going to fire every officer in the battalion's chain of command. Then he sent the skyhook--a CH-47 Chinook helicopter.