Weve all seen it before drill sergeants in movies making hilarious and sometimes outrageous comments to their subordinates. Well how does this hold up in real life? People reveal the funniest thing theyve ACTUALLY heard a drill sergeant say.
1/29. "I am going to take a sh*t in a box and send it to your parents for sending me theirs!"
2/29. One of our warrant officers took my glasses, drew a crosshair on one of the lenses and introduced me as a "future soldier" to a colonel who was inspecting our training.
3/29. My battle buddy and I were ordered to dig holes, so when were about to our waist he proceeded to turn on a hose. He started to fill the holes with water and told us to stay in the hole. Another drill sergeant walks by and asks him what he's doing. He says "I'm watering my petunias".
4/29. We came back from a run one night, it just was starting to snow. We came back to see all out bunks and lockers had been thrown out. I being not the smartest Pvt. said "I could have sworn I made my bed" drill sergeant was behind me. I painted a fence at midnight in the snow for three hours. I almost cried the whole time while painting that damn fence.
5/29. We were marching back from our mock PT test and the tornado sirens began to go off (Navy boot camp is in Illinois) and we look to our right and there's a tornado forming a couple football fields away in the middle of base. Our RDC, who was already irritated by our failure to line up in time starts yelling "RUN, F*CKERS, RUN!!" And two whole divisions of about 180 people break formation and begin to run to our barracks for our lives. At the time it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, but in hindsight it was actually pretty funny because the RDC caught a lot of sh*t from other RDCs for doing that. He would explain to us, "What the f*ck was I supposed to do? Keep you sh*t heads in rank? Am I supposed to tell you, oh no stay in formation! Keep marching! F*ck no, I'm not trying to die in this sh*thole."
6/29. A recruit interrupted the Chief to say, "Chief, there's a bunny rabbit behind you."
Chief looked like his brain had actually shorted out, then responded, "Is it armed?"
7/29. We had this awesome Staff Sergeant in AIT who brought a sledgehammer he named Mjolnir Thor's hammer everywhere with him. If he caught you f*cking up, he would hand you the hammer and tell you to go dig a hole with it.
8/29. "That's not 4 inches Private! Your girlfriend has been lying to you"
More hilarious stories on the next page!
9/29. "If I wanted to hear sh*t, I would have farted!"
10/29. We do a lot of aid training, such as CPR, wound healing, exposed intestines, chest hole fix, etc etc. The fun stuff. In training, one of the steps is to tell someone to call 911. Specifically point at them and direct them. In combat, this switches to pointing at someone to go get the medic.
We were all lined up at our bunks at the end of the day and the drill instructor was talking. The same as you can see in movies like Full Metal Jacket.
As his final words, he is dictating whom is going to do fire watch for the night. Fire watch is basically someone standing at the main door who guards sleeping recruits and also watched out for any fires or anything else that could kill us in our sleep. There are always two people on watch in our platoon of about 60.
He points at one recruit and says "You, go stand fire watch in the front."
He points at another recruit and says, "You, get dressed for fire watch too."
He points at a third recruit. He hesitates because he realizes that he's already picked two. He suddenly says, "You...." .... "Go call 911."
Funniest thing that happened in all of boot camp. He let us all laugh for about 3 seconds and then told "alright now...enough."
11/29. I left MEPS with a guy from my home town that I had went to high school with, and we got assigned to the same flight. Our drill sergeant heard me call him by his first name, and gave this whole speech about how "If you're so comfortable with each other, why don't you hold each other's hands!?" We stood there and stared at him blankly for a minute, then he seriously made us hold hands for the rest of the f*cking day.
12/29. "Assume the position!"
We were about to do punishment pushups; I forget why. But we were his first female company... and 80 women shouted "Yes Sir!" very... enthusiastically. And threw ourselves onto the deck. While smiling.
Poor man turned a lovely shade of red and ran and locked himself in his office. No pushups were done because our female CC was laughing too hard and she had to leave the room as well.
From then on, she was the one who ordered us to do pushups.
13/29. The drill sergeant did this thing where they would yell "Freeze, Recruit, Freeze". We would have to stop whatever we were doing.
As my bunk mate was running back from the showers wearing nothing but a towel the DS screamed "Freeze, Recruit, Freeze". My bunk mate tried to freeze on one leg and then fell down, naked, and because he was following orders, just laid there naked. I laughed and my DS called me a junk gazer.
14/29. My RDC (navy boot camp instructor) ripped a** all the time. It got to the point where she would always do it at the most quiet time just to beat us later for laughing. My favorite moment was when we were lining up for chow and she walks by and toots so hard the entire line heard it (80+ people) and as she hears people giggling, she whips around and screams, "WHO THE F*CK SAID THAT?!" All the grins were wiped immediately only to hear her follow up, "some a**hole's talking sh*t behind my back..."
15/29. So, I was at Basic in Fort Benning, and we were zero'ing our weapons as a company. Zero'ing a weapon is when you ensure it shoots where you want it to by shooting a paper target repeatedly. Sounds easy enough. Now, I am a terrible shot. I know this. Everyone knows this. However, I get even worse when I'm being screamed at. I spent hours on the line until, finally, there were only four of us cats who hadn't gotten a "go" in the whole company. We had three more hours of range time, and if we failed to zero, we'd be "recycled."
"Recycled" entails having to revert to another company earlier along in Basic Training. So, not only do you lose your buddies, but you catch a couple extra weeks of training with a unit that knows you're a sh*tbird of some sort. So, a fate worse than death.
After another unsuccessful grouping, my drill sergeant, without a word, picked me up from the prone position and stood me up. He looked at me and said "Go find me a pine cone." Confused, I took four steps, scooped up a pine cone and took it back to him. I presented him my findings, and he responded "Private, that's not my pine cone, go find me my f*cking pine cone!"
Keep in mind, this is a forest in Georgia, there's a metric sh*t ton of pine cones. So I jog off and work on my "mission." This entire time, my DS is shooting all my rounds off, genuinely enjoying himself. Every pine cone I bring to him is not his pine cone. This continued for about 15 minutes while the rest of the company, sitting in a clearing eating MREs, cheered me on.
Finally, I breathlessly run up and hand him another pine cone, about to jog off to grab another. He looks at me, then the pine cone, then me. .... "STEVE!" he yells "You found Steve, private!"
I sh*t you not, I had never been more relieved in my entire life, until his face scrunched into a grimace.
"Wait, private, where's his family? ... WHO THE F*CK TAKES A PINE CONE AWAY FROM HIS FAMILY!?"
So, terrified, I spend around half an hour scavenging for appropriate sized pine cones, while he fires maniacally. Eventually, I hunt down his "wife" and his two "kids." (At one point I brought "Steve's estranged son, Dennis", and I needed to do push-ups for causing Steve "emotional duress.")
Anyway he lets me fire (after I prop up the family to "cheer me on"), I go prone, and I zero on the first iteration. He picks me up again, cracks the only smile I ever saw from him, and says "It was all in your head, you dumb f*ck. Good job. Now go do push-ups till I'm tired." He also had me write my congressman later that day to apologize for wasting taxpayer money on bullets.
A pine cone saved my military career.
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16/29. During roll call, there was a soldier who's last name was Parts, so DS would read out loud, "Private Parts! Private Parts! Where is Private Parts?!"
17/29. Walking by the snake pit when I'm stopped by another MTI who asked if my TI cursed at us. I answered no as they technically aren't supposed to, but they still do. The MTI then grabbed a banana off my plate and said if I wanted it back I had to answer truthfully. Food being a luxury and I do love my bananas, I answered yes and he sent me on my way. Later that day in the day room my MTI comes busting in, "Which one of you motherf*ckers sold me out for a god damn banana?!"
18/29. "If you drop your magazine again before putting your safety on I will kick you in the balls and make you sing like Mariah Carey."
19/29. So I was in the AF basic training. We had this kid, whose name I cannot remember now. Probably because our T.I. (training instructor) had a special name for him.
"HEY Marty McFly! Get over here!"
We all sort of chuckle or fight them off. This goes on for weeks and weeks. Well one day this kid is sort of having a bad day and he keeps f*cking things up. The T.I. loses his mind and says,
"DAMNIT MARTY MCFLY GET OVER HERE AND" blah blah blah. The kid snaps.
"WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME MARTY MCFLY!?"
The T.I. response... "BECAUSE YOUR GLASSES ARE SO THICK YOU CAN SEE INTO THE FUTURE."
We all laughed our assess off. And had to do pushups.
20/29. The Senior DS had us all bend over at the waist and put our heads between our knees as low as possible. Then he wanted us to all stand up as quickly as possible while shouting "POP!". Once we did that, he said, "Congratulations men, you've just pulled your head out of your motherf*cking a**!"
21/29. We were lined up in 4 rows, or "Elements."
One day a lone soul lined up in his own element. The instructor came running around the corner staring at this guy. He got right up to his face and screamed,
"ARE YOU BRUCE WILLIS?!"
"No, ...sir" he whimpered.
"THEN WHY ARE YOU IN THE FIFTH ELEMENT?!"
I had to use everything within me to not laugh.
22/29. "He's so dumb, if he fell in a barrel of tits, he'd come out sucking his thumb."
I'll never forget that line.
23/29. I can't even remember why we're being punished, but we've been forced to do exercise after exercise, and at the time we were doing push-ups. It's late at night, I think it was during what (should have been) our 30 minutes of free time to shower and get ready for lights out. Our DS was going off,
"PRIVATES, I WANT TO SEE THE CEILING SWEAT IN HERE. THE WINDOWS ARE STARTING TO SWEAT, THE WALLS WILL BE NEXT, AND I WANT THE CEILING TOO. I WILL DROWN YOU IN YOUR OWN SWEAT"
As she takes a breath in to continue yelling, one kid, from the back of the room goes
"From the windooooowwwwsssss, to the walls!"
She f*cking died laughing on the spot. Only time any of our DS cracked like that the entire cycle. The combination of tiredness and laughing meant like half the platoon crashed into the floor. She walked out of the room laughing. Came back and just said "Go to bed Privates."
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24/29. One of the first days in basic a guy in my platoon was standing at attention while having his room inspected by the instructor.
It didn't matter how nice his room was because there was a large piece of fuzz/fluff on his shirt that immediately drew the sergeant's attention.
"Recruit Bloggins! What is that on your shirt?! Is that a fluffy!?"
"Yes sergeant!"
"Why is there a fluffy on your shirt Bloggins!?"
"I must have missed it sergeant!"
"Missed it? It is so huge, how did you miss such a big fluffy!?" She picks it off of him "Hold out your hand" He holds out his hand and she places it in his palm "This is Mr. Fluffy. Find a home for him, like a pill bottle or something. From now on, whenever I want to see Mr. Fluffy you must bring him to me."
And so, for the rest of basic, every time the sergeant found a piece of fuzz she would yell out, "MR. FLUFFY!" and Bloggins would have to march over to her and present Mr. Fluffy and she would formally hand him the new piece of fuzz to add to Mr. Fluffy. There was hell to pay if he didn't have Mr. Fluffy with him at all times.
25/29. We were shining our boots when a staff sergeant (called a Sergeant Instructor) from another platoon walked through.
Delbert, a friend of mine, glanced up from his work and made a microsecond of eye contact with the Sergeant Instructor.
SI: "Midshipman, why are you looking at me?"
Delbert: Silence.
SI: "Midshipman, do you like me?"
At this point I am listening and thinking "Sh*t, I'm not sure there is a good answer to that question".
Delbert: "Uh, yes, Sergeant Instructor."
SI: "Well liking leads to loving and loving leads to f*cking. Do you want to f*ck me, Midshipman?"
Delbert: "NO, Sergeant Instructor!"
SI: "Then keep your damned eyeballs off of me!"
26/29. My sister platoon had to march around carrying their toilet plungers everywhere. At meal time, the section seniors had to stand at attention, in the hallway outside the mess, holding out a toilet plunger... It was hilarious!
27/29. My T.I. (Air Force) started his lighter right in front of the face of the dorm guard on duty and asked her, "You see fire, what do you do?" It was priceless to watch his jaw hang open when she simply blew it out like a candle.
He took a second to regain composure and lit it up again, asking "There's a fire in the dorm, what do you DO?" She quietly answered "Fire, fire, fire?" and he growled, "Well?"
Then she ran around the room shouting "Fire! Fire! Fire!" like she was supposed to and those of us watching had to fight not laughing and stumbling while going down the stairs.
28/29. "Does it look like I have a sh*t-sweep hangin' between my legs?!!!
In response to a basic trainee referring to her as a "Sir".
29/29. "I just want to stand here and stare at my privates!"
The excuses people use to dismiss behavior range from mundane and meaningless to the sort of leaps normally reserved for kangaroos and Olympians. It's sometimes amazing that these excuses work - but they do.
Some of them work so well that they're just sort of "accepted." That, obviously, kind of sucks and is something we should avoid - so let's talk about 'em.
Can't swerve around what you don't see, ya know?
Reddit user TMTtasmachine asked:
What's the biggest excuse used for a-hole behavior that shouldn't be accepted as much as it is?
... and away we go.
Jerk Privileges
" 'That's just how they are.' "
"One of the biggest enablers for tantrum throwing, bullying, etc. is that they get treated with kid gloves to avoid dealing with them." - alexrt87
"Oh my God you hit the nail on the head. Whenever someone says 'that's just the way they are' I say:"
" 'Yes, that's the point! Glad you noticed too! Now is it okey-doke for them to be jerks they have special jerk privileges? Or maybe they are just people and should treat everyone else as such?' " - notatrumpchump
"It depends on how it's said."
"People are the way that they are, and you shouldn't be surprised when they continue to be that way."
"This, obviously, doesn't excuse it - but people also shouldn't be surprised when a bad person continues to make bad decisions. Neither should we waste space in our minds being bothered by it." - unlawfulfoxy
Harassment Isn't Humor
season 2 lol GIF by ShamelessGiphy" 'It's just a joke, bro.' Harassing people isn't humor." - loading__99
"Schrödinger's Douchebag"
"A guy who says/does offensive things and decides whether he was joking based on the reaction of people around him." - Eatsleeptren
"Dude, legit had someone come up to me and start shouting in my face, calling me Madison, pretending I was cheating on him. Literally the most crowded location outside a theater, everyone staring at us, looking at me like I was some horrible cheater while I was out with my then fiancé."
"I started hyperventilating, my fiancé nearly decked the dude, and then someone shouts 'CUT' like this is some big 'YOU'RE ON CANDID CAMERA' moment and everything's supposed to be okay."
"I burst into tears."
"It was the most humiliating moment of my life, and thank god my then fiancé, now husband is not the type to overreact or jump to conclusions, or be abusive. Imagine how bad that could have been for someone with an angry or abusive partner."
"Prank videos are a plague on the internet and there is a REASON so many of them are fake, or involve actors." - Darkovika
Stay Sober, Then!
Drunk Drinking Beer GIFGiphy" 'I was drunk / high / etc.' "
"Then don't drink?! Stay sober if you can't NOT be an a**hole!" - BasedBenjamin
"Alternately, I hear a lot of 'I'm a happy drunk!' "
"Yeah, according to your drunk a$s. That doesn't mean you're not an ahole. Not remembering is not an excuse either." - PepeBabinski
"I was that guy. I swore I was a 'happy drunk' - and I was. It was everyone ELSE who was miserable while I was happy."
"I was also loud, obnoxious, and I wouldn't remember sh*t the next day."
"Quitting drinking has been one of my best choices of my life." - TTungsteNN
"Help"
new girl coach GIFGiphy" 'I'm just trying to help you' " - Miserable-Air1234
"Every time I've heard this, they're manipulating me while helping only themselves." - mykittenfarts
"My Mom to a T. Everything she does is better than anyone else's and she always gets pissed that people don't praise her for 'helping.' "
"She's now a certified (by herself) psychic and I have come to the conclusion that she's not a covert narcissist but an obvious one. I really wish I was joking." - Silent_Discussion657
Parenting Problems
Leave Me Alone Run GIF by TLC EuropeGiphy"Any variation of 'I'm a Mother/parent.' "
"Had some lady cut me in line at a coffee shop and she hit me with 'I'm a single Mom of 3!' as her excuse."
"Ok? And? I was still here first." - maid-for-hire
"I'm a single mom and I f*cking haaaate when other single moms/parents pull that sh*t to get special treatment."
"Last week, I was having a rough morning, my kid was being difficult, and I was running late. I was rude to a cashier over a minor inconvenience."
"Not only did I apologize for my shitty behavior, I wrote corporate to let them know how professional and patient she was while I acted like a f*cking toddler."
"Was being a parent part of the reason I was frustrated? Absolutely. Was it an excuse for that behavior? HELL no."
"I acted like a b*tch, and I called myself out, and I apologized. I still feel bad about that - I rarely let things get to me to the point I snap at others." - ClusterfckyShtshow
"Wow. I'm a Mom as well and tired but it doesn't give anyone a right to use it as some sort of ploy to get away with stuff."
"Like, mice become Moms about 12 times a year. You're not special 🤣" - SpoonLoops
Believing Your Boss
The Office Monday GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"I had a boss say some really racist sh*t around me one day and the next day, out of nowhere, he says:"
" 'Don't believe half the things that come out of my mouth!' "
"It was not really an excuse, more like trying to cover for himself after the fact, but still stuck with me." - sirlongbottom441
"Report them to HR. Seriously." - kokichi--ouma
"Looking past the racist stuff for a bit, that's not a very encouraging thing to hear from a boss…" - WonderfulBlackberry9
Bad Day Again
Bad Day Reaction GIF by Schitt's CreekGiphy" 'I'm having a bad day/week' "
"Okay, so you decide everybody that you interact with deserves the same fate? Get out of here, dude." - myordinaryexistence
"We all got stress, don't take it out on me. I get some people have stress bad enough for it to be passable every once and a while (family member passing, etc) but general, stress should not lead to you being a jerk to me." - willsimpforfree
"Damn, I'm definitely guilty of this. Usually I remember to apologize after but at this point I've learned to just avoid the situation in the first place by minimizing my interaction with people if I'm in a shitty mood." - nozzzrul
"Reminds me of when that White boy went on a murder rampage and killed a bunch of Asian women & that a-hole sheriff gave a press conference telling the media that the 'poor boy had a bad day.' "
"My idea of a bad day involves going home after a rough day at work and just staying in the house."
"Apparently, I should change my ethnicity from Asian to White and go on a murder rampage, see if my @ss gets a sympathetic sheriff to say on my behalf that I had 'a bad day.' " - kingkazul400
It's Not An Excuse
Season 2 Reaction GIF by FriendsGiphy"This won't go down well, but using depression as an excuse. As someone who suffers from it, it's still not ok to treat others like sh*t" - Rainbowwallstickers
"Could not agree enough. My partner has a 'friend' who treats everyone like sh*t all the time, has no consideration for others and openly mocks people in public."
"She gets so much grace from those around her under the guise of her 'mental health.' It's so infuriating watching an adult woman never have to take responsibility for her actions." - 34boor
"I get there are some things you can't control, but you are still responsible for keeping that sh*t in check and if you're aware of your mental illness, you should be aware of how you approach people and situations."
"I'll admit I used to be guilty of using my mental illness to be an @ss, but now I'm trying to better myself" - VeeSquibbles
Florida Gonna Florida
Looney Tunes Florida GIFGiphy"People are letting Florida off the hook way too damn much. And I live in Florida."
"Just because it's hilarious doesn't mean it isn't still completely f*cked up." - AlphaWhiskeyOscar
"The phrase 'Florida Man' is almost always followed some heinous way a Floridian is being an a$$hole." - PepeBabinski
"I'm also originally from Florida, and that state has serious problems. We need to pay attention to it." - [Reddit]
Moment of honesty ... as a Floridian ... yeaaaah, I'm gonna have to agree with that last one.