Jake No Shoulders(aka Snake)

[BMT (RIP)]

We haven't saw too many Jake stories. I know somewhere in this bunch of QP's there has to be a funny snake story.
:munchin
BMT

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

Got a bunch! The first one is from Ranger School in 1965. I was paired up with a Thai Officer as my Ranger Buddy and when we got to the Florida Phase we went thru the orientation about all the little critters that lived in swamps and how to deal with them, etc. They sat us down in a small amphitheater like arrangement under a couple of cargo chute canopies in several concentric semi-circles with the instructor in front and one large alligator called "Old One-eye" tied to a large tree stump. For some reason a major media station was there to film this portion of the course so there were cameras running and everyone was sort of on their best behaviour. The instructor had gone thru all the plants and it was time to talk about "jake" and show the numerous varities that inhabit the swamp. They broke out all the venemous ones first-rattlers, coral snake, copperheads and the ever present water moccassins. Then they broke out about 20 vareities of the more common ones we would run into and to prove that they were all just normal critters that were basically harmless they would talk about one, then pass it to the first student in the first row, who then make his aquaintences with that particular jake and would pass him to tne next student and so it would go from student to student with all the cameras running enthusiastically. Well not everyone is comfortable with jake and so some folks would squeeze him a little, others would damn near toss him like a hot potato to the next person who, in some cases, would have to recapture him in mid air, and others would sort of tenatively grab him up behind the head while others would grab him anywhere they could just to meet the requirement and pass him on. Now as you can imagine, there was not a lot of chatter going on. About half way thru this exercise a hand shot up in the back row of Ranger Students and the Ranger Instructor just sort of ignores him but because of all the cameras focused on the student he finally bellows out, "What's your question, Ranger". "I know these snakes are our friends and all, and that they rarely bite unless taunted..", the kid blurted out rather nervously. "Get on with it Ranger, you are wasting my time and we have more snakes to cover", responded the rather perturbed instructor. "Clear, Sgt", replied the Ranger, who then responded as he raised his forearm revealing a 4 foot black racer suspended from his other arm that he had latched on to with a rather strong bite and simultaneously asking"How do I get him to let go?" Now the cameras loved this, because here was this "harmless" snake trying to take a portion of the kids arm, my Ranger buddy-who was holding his snake to pass to me squeezed the crap out him making old jake really pissed and passed him snapping to me, and the medics who had nothing else to do so far were in hog heaven because they had a casualty to treat, and the rest of us just started to laugh our asses off which got "Old One-eye" aroused.

[Spartan359]

I'm no QP but I'll give it a shot. I was in Singapore once and a few of my buddies and I decided to check out this reptile zoo they had on the western side of the island. After walking around in that humidity for too long and seeing some weird fish I hope I never run into in the wild (like a South American fish that swallows chickens....WHOLE!), we found the King Cobra Show. Bought our tickets and waited. The show starts and the host starts talking about Cobras. When he finished he calls out for the snake. When this snake is called out, it is being carried by FOUR men. They plopped it down on the ground and it did its snake thing. The host explained to us that this particular Cobra was 4 meters long. :eek: For all you non-believers I'll find my pictures. But anyways the host says he's going to show the audience how to charm a Cobra. And to show off his skills he wanted a volunteer from the stands to be in front of this cobra while he charms it. I'm thinking to myself "There ain't no fucking way". The host picks a man out and calls him down to the stage floor. As usual this poor bastard has to introduce himself to the audience and by the look on his face you could tell he was trying to hide his fear. So after the brief intro the host gets out his little flute and attempts to charm this huge bitch. Did I mention it was 4 meters long? Anywho the guy form the stands is doing a good job and standing still. I think his fear kicked in. But about that time this damn snake decides to stand up. Now this guy had so be about 6 feet tall and this damn snake is staring at him in the eyes about 4 feet away! :eek: Then the man promptly pissed himself and left a huge puddle on the floor. Now everyone is laughing at this man and the charmer is trying to calm him down. I guess the snake had no sense of humor because I think all the noise everyone was making by laughing at the man pissed it off because it started to chase the charmer and the snake handling crew all over the stage floor! I really don't know what happened after that because I didn't stick around to get bitten by a huge fucking snake.

[Roguish Lawyer]

LOL -- keep 'em coming!

[jatx]

ROFLMAO :D

[Bravo1-3]

I spent some time stationed at a Comm Facility in Capas Tarlac in the PI. Our facility was nothing more than an 880 Acre oval shaped field with a single building near the gate, and another small cluster of buildings in the center of the field. The place was lousy with cobras and poison toads. We all got T-shirts that said "USNRTF Capas Tarlac, 880 Acres of Snakes".

In addition to the Marine Detachment, we had a bunch of DoD Police who stood watch at fixed posts around the facility. They were managed by a post called 4-Bravo. 4-Bravo was a 24 hour watch in a locked room. Radio traffic would get pretty funny with 4-Bravo as the day progressed. The post was always manned by some PO-3/Jr. E-4 Electrician or Radioman whose only brieifing was "Don't let anyone but the CDO in, hand out the shotguns and .38's when the DoD guards show up, take them back in in the morning."

So one night, around 0300 we're out on patrol on the east side of the field when the DoD Guard on the west side calls in:

"4-Bra-bo, Pa-trol seben. Be advise, der is cobra. Request pair-meeshan to shoot. O-bear."

This poor kid in 4-Bravo had to be sitting there sleeping in his chair or something. If he'd been awake, he'd have told Patrol 7 to hit it with a rock or something. Instead the reply is "Roger"

The CDO is the next guy on the net yelling to patrol-7 not to shoot, but Patrol-7 couldn't hear it over the gunfire. :D

My patrol is 3/4 of a mile away and could hear all of the shooting. I was expecting a shot or two, but he emptied his .38, then the shotgun, reloaded both and emptied them again... slow fire... like one round per second. :D There was no snake, or even a puddle that used to be a snake there when the sun came up. I don't doubt that there was a snake (we had probably killed 3 of them already that night... with rocks), but I did doubt his marksmanship.

[Sacamuelas]

LOL

[brewmonkey]

We were on the BMP at Ft. Irwin (Visually Modified M-551 Sheridans) in the middle of a Regimental attack of Blueforce and my vehicle was in the CRP. It was my vehicle, another BMP and a T-80 leading the entire attack of 200 vehicles and we were given the task of moving East from Chinamens hat to the Rockpile/Iron Triangle and then clearing out the race track.

Now the racetrack is not some little dirt track like you would think it is. It is oval but it is down in a wash that is about 1/2 mile around and has a little railroad track running around the bottom of it. During WWII Patton used it for moving target practice but now it was over grown and made a great place to drop the BMP's in and fight from. You had defilade and the ability to move 360 and shoot em up.

So we dropped in and I had my driver cut to the right so we could head around and clear the other side. It took a few minutes too root out the stray crunchies but as soon as we did I had my driver pull the front of the vehicle straight up against the wall facing to the east so we coud pull overwatch.

Now, we are all set and I am on the radio giving a SITREP to Regiment and I hear the drivers hatch open. Not uncommon during movement when we stop for short periods for the drivers to get out of the vehicle and check suspension and belly plates for leaks. Only I never see my driver come out of the hatch.

All of the sudden I hear him screaming like someone is beating the shit out of him and then I feel the entire protective cage that is in the turret shaking. I swear the boy was moving so violently that he had 17 tons rocking on its shocks. So I pop down into the turret to see whats up because he is not answering me on the intercom and there he is, sitting down and kicking his feat wildly and trying to claw his way through the screens to get into the turret. I pull out the cotter pins holding them in place and yank out the nearest screen and as I barely have it out of the wat he squeezes himself through the little opening.

The whole time I am trying to figure out WTF is going on and I look down in the drivers hatch and see the biggest sidewinder I have ever seen. Apparently what happened is when we pulled up against the wall we knocked it off whatever it was sunning on and onto the front deck. As he was driving buttoned up it was now blocking his vision blocks. He thought we had broken a branch of a creosote bush and had opened the hatch to brush it away and as he did the snake fell into the drivers hatch with him. The screaming I had heard was partly him screaching at the snake and partly at me to turn the turret so he could get into it and away from the snake.

When I figured out what was going on of course we all had a good laugh but the best thing of all was that my gunner had slept through the entire thing, sitting right there in the gunners chair with his CVC on and cranked, snoring away... :confused:

[Charlie765]

When I was going thru IOBC we had a TAC NCO who was deathly afraid of snakes. Anytime we were in the field he'd have his stick to beat the bushes anywhere there might be one hiding. Whenever we broke for lunch he would eat his and take a nap (after checking for snakes in the immediate vicinity). His favorite way of getting us moving again after waking up was to throw an artillery simulator and a CS grenade into the middle of us, upon which we'd have to mask, then doubletime out of the area (usually for several hundred meters). I didn't mention this was in the middle of a balmy Ft Benning summer. One of my classmates finally decided it was about time for a little payback. He managed to get the TAC's gasmask out of his carrier while he was napping and stuffed a rubber snake inside and replaced it, all without waking the TAC. We were all sitting around watching him when he awoke from his nap, looked around to make sure we were all there, then tossed a CS grenade into the thickest part of the platoon. He grabbed his gas mask and almost got the straps over his head before he realized he had company, whereupon he let out a scream reminescent of a very young girl and slung his gas mask to hell and gone into the bushes, just as the CS cloud arrived. We promptly moved out at a double time and cleared the area. He eventually found his gas mask and caught up with us. The next few days were more interesting than usual, but it was well worth it.
PS: We didn't have any more after lunch gas attacks after that.