Funny True Story from Vietnam SOG teams....

[obd]

I was reading a book on SOG teams in Vietnam and came across a real jewel of a funny story. It stood out for me because there really are only a few of these light hearted moments in a sea of sorrow for the men of SOG, whose casualty rates exceeded 100%.

The story begins upon insertion into Camobodia to seek out and pinpoint a major supply base known (which means "thought") to be in the area. The one-zero (team leader) inserts and leads men in a five day search of the area but finds absolutely nothing. Extremely frustrated at the waste of time they come across a single hootch with a brand new bicycle next to it. Now in Vietnam, the bicycle was and still is as common as the car in modern day US but to find a brand new one with a nice red paintjob was rare indeed!!

Seeing as they were in a free fire "it moves it dies" zone, the SOG leader saw no problem with taking the bike as a nice souviner seeing as he wasnt concerned about hearts and minds in the middle of Cambodia and the bike likely belonged to a "helo spotter" who would often perch up in a tree and listen for American Kingbees or Hues and then bike off to reports the SOG team landing...These helo spotters could be found all over Combodia/Vietnam/Laos and didnt necesarrily mean a nearby base needing protecting. It was just an effective early warning platform the NVA/VC used all over the place......

The team waited for the man to return for his bike so they could capture him but he never arrived and they deciced to exfil and take his new bike as a SOG "f uck you" to the NVA/VC of the area. Before they left, they ****ytrapped the entrance to the hooch just in case the dirtbag decided to come back in a few days.....

When radioing for extraction the team was asked if they had found the base. The team leader replied, sarcasticaly, "no, but we found a shiny red bicycle and we are going to bring it back." The radio operator back at home base was amazed and shocked and told the A-team to hold on and they would have fast mover air cover, cobra gunships, and slicks in 15 minutes and not to let anything happen to the "new bike".

The A team leader, now really pissed off, said "well Im ready to get home so if you guys dont get hear fast I'm gonna throw this damn bike in the river and you can get it yourselves. Exasperated, the man on the other end of the radio told the A team "Do not let that bike out of your sight!!!". Confused, the leader gave a "roger" and joked about somebody taking one too many caffiene pills. Just to be sure they checked thier code books but found no reference to a "new bike" code for anything.......

Sure enough, soon after the air cover arrived in the form of F4 phantoms, Skyraiders, Skyhawks, Cobra gunships, Huey gunships, and huey slicks... The A team was utterly amazed as they had called for a cold extract and couldnt understand why half the US air force had arrived to support thier extraction...

One of the helocopters landed a few hundred yards away and so the team decided to leave the bike and rush to the helo as it was still a very dangerous area and they could come under fire at any time from lurking VC attracted to all the US firepower now over the area.

Upon reaching the helocopter without the "new bicycle" they were asked where it was. The team leader replied, "I left the ****ing thing back there, it wasnt worth hauling it the hundred yards over here". The Colonel in the helo ordered him to go back and secure the bicycle or he and his entire team would be courts martialed.

At that point, the team leader realized he was being yelled at by a full colonel and no colonel had ever come on an extraction, much less on a secret extraction in Cambodia. They hadnt come under fire yet so he obeyed and ran back for the bike. When he got back to the helo the Colonel shouted, "what in the hell is that??". "Its the ****ing bike you wanted so damn bad Colonel. I ran all the way back to get it and now its all yours. I hope your happy. Jesus, its a new bike and all but its nothing compared to a Schwin".

It turns out, the radio operator on the other end was using the wrong code book. When the A-team reported they had found a "new bicycle" he had failed to pick up the sarcasm over the radio and looked it up as a code. Sure enough in his code book, "new bicylce" was secret code for "enemy Four star General". So for a period of about 30 minutes, the United Stated thought it had captured an NVA four star general in Cambdio and sent everything it could to the area to secure it.....Instead they got a shiny red bike, a confused and angry A-team, and a really embarrassed radio operator with a destroyed carreer.... Pretty damn funy if you ask me.

Anybody else got some true funny stories? I have read some pretty damn funny SAS **** ups along the same lines as the above but havnt had any new ones for years. Any of you brits got some?.......

[Nizark]

hahahahaha thats f_uckin great! Military lingo at its best

[California Joe]

How do you exceed 100%?

[mocking_loudly_died]

How do you exceed 100%?

rofl

[Trident-za]

Was that a serious question, Joe? I can't figure out if you're being sarcastic or not....

Anyway... say you have a 10 man team. Each person gets wounded 3 times during the tour - technically, your casaulty rate is 300%. At least, I think thats how it would work. Kind of weird, though.

[obd]

Yes thats correct. Virtually every member of SOG was wounded more than ounce. Many were wounded several times. Remmember a casualty is not necesarrily a death. SOG units faced some of the highest rates of attrition ever recorded by any military unit over a period of time with an over 100% casualty rate due to thier exceedingly dangerous work.

My buddies father in high school, also my math teacher for a semester, was a green beret who fought along the "parrots beak" near Cambodian border. He was approached to join SOG but had already heard it was a virtual deathtrap so turned it down.......After many questions from classmates he decided to have a "vietnam day" where he would bring in momentos and photo albums and such about his days there. He brought in a captured vietnamese flag, some captured maps and such, and a lot of really great pics of himself and his Green Beret freinds.

Interestingly, he said this was the first time since he got back from Vietnam that anyone had expressed interest in his past in Vietnam outside his family. He said he was so used to having to hide the fact that he fought there not because he was Green Beret but because he would get cursed at as a "baby killer" by suppossed US citizens. He thanked the class as it was I guess a big relief to him that people wanted ot hear about his stories and expressed no anger of hostility towards him over it. I really think it was a big day for him. I guess some people are still dealing with the ghosts of vietnam......

[Early Chow Recruit]

Was never in SOG but I was in an Anti Tank TOW hummer during the 1st Gulf live fire and POW collection exercise and here is one of my stories.

0330, dark as a black steers ass on a moonless night and I happen to be the reject on watch with one of the only thermal sights in our section. Our position is about 3 miles south of the Kuwait border, it is the same week of the air war that the kafji incident took place and there is an almost constant rumble in the distance from exploding crap. As a young Lance Corporal raised on **** like Platoon and John Wayne all I can think of is waves of ninja like dudes assaulting our position accompanied by thrilling music.

TOW is a neat system, it fires a large wire guided missile with a range of 3750m designed to turn tanks into dust. The longer the shot the more acurate it is due to missile stabilization and tracking. This wonder weapon started its life equiped with a day sight and is comfortable to use while tracking and engaging targets. Like all good weapon systems it evolved into a night fighter and was equiped with a thermal sight that attatches to the top of the day sight. The thermal sight includes a rubber eye cup that requires the gunner to press his face against the sight to open the rubber aperature (to ensure light discepline). Due to the thermal sights location while tracking it is easy to depress the tube leading to the gunner looking at an area much closer than one would think as well as making the operating levers harder to reach. The thermal sight itself is a loud clattering piece of gear that provided a red/black contrast of heat signatures. This in mind here we go.

While on watch it is impossible to keep ones eye pressed against the thermal sight for 2 hours so you scan, take a break scan ect. About an hour into my watch I was cold as hell with a headache and comencing my next scan. Holy sheep **** there in the thermal sight I see 4 crouched figures heading toward our position in deliberate bounding type of kill all Americans starting with Lcpl me style of movement. Not wanting to take my eye out of the sight I started reaching around for the radio handset to report this human wave attack and proceed to drop the handset into the hummer. Now on to plan B, I reach under the missile to raise the arming lever but I'm having a hard time raising it to the armed position all the time keeping the cross hairs on the lead bad guy. I figured that if I turned him to paste with a large anti tank missile that would buy me enough time to retrive my SAW and mow down the other three guys who would be illuminated by their buddys smoking boots. Right before I got the arming lever to the up position the 4 bad guys suddenly FLEW in different directions! I pulled my head back and realised that I was looking about 100 yards in front of my hummer at 4 little desert birds. I still can't imagine the **** I would have gotten in if I would have launched a TOW at 4 freakin birds.

Sempre Fi
Clint

[obd]

Here is a funny one regarding the SAS:

During one mission in Oman an SAS team captured a few weapons, mostly old Ak's and some Sk's. During the mission, one of the SAS troopers slipped and severely broke the two middle fingers on his right hand.

After the mission, they had a photograph taken of the SAS trooper, his broken fingers, and the captured weapons. Shortly after the photo was taken, an aircraft was slotted to pick up the injured trooper and take him to hospital where his hand could be put back in order.

Upon landing, the rescue aircraft damaged its landing gear on the ruff and soft runway and had to be moved off the landing strip. A helocopter was sent in to sky hook the damaged aircraft off the runway but as the aircraft was being sky hooked away from the area it became unstable so a fighter aircraft in the area was diverted to see if the pilot might possibly be able to see what was wrong. Obviously the fighter aircraft was going too fast to see anything and coudlnt lower his speed enough to be of any use so the fighter pilot abandoned the effort and headed home.

Well, the oscillations of the unstable aircraft were tearing the helo apart so the crew decided to drop it and write it off as a combat lose. At the same time as the fighter aircraft was returning to base it suffered a bird strike and the pilot had to eject. In total the bill ran into several millions of pounds as the British desperately tried to rescue thier broken fingered SAS trooper.

Eventually the trooper was driven to hospital in a Land Rover.

[anonymous individual]

I heard this story once along time ago.

[anonymous individual]

Here is a funny one regarding the SAS:

During one mission in Oman an SAS team captured a few weapons, mostly old Ak's and some Sk's. During the mission, one of the SAS troopers slipped and severely broke the two middle fingers on his right hand.

After the mission, they had a photograph taken of the SAS trooper, his broken fingers, and the captured weapons. Shortly after the photo was taken, an aircraft was slotted to pick up the injured trooper and take him to hospital where his hand could be put back in order.

Upon landing, the rescue aircraft damaged its landing gear on the ruff and soft runway and had to be moved off the landing strip. A helocopter was sent in to sky hook the damaged aircraft off the runway but as the aircraft was being sky hooked away from the area it became unstable so a fighter aircraft in the area was diverted to see if the pilot might possibly be able to see what was wrong. Obviously the fighter aircraft was going too fast to see anything and coudlnt lower his speed enough to be of any use so the fighter pilot abandoned the effort and headed home.

Well, the oscillations of the unstable aircraft were tearing the helo apart so the crew decided to drop it and write it off as a combat lose. At the same time as the fighter aircraft was returning to base it suffered a bird strike and the pilot had to eject. In total the bill ran into several millions of pounds as the British desperately tried to rescue thier broken fingered SAS trooper.

Eventually the trooper was driven to hospital in a Land Rover.

rofl rofl rofl