Being in the army, or any branch of service for that matter, doesn't look like much fun. Not that it's suppose to be a rip roaring good time, but it seems to have that bit of extra stress when it comes to being an officer. The officers above others make no qualms about being hardcore in bootcamp and constant training. Drill sergeants will tell you service is war, on and off the field. However once and awhile there are a few moments of levity. The new recruits are gonna fall down while learning and that can be a little funny. Can't it?
Redditor u/GluxDope really wanted to get a good chuckle by asking.... Drill Instructors/Drill Sergeants of Reddit, what's the funniest thing you've seen a recruit do that you couldn't laugh at?
The Geese....
Giphy
Had one recruit paying attention to a bunch of geese rather than us. Made him get up and chase them all away, as they flew in the air we made him follow them for several hundred feet to make sure they wouldn't come back! I was dying of laughter on the inside. Droncz87
TAPS....
At boot, it was taps out and one of the RDC's show up and was doing a walk through. it was just before lights out. He was going through the head and then a loud scream "Oh-my-gawd, get your penis out of your hand and out of my site, why the hell is your penis staring at me, recruit?"
'Taps' didn't happen as scheduled and I still talk to this guy X years later... also my bunkmate lmao. DarkJester89
Military Bearing....
I can pass along a classic Boot Camp story. I was in the Navy, and in the Navy, your final inspection as a Division is before the Division Officer. Which is usually some Junior Officer puke that got assigned that job, but we didn't know any better. Anyway, before the inspection one of our RDC's, that's what we called the "DI" in the Nav, found a locker out of sorts and decided to beat us in our dress blues.
That was not fun, let me tell you. Wool uniforms, if we lost our cover we got beat more, it was bad. Anyway, the DO rolls in for inspection, walks up to the first dude in formation, and he pukes. HOWEVER, this guy was a genius, he puked down the T-Shirt in his dress blues, saving the DO from getting puked on and US from getting beat even more.
The Division Officer was so impressed at this dudes "Military Bearing" that he called the inspection right then and there. 5.0 Sailors all around. We still got beat that night. But that guy was a hero. tasimm
Flying Crackers....
We weren't allowed to talk during chow at the galley. You had to point at what you wanted another recruit to pass, and they had to silently pass it. One recruit wanted a napkin and pointed. The other recruit asked "this?"
The CCs (Coast Guard DS) immediately came over, circling him like sharks, screaming at him. They made him put like 10 saltines in his mouth and chew until his mouth was full, then ask the first recruit if he wanted a napkin again. He barely could get it out, spitting pieces of cracker everywhere.
Then they screamed at the first recruit to answer him, but we were all silently cracking up. Sounded like this: "Phew phwant a nupkeen?" (Pieces of saltines flying out) ANSWER HIM!!!! (Cracking up, almost crying) "No...thank you."
It was the best. TBLCoastie
HOWL!!!
An RDC in another division asked a guy if he shaved that morning and the guy claimed he had. The RDC said "recruit you are either a werewolf or you are lying, so which is it?" The guy responded "I must be a werewolf, petty officer!" dnpinthepp
The Angry Water....
Not me but I had a great Team SGT who had a floater (wonky eye) that he was blind in from an injury in Iraq. So one eye was dead on and worked fine but he had this one Uncle Rukus eye that just did its own thing. He was a very physically imposing man with that classic Drill SGT bass filled voice and his crazy eye just added to it and he knew it. He told a story about his time as a Drill SGT when two privates had sat down on Firewatch and were kinda just being real lackadaisical about their duties when he found them.
So he starts just giving them the business classic Full Metal Jacket style, and finally he just ending his rant right before he's about to smoke them for who knows how long when one of the offending Privates just says "Drill SGT are you yelling at us or the Water Fountain?" It stopped him dead in his rage and he just walked away mid knife hand. TheRadBomber
Beat It! Just Beat It!
In navy Bootcamp they call forced PT "beatings." Everyone knows what a beating is. Navy doesn't have drill instructors they call them RDCs (Recruit division commanders). One day standing in ranks the RDC is going around asking random trivia questions about a test we had to take to make sure we had been studying. He gets to a guy who was eccentric, to say the least. This is about a month and a half into Bootcamp. RDC asks the question guys gets it wrong so RDC yells "No wrong, BEAT YOURSELF!" Literally everyone knew this meant start doing pushups so the expectation is he will start doing pushups as the RDC moves to the next guy to ask a question. I was standing across from the guy and he had a confused look on his face. He looked at his own hand for 5 seconds then hauled off and slapped himself in the face.
It made a loud crack sound he got himself good. I cracked and chuckled trying to keep composure at attention. The RDC looked to me then realized why I laughed had to do with the slapping sound. He turned back to self slapping guy and asked him if he slapped himself. Guy says "you told me to beat myself." Queue the entire barracks cracking up. It was a single moment during Bootcamp where the curtain was raised and a moment of unadulterated levity came over everyone. The RDC couldn't stop laughing so the tough guy a**hole persona melted away for a good 60 seconds until he regained composure and made us all do pushups. The pushups were an easy price to pay for that moment. Pencilowner
Johnson Who?
We had two 5'1" stocky blond guys named Johnson in our company one cycle. different platoons, no relation at all but they looked really similar, one day during grass week a couple J Hats made them face each other and go back and forth screaming "You're not johnson, I'm johnson!" "No! F**k you, you're not johnson I'm johnson!" You have absolutely no clue how hard it was to not break into a million pieces after about 5 minutes of that. lovable_oaf
Baby Save up all your tears....
I work at basic training ranges and we had a drill SGT yell at his solider while they were getting ready to go down a buddy live fire exercise. The solider froze and started crying. This 18 y/o kid was just in tears for getting yelled at. The DS yelled at him some more and he finally gave up cause this kid wouldn't stop crying. So he made him scoop tears off his face and put them in his pockets till he filled his pockets up with tears. He did this for like an hour. It was hilarious. racorr92
Polite Conversation....
Giphy
Not a DI but I enjoyed watching this happen. On hikes my DI's loved having conversations using the recruits as messengers. The DI at the end of the formation would send a recruit to the front to give the DI up there a message and back. They would either have stupid conversations or talk trash using the recruit. riceindabowl
