What are friends for?

[Sionnach]

I was looking for a "Derka Derka Derka" shirt, and found this story on RangerUp.com. Those of you who enjoyed sending FNG's to S4 for squelch, chemlight rechargers, and boxes of grid squares will get a kick out of this.

http://www.rangerup.com/wharefrfo.html

[Monsoon65]

Now that's funny! I have to remember that next time some friends go to the sandbox.

[Beach Bum]

That was funny! :eek: I'm wondering what Will has plotted as payback for his friend Nick?

[Firebeef]

that was a good one....and will be hard to top, so I'm not going to try and top it, but just relay a humorous story that happened to me in Ranger School, at the hands and mercy of one of our very own.....SGM Abu Jack!!

Ranger class 6-96. early March 1996. After 2 <much> earlier attempts at gaining the coveted Ranger Tab, I was finally allowed to attend said course, with the caveat:
if you recycle or drop ANYWHERE along the road to graduation, come home, do not pass the recycle shack, do not collect the Tab!

seems we were heading to a Baltic entity about 2 weeks after class 6-96 was scheduled to graduate, and I just HAD to be there....or so they said.

In march 96, i was a 39 year old 18E SFC. I had a ton of good advice from a good buddy that had just recently undergone RGR school. I showed up very low key.... I have always been kinda blessed that I don't look my age, but even so, at 39, when you're surrounded by a bunch of 18 and 19 year old Batt boys, and a whole gaggle of rosy cheeked 2LTs.....you kinda tend to stand out. I had gotten a whole bunch of faded but servicable sterile BDUs, and made extra sure that there weren't any thread trails from SF or RGR or ABN tabs, or any scroll or Arrowhead shaped old patch marks. I was going to try my best to NOT let anyone know what unit I came from, and when a couple guys in chow lines or whatever asked where I was from I said "Ft Carson" and they usually let it go at that.

By day 3 or 4, I was doing pretty good at remaining clandestine. This is the part where Abu Jacks evil plot came into play.

Anyone who attended RGR school in the late 80s to the mid 90s should remember a rather colorful RI named SFC Grenier in Benning phase. It seems that a long time before this, in a galaxy far, far away, Abu Jack was one of SFC Greniers chogey boys in Hawaii. They remained friends, and I guess every so often Abu Jack would serve up SFC Grenier some fresh <not so> young meat on a platter for shits and grins....I digress
SFC Grenier was a cartoon character from Hell. He looked every bit the part of of a rock-hard, full of twisted-steel-and-sex-appeal hard-asssed Ranger that he truly was. He had the squarest jaw, flattest Hi n Tight, big arms stretching his BDUs, he usually had a 5o'clock shadow at 0900, and usually could be seen or smelled from afar by an ever present stogie hangin out of his mouth. He had a gravelly beloowing voice ...... one would call it a command voice for sure. I'm sure he hadn't been asked to speak up since he was about 4 years old. He always had his dogs in tow, I seem to remember a yellow Lab and a Sheperd.

We were standing in formation at CIF, and as usually happens in these kinds of schools, you get marched somewheres, the guy marching you gives you "At ease" and dissapears inside, and the formation stands there for 15-20 minutes with no freeking idea what might happen next....or when. We didn't have to wait long this time tho. From a couple blocks away, you could hear this gravelly voice screaming some obscenities about a bunch of "punk-ass wanna be Rangers" the 2 dogs arrived before the voice, and someone petted one of the dogs, and we heard "keep your f*&^ing hands off my dogs sweet pea!! I don't want my mutts catching fleas from any of you scumbags" Then suddenly he was standing there, all 6'2" of this hard core lookin Ranger screaming and cursing at us....."you think you want to be a Ranger???, my 80 year old Grandmother is harder than any of you scumbags" (he was probably right!!) He went on rambling about we didn't know jack scheisse about the world and the Army, and we were all going to end up in a pile of bodies in Bosnia or Saudi Arabia someday, because we didn't deserve the right to be called Americans, or soldiers.... we were gonna be the death of the United States and give away all our freedoms handed us by our forefathers because we weren't hard enough to be Infantry....let alone Rangers.... on and on.... you get the idea.... when he started going on a tirade about "them God-damn pretty boy, green hat wearin' sonsobitches, who think TDY is a God given right, and won't go anywheres unless a Ranger Batt has cleared an LZ....

and all of a sudden he goes: .... "and is there somebody out there named ___more???" (my last name)...... I was dumbfounded...my cover was being blown, and if Abu Jack had been there right then we woulda been nose to nose........... he cursed: "I said.....is there one of them no good f'ing Green Beret wearing assholes named ___more out there?" he bellowed...... I had no choice, "here Sergeant" i replied..... "well, sweet-pea, get your no good, green hat wearing, lazy, TDY suckin-up self out here before I turn you in for wearing pink panties and an ethics violation" he screams.
So, I run up to the front of the formation, assume the parade rest position, and I had one of the all time best ass chewings I had ever had. He musta gone on for close to 10 minutes. I couldn't possibly remember all the insults and epitaths I and my family were called, but at some point I could no longer keep from grinning..... then SFC Grenier started grinning, and the ass chewing got harder and louder. He made sure everyone within a 3 grid square area knew that I was an E-7, Special Forces, Green Beret scumbag, all my fellow students, and the rest of the cadre that assembled during this spectacle that was unfolding. (I'm sure people followed SFC Grenier around a lot just to see what just might happen NEXT!!)

Point of the story, my cover was blown, and I was outted for the duration of the course. SFC Grenier watched over me after that, and actually stood on my gut, smoking a cigar, while I was performing flutter kicks when we were back in Benning 2 months later just prior to graduation! yes, I graduated,
1 shot-1 kill. There were other stories I could tell about being a FOG in Ranger school, but those are best told over Bier and schnapps at 0330.

Thanks Abu Jack!! Payback's a-comin..... when you least expect it!! heheee!

[Sdiver]

Funny story D.

But.......

In march 96, I was a 39 year old

If you were 39 in 96....and it's 2007 now.....that must make you.....























.....really old. :D :lifter :munchin

[Abu Jack]

Firebeef,
As I recall, I was just asking one old friend to look out for another "old" friend. Did you go before or after Gordy?
Abu Jack

[82ndtrooper]

"Sent to look for grid squares"....................that's hillarious !!

[Firebeef]

yeah Abu, I went after Gordy. he was 1-96 I think
and yeah Sdiver, I'm a FOG, but I can still kick your butt.....providing I can find my bifocals and find your ass!

lol

[Karl.Masters]

FB,

Great story:D

Going straight through the course and tabbing out makes you a man among men-IIRC only about 50 of our 300 graduated in the same class they started in. How much weight did you lose?

Karl

[Firebeef]

Thanks....shucks it weren't nuffin... my ASS! LOL
SFAS sucked. the Q course was really, really hard
Ranger school put the uhh in the Suck!!

It seems that I somehow remember that about roughly the same amount of first time miracles graduated with our original class.
I weighed in right around 180 (at 5'7") when I left Ft Carson. The first time I got to weigh myself, I got taken into a clinic a Camp Rudder 2 days before that was over because of cellulitis, i ate a whole MRE.....uninterrupted.... ahhhh heaven .....and jumped on a scale and I weighed 147. (I went back out in the field, even tho the doc told me I could stay til ENDEX....shoot, after all that BS and harassment, there was no freekin way I wasn't gonna be at the final equipment check and AAR!!) Didn't really weigh myself again til i was home. Funny, I stayed at around 168 lbs for 2 and 1/2 months after that, I could (and did) eat anything not nailed down or crawling, and couldn't gain weight for nuffin!! Just when I though I musta ingested a tapeworm, in the course of about 3 days I had a gut and chipmunk cheeks.

[Firebeef]

But at least nobody sent me a choclate Dildo!!!!!
..... you gotta love that story!!
But, by the middle of Swamp phase, I don't know about anyone else.... but I woulda eaten it!!