If you are struggling, please see the suicide prevention numbers at the bottom of this post.

If you are looking for Story of the Year and other type posts, links are at the bottom of this post.

Happy August! Below are the monthly winners for last month.

Before we get into that, /u/BikerJedi was speaking with some admins and as a result of that, /r/MilitaryStorieswould like to do a charity...

Hey! Me again, lest you think that all NCOs are a particular way, I'm gonna share a story where, had it not been inappropriate, I would have kissed my NCO.

No bullshit, there we were in Kosovo, about three weeks after the first US forces entered from Macedonia, so I'm thinking early July? Anyway, hot as balls. Now I'm the commander of a small public affairs unit, 5 of us in total. I'm an Army...

True Iraq Confessions

I have a deployment confession to make. A long time ago while deployed in 2009, I was with my platoon stationed at FOB Marez outside Mosul, Iraq. During that time, we were forward deployed to an Iraqi Prison to support an Iraqi Police company there along with patrolling outlying villages.

One evening, while reading a book on my time off, I was interrupted by a loud banging on...

Scene: A very small FOB (1 battalion, plus some assorted foreign SF types and whatnot, edge of the green zone circa 2007).

Personnel: SPC Type, 1 / ea, NorCal; LTC Type, 0.5 / ea, let's call him Napoleon.

We got 1 day "off" per week to do laundry, get haircuts, etc, but were still expected to monitor comms (maintenance, recovery crew + QRF on occasion). Small squad at the time meant there was...

Well, I had originally posted this as a comment on r/Army and it seems to have entertained people, so I decided to share it here, because I didn't know there was a /MilitaryStories ...

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This is the event (one of them at least) that made me seriously consider getting out of the Army. In 1999, I was a captain, and a fairly new Public Affairs Officer, have been an enlisted MP, a FA lieutenant, and...

Another tale from me, taking place in a particular interesting time - evaluation period. Names and locations have been fudged and obfuscated, with some embellishments thrown in the mix, to preserve anonymity.

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Yep, it was fun and games alright.

All 'pathfinders'were to be sent out for a mandatory navigation exercise within a week after arriving at our exercise area. That...

When i was doing my NS (93 - 95), our unit got to go to aus for Ex Matilda. For context whenever we go for overseas training, ususally its by chartered flight for whole battlion ( no need for passport)This time, only my co is going so went by commerci flight SQ (still no passport needed but approved by higher author.) When we reach aus immigration counter, the officier asked the 1st person for his...

(Re-post cuz i wasnt paying attention to what day it was)

We were doing about a week long field thing. They were testing the engineers more, infantry was just there pulling security all the time. I couldn't complain though, it was fun. Besides helping put up concertina wire (I know that's not how it's spelled but you get it).

One night around 1900 I'm sitting behind my 240 thinking about good...

First post got removed

So one day in basic training I had 5 blisters (because of those bricks for boots) they issue us to train in, I was sobbing and my drills take notice and ask why I’m crying. It’s a shock they cared enough to ask. Anyways I was crying and they insist about looking at how damaged my feet were. They conclude that my blisters need to be drained bandaged. (They being two male...

Today I had one of the most bizarre and hilarious experiences of my life as the Urinalysis Observer at the Military Entrance Processing Station. The procedure SOP specifically states that males must drop their pants and underwear below their knees and lift their shirts to their chests during the urinalysis process. Well, today, around ten males decided to show up with a vengeance and taught me the...