My favorite “military guys have no shame” stories came from my old tank unit at NTC in 99. We had one tank driver who was spotted abusing himself in the driver’s compartment during live fire, and another who complained that he couldn’t finish because his tank commander kept giving him orders to drive to different places. “So I’d be about to finish, then the TC would say, ‘Driver, back up!’, and I’d have to put it away and start over when we stopped.”

Then there was the very calm, very religious guy on my crew, who was engaged and didn’t partake in the usual guy banter about women. One morning about two weeks into our NTC rotation, he was sitting in the driver’s hole with the hatch open, staring intently at a Hustler magazine. The look on his face was almost pained. I climbed off the tank to grab a hammer from the next tank, about 75 meters away. When I got back the guy was laid back in the driver’s seat, eyes closed, with the Hustler thrown on the front slope. He looked totally relaxed. I asked, “Dude, what’d you do? I was only gone like two minutes!” He answered, without opening his eyes, “I beat off, man. Dang, that was good.”

You have no idea how much I love this story. I have a story but not combat related. I was a prior enlisted 2LT Weapons platoon commander for 2/3 Echo Co based in HI. While deployed on the Belleau Wood for the 31st Meu our Battalion went to Pohang Korea for Foal Eagle (computer simulated combat at the Flag officer level). The company grade officers from my battalion were put in GP tents and were the keyboard pushers for the Flag officers. It was actually a very educational exercise, but we were fucking pissed off. Anyway, an Infantry Officer I went to IOC with, who was a plt commander for a different company in 2/3, was in the rack right next to me. Every night he would go, “Dalton, I need to take care of my body, put your headphones on.” Solid Motherfucker.
Semper Fi.

In Marine boot camp we were told if the DIs ever asked for volunteers, the whole platoon better raise their hands. Then toward the end one of the DIs from another platoon asked for volunteers, a bunch of guys charged forward with raised hands, and the DI trashed them while telling them, “This is the Marine Corps, you NEVER volunteer!”

One day I had a cramp at home, my wife ran to the kitchen and came back with a banana which she tried to cram in my mouth.

Hopefully it wasn’t some kind of a sexual thing…