Ridiculous Military Punishments

[mikeyg36]

I was reading this thread on reddit and some of these punishments are hysterical. Any military personnel on here have stories to share?

Here are a couple of my favorites from that thread:

Marine Boot camp. We had a guy that somehow got his watch through the indoc (They take all your crap when you first get there). Well the DIs found out he had it when they saw him wearing it one day, so they put him in the squad bay trashcan and put the lid on it. Every time they walked by and kicked it he'd pop out with his watch and yell, "SIR THE TIME ON DECK IS ZERO-NINE-FORTY-FIVE!" and then go back into his can like the freakin' grouch from Sesame Street. It was really, really hard not to laugh at that.

US Army basic training at Fort Lost in the Woods (Leonard wood), soldier pooped while we were in the field doing exercises, Drill Sergeant of the platoon behind us accidentally stepped in said turd. Whole company had to stand in formation and watch the poor soul dig a hole 6x6x1 as we held a funeral for the turd. We did not have a bugle to play for the piece of shit as it was lowered so one soldier had to stand there making an "ok" sign over his lips and makes bugle noises. The soldier that made the crap had to bury the whole thing while the Drill Sergeant read a prayer. (It was quite a huge turd as well)

A service member was a total ****-up, to put it gently. Couldn't be on time, couldn't show up dressed to standards, constantly forgot professional courtesies, so on. When he was on his last straw, his squad leader pulled him aside and more or less started yelling, then stopped himself.
"No. You know what? I'm done yelling at you. It doesn't work. Stay right here; don't go anywhere." He stormed off into the company building. The phrase, "stay right here, don't go anywhere" is typically the precursor to something horrible happening when said in anger. The squad leader eventually emerged carrying a small-ish potted tree which he hands to the service member.
"You will keep this tree alive. You will carry this with you where ever you go in uniform. You will take it to PT, you will take it to chow, you will take it to work. If anyone asks you why you're carrying this ****ing tree around, you will tell them, 'It's to replace the oxygen I stole from everyone else.' "

Navy Basic Training. All of us are doing pushups. When the instructor says "down", everyone counts. When the instructor says "up", one guy in particular (the screw-up) is told to shout, "WOULD YOU LIKE FRIES WITH THAT?!" The instructor told him to get used to it cause that's what he's gonna be saying for the rest of his life.
Inst: Down!
Us: One!
Inst: Up!
Guy: WOULD YOU LIKE FRIES WITH THAT?!
Inst: Down!
Us: Two!
Inst: Up!
Guy: WOULD YOU LIKE FRIES WITH THAT?!
There was a pool of tears from laughter on the floor below me.

My brother told me that when he was in basic, a Drill Sergeant yelled at this guy to "beat his face", meaning to do push-ups. Said guy had no clue it meant that, and promptly punched himself in the face, really, really hard, and fell to the ground. The Drill Sergeant had to walk that one off and my brother said you could hear him laughing hysterically as he walked behind a building. Not totally relevant, but I figured I'd share.

[CHMSC]

[PHXLT1]

Haha!

[mikeyg36]

OH SHIT I have another. This one tops all the ones that I have. Okay so we are at boot camp and its lunch time at the galley. Pretty good day I guess the food at boot camp was decent so chow time was the time of day everyone looked forward to. So we had these delicious ass nutrigrain bars available to us in the chow line. Ya know the ones with like strawberry or blueberry or whatever the ****. This dude was sitting across from me, and my buddy was to my right. Him and I are bullshitting making sure not to be seen talking by the RDC'S, those ****ers can sense a recruit talking through a metal concert thats 20 miles wide. Me, my buddy, and this kid get done eating and the kid asks how we are able to get another nutrigrain bar. I looked at my buddy cause I was almost certain we werent allowed to get up and get more shit cause we shoulda got that shit the first time. So we think for a minute, and i see it could go two ways, the kids just gets up and gets a nutrigrain and he gets his ass chewed for it, or he does nothing and its whatever. Out of nowehere my buddy says "yeah you can get another you just have to take your empty train, go to the RDC's table stand at attention, hit the tray on the table and say whatever flavor of bar you want and the rdc will tell you to run to get it and eat it back at your seat." i just looked at him trying not to laugh because I knew that this dude was stupid enough to do it. Sure enough he says "oh cool thanks man". get up.....walks over to the RDC's table with empty tray in hand. Everyone is looking at him at this point wondering what the **** in gods green asshole hes doing. RDC's are staring at this idiot going to the table. Hell the whole galley was curious as to what this ****ing kid was doing. He stands in front of the table at attention, SLAMS the tray on the table and scream "STRAWBERRY." sweet jesus on a jew craker it was on. everyone from my division was told that chow time was over. trays to be throw away, and then double time it back to the compartment. We watched as this kid got beat for 2 hours straight while the rest of the division sat there and recited the 11 general orders for 2 hours in unison. holy shit bootcamp was a shitshow.

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[Aequitas & Veritas]

I believe these, since I've seen some of my Soldiers do some pretty stupid stuff just because they were told.

[Sapphire]

omg! these are great haha

[DGthe3]

A story I've heard a few times dates back to WWI. Its important to note that at the time, Canadians were part of the British Army & colonial troops were generally considered undisciplined riff-raff by their British officers. That reputation probably comes from the fact that at the time, colonial troops were generally undisciplined riff-raff.

Anyway, while training out in the North African desert a Canadian soldier was sentenced to field punishment #1 (a common punishment in that era, often dealt out for drunkeness, insubordination, abandonment of your post, and other discipline-type offences). Unfortunately, I forget what the specific reason was although I think it may have been for having an unkempt uniform. For those unfamiliar, FP No 1 consists of tying the offenders arms and legs to a fixed position (usually a fence or large wagon wheel) in a cruciform position for up to 2 hours a day for as long as the punishment period lasts. Now, as I said before they were training in the desert of North Africa at the time and in this particular area there wasn't anything handy to use so a handful of stakes were driven into the ground instead. The soldier was left out in the hot sun while everyone else in the unit carried on with what they were doing. 2 hours later, the officer returns to find the Canadian has pulled up the stakes from the loose sandy soil and taken cover under the only tree in the area.

From what I recall of the story, further punishment was not issued (in fact, I believe the stiff upper lip of the officer in charge actually loosened a bit), and discipline in that particular unit was never a problem durring their desert training.

[CruisingSpeed]

I believe that crap one was just to have a good laugh in the end.

[rberns]

One of the stories I have was when I was in boot camp, I was washing my PT short sleeve shirts and my shorts. While those were washing, I decided to wear my long sleeve PT shirt and my black PT pants. I head down stairs to check on everything to see if there was a dryer available. A DS saw me and started chewing my ass. I guess it wasn't authorized so he had me find the nearest hill and start rolling up and down the hill.

[Caddyroger]

This did not happen during boot camp. I was in the Navy aboard a aircraft carrier. I was a boiler tech but worked with pumping the fuel to the service tanks and controlling the fresh water and boiler water. Our work shop was on the 2 second deck and the supply shop was 5 decks below.
First I'll explain a smoking lamp. It just when we are handling fuel, weapons or any thing that was dangerous if a fire started. The captain would come over the speaker saying that the smoking lamp is lit or unlit. If it was lit you could smoke.
When we get a recruit in we would play this on him. We would send him down to get a red bulb for the smoking lamp but of course their no such thing but the store room worker would play along. He would tell him that they did not have any red bulbs and go and find if any other color work. He would come up and tell us that that store did not have any red bulbs so we sent him down to get a blue bulb. the store room clerk would would tell that they was out of blue bulbs.
We did this about 3 times then when he entered the room the third we would start laughing and tell him what we did. We did have 6 in lamp that had smoking lamp printed on it. The bulb was burned out.
We also used the left handed monkey wrench.

[Scalded Dog]

Originally Posted by Caddyroger

This did not happen during boot camp. I was in the Navy aboard a aircraft carrier. I was a boiler tech but worked with pumping the fuel to the service tanks and controlling the fresh water and boiler water. Our work shop was on the 2 second deck and the supply shop was 5 decks below.
First I'll explain a smoking lamp. It just when we are handling fuel, weapons or any thing that was dangerous if a fire started. The captain would come over the speaker saying that the smoking lamp is lit or unlit. If it was lit you could smoke.
When we get a recruit in we would play this on him. We would send him down to get a red bulb for the smoking lamp but of course their no such thing but the store room worker would play along. He would tell him that they did not have any red bulbs and go and find if any other color work. He would come up and tell us that that store did not have any red bulbs so we sent him down to get a blue bulb. the store room clerk would would tell that they was out of blue bulbs.
We did this about 3 times then when he entered the room the third we would start laughing and tell him what we did. We did have 6 in lamp that had smoking lamp printed on it. The bulb was burned out.
We also used the left handed monkey wrench.

Of course, our recruits were sent to the tool bay to get a 2/3" wrench, or off to the treelline to get a TR- double E... but the most frequent duty consisted of handing a ball peen hammer to a recruit, and having him gently tap the entire surface of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle (sort of like a tank), checking for "soft spots."

I did not witness this myself, but my platoon sergeant claims to have witnessed the following: A lower enlisted soldier out in the yard area had walked past a fresh young butterbar (lowest ranking officer, O-1). He saluted... but then failed to salute when they passed a second time. The lieutenant, drunken with the power of being an officer, ripped into the enlisted guy, reminding him that one ALWAYS salutes officers, damnit! He issued a punishment to the enlisted guy: Stand in the yard, and simply salute: 5000 times. Looking like an idiot, the enlisted guy started... he stood there saluting in the yard. The smug and satisfied lieutenant went inside the HQ building, probably planning to sit back and enjoy watching.

However, a senoir officer had watched the whole thing go down, from a window inside the HQ building. He felt that the lieutenant was being too arrogant, too high and mighty for being simply a butterbar. He summoned the lieutenant, and reminded him that for every salute given--- by anybody--- there MUST be somebody to return the salute. He then ordered the lieutenant to go out in the yard, face the enlisted guy (who was probably only on about 100 by then!)... and return every single one of the next few thousand salutes.

[HookemHorns]

During Company formation, this happened

Pvt - Drill Sgt, request permission to use the latrine
DI - Pvt is it an emergency?
Pvt - Yes DI
DI - What happens during an emergency?
Pvt - Fire trucks and police show up.
DI - What sound do they make Pvt?
Pvt - Siren sound DI
DI - Pvt, I want you to double-time to the latrine sounding like an ambulance and I better hear you.
It was funny if you were there...

[The_Blur]

I was concerned entering this thread that someone would be complaining about the military being hard on them. I am pleased with the actual content of this thread.

There was a guy in my boot camp division who left his chain out of his shirt. The RDCs put us all on the "toe line"—a line of tiles in front of our racks where are toes were expected to line up perfectly—and ordered this guy to face his rack. The RDC then pulled the coat hook out and hung his chain, still attached to his neck, to the rack. The guy was told to yell "I left my chain out" until relieved. This lasted about 45 minutes.

[mikeyg36]

Originally Posted by The_Blur

I was concerned entering this thread that someone would be complaining about the military being hard on them. I am pleased with the actual content of this thread.

There was a guy in my boot camp division who left his chain out of his shirt. The RDCs put us all on the "toe line"—a line of tiles in front of our racks where are toes were expected to line up perfectly—and ordered this guy to face his rack. The RDC then pulled the coat hook out and hung his chain, still attached to his neck, to the rack. The guy was told to yell "I left my chain out" until relieved. This lasted about 45 minutes.

Don't worry I wouldn't post something like that