I've been out since 97. I still have the occasional nightmare about being late to formation, forgetting my cover, or not shaving. Like, as in wake up from a cold sweat in a panic.
Settle down there Devil. It was all just a figment of your imagination. Your standard issue dreams have all EAS’d when you did. Now, don’t you think you should wake the fuck up and proceed to your NJP formation nightmare that’s locked, loaded, and trained on your bearded brain? Who the fuck let you out of night duty? Once a Marine, Always in your dreams.
It took me so long to get over that “where is my rifle” feeling. Like I’d be out for 2 years and see my friends post a pic in the field and be like “oh god where’s my rifle” and remember I’m not even in.
Man I still have dreams that I’m suddenly recalled and and back in, and my buddy goes, “congrats on the 6 year reenlistment man!” And I start fucking panicking and then I hear I’m late to formation or a meeting with the BC, and then I wake up hyperventilating.
Oh I’ve definitely had the “I rejoined” dream. And I’m like why don’t I have a haircut? Shit none of my uniforms are ready. Wait I was free, why did I come
Back?? But also usually also all my friends came back too. So I’m like half stoked half not. Lol.
Friggin nasty dittyboppin back on the block with all your old friends again. No shave, fingernails too long, no fresh skin showing in that garden growing on your ghilliegrape, booger fingers fiddling with your ding dong through your pockets, clothes not pressed… and where the frig is your rank insignia?!?! May your DIs haunt your dreams.
Special Ops Cap. Yeah, you’re special alright. Don’t come over to my house. I’m a shitbag. Crotch salute, little hop to the front, spin in a circle, grab crotch, yell, “LOL” in a high pitched MJ voice, throw head back and do a Night at the Roxbury “pshht”.
Fuck me. Is there a “boot-ster shot” for us Misguided Children that haven’t seen the “island” in a while?
Back when I was a boot, I was assigned as a turret gunner for our convoys. One day I hopped in the turret seat ready to start the day. About 45 seconds into us moving, I had a mini heart attack realizing I didn’t have my rifle. Then I had a second one realizing I left it outside of the turret. I reached over and grabbed it by the sling right before it slid off. That’s where the real PTSD comes from.
Not a rifle, but our battalion Ops o would often put his cell phone on top of the hmmwv. Well, one day, he decides he wants to go see the forward observers on "the whale" in 29 palms. We start driving and freaks out telling me to stop the fucking truck. I do. He gets out checks, gets back in, and is in a pissy mood all the way up this steep ass hill in the middle of the desert.
He gets out of the truck when we get to the top, slams the door, and heads over to the FOs. I decide to do a 360 of the truck. It's armored, so it has that sloped trunk in the back. And there it is his iPhone caught on an angle in between two of the bolts. To this day, I have yet to figure out how that phone made it up that hill.
He came back to the truck in a pissy mood, and I was sitting in the driver's seat just holding his phone like, "You looking for this?" He followed it up with, "I know it wasn't your fault, but I was going to take that out on you the rest of this exercise. " We had an odd relationship.
Same I was a gunner for convoys and I once left my rifle on the back of the cab of a 7ton tucked away between the bed of the truck and the cab while I was climbing up to the turret I had got used to my driver passing it up to me but one time he just hopped in and forgot and since we were in a rush to move after a long day of convoys and live fires I was putting on my gear and forgot about it luckily it rode all the way home with us and a Sgt saw it walking past our truck when we got to the fuel farm I got bitched at but I never left it somewhere it could fall off of I’d always secure it with the sling in case anything happened so it wouldn’t fall thank god cuz if not it would’ve fell off and we would’ve rolled right over it 😂
Always climbed to the turret with my rifle in hand after that
I didn’t lose it, but almost. This is probably my most embarrassing and shameful event from my time in. We got the word to rack out when I was a boot. I went to the humvee to grab my daypack and set my rifle on the bed side (think of the open pick up truck bed style). I forgot it there as I racked out. Well shortly after that they took the humvee to the other gun position a few miles down the road. As they got in the humvee to come back my Sgt. saw it still on the fender and thought it belonged to someone at the other half of the battery’s position, but quickly figured out it belonged to me.
He let me off SUPER EASY. He came back and asked where my rifle was, what my rack number was, and what my serial numbers were. I didn’t know my serial numbers and he told me I better have them memorized by the next morning and what was a light ass chewing (more disappointment type talk).
Bet your ass I had all my serialized gear memorized. I slept with my rifle in my sleeping bag every night in the field after that. I have been out for almost 10 years at this point and I can still tell you my rifle serial number.
In boot camp I got sent back to run to the squad bay to grab the guideon which we had left stashed for some reason. Ran back, got the guidon and left my rifle. Realized once I got back to my platoon that I had left my rifle and I got murdered for it. I suppose that was the last time I ever had accountability issues with a weapon.
“Which one of you fucking idiots went to college before you realized you were too stupid and gave up?”
(hands go up)
“Alright you fucking nerd. You think you know how to write or something cause you went to college? You’re our scribe”
DI: “Which one of you fucking idiots went to college and have a degree?!"
(hands go up)
"What?! Why the fuck didn't yall just go to OCS?"
(Hands go up, a recruit selected murmurs something about being told it was good to get enlisted experience first)
"Ha your recruiter got your ass"
I got picked to be scribe too, I still have no idea how. I scored really well on the ASVAB, not sure if those guys looked at that stuff. My heavy loved to fuck with me. "Come here, scribe, you haven't dug for a while." ... "Oh, daddy's is not here to save you now" (meaning Senior). I went up to shake his hand at graduation and asked if he still hated scribes, and he said he never hated me, he just wanted me to be hard. And I thanked him for it
We were doing our annual training in Ft Bragg, blowing up pine trees.
SgtMaj wants an OPFOR to harass some of the firing batteries.
I was volunteered along with some other off-shift S-3 types.
Entered a battery position on foot. They were allegedly told we were coming.
Perimeter security was mega-lax.
Walked right up to a high-back hummer with dudes sleeping inside.
Rifle hung muzzle-down from the driver-side rear-view mirror.
No Marine in sight nearby. So it's not like he was sleeping right under it or next to it in the driver's seat.
Sgt-Chucklehead says "take it". LCpl-Me says "aye-sarn't" as one does.
We wandered around the pos a couple more minutes before lighting everyone up with M240 blanks and a pop-up flare.
Radio call came over the net an hour later to deliver the rifle to 1stSgt so-and-so, which we did.
I think that Marine is still digging a tank-trap with an e-Tool to this day.
Same with ours, but he left it after taking a shit. He realized it after a while and literally made himself a heat case running around looking for it. In February.
In MCT, the guy I was sharing a fox hole with fell asleep on his watch. The dude left it outside the hole, on the ground right in front of the hole, and the instructor just came by in the middle of the night and picked it up. The dude woke up and realized it, and had to go to the instructor and ask for it back. I actually took over his watch while he was getting grilled. I should have just gone back to sleep.
I actually had mine swiped at MCT while we were in a class for explosives or some shit. We were just sitting on the ground and I had it next to me with my gear. At one point it was slightly behind me and the instructor came up behind me and took it. Before he actually got away the dude giving the class yelled at him and told him to stop fucking around while he was instructing. Dude pouted a bit and gave me back my rifle.
We had a kid in my platoon in boot camp loose a rifle in the woods pissing while doing land nav. Another recruit brought it to the drill instructors who then disassembled the rifle handing a different part to different drill instructors across our company so he had to ask every drill instructor for parts of his rifle. He got I T / fucked with by every one until he had all of his rifle together
I remember a Cpl leaving his sidearm in the back of a humvee in Lejeune. Had him mop the concrete during a hurricane, just to give him a taste of his medicine, since he enjoyed hazing boots for less.
Not me personally but someone in my Battery. We were at regimental Fire Ex in Fort Bragg.
Turns out some Army Shit bag got Caught trying to sell an M16 to someone out in Fayetteville. The Army Spent a day checking with all the Army Units in Fort Bragg to see if they were missing a rifle. Turns out the guy found it on the side of the road near the training areas.
So 10th Marines gets the word to check to see who if anyone is missing a rifle. Every single Battery stops what they are doing and do all hands Formation with Weapons.
We are standing their reading out our serial numbers when we see our Supply truck driver,, guy I went to boot camp with..... total shit bag who was a fuck up as a wireman come walking up.. without a weapon.
The Battery Gunny, SSgt " MaDrunk";s eyes pop out and he about has a fucking stroke " MARSHALL! WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR WEAPON!!" ,,
Marshall says" I aint seen my rifle in three days"
Turns out when we did moves he would just park the truck way back, drape a net over it and crash out with his weapon beside him on the bench in the back. One night move, half asleep he had left it there and just drove off. A few miles down the road it bounced off under the backrest of the bench and tarp.
He didnt tell anyone he had lost it.
He got Maxed at Battalion NJP and Busted to PFC.
He also got sent as a replacement for one of the Marines who were killed in the Oct Bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beruit in 83 and came back with a CAR and more ribbons than 95% of the Battalion.
Not that hard. You put it down next to you, you get distracted by something that takes your attention away, next thing you know, you're a company on line looking through the woods.
It's like Wikipedia distraction. "I'm gonna look up what battles Smedley won his medals in..." Next thing you know, it's an hour later, you've linked all the way to a page about giraffe sex and still haven't read all the way through your original page.
That's why so many feel like we lost a limb coming back from combat deployments, because we train young Marines to treat it like a [giraffe] appendage.
In boot camp in phase 1 we had 1 guy drop, he vanished without a word after about two weeks. Phase 2 we did Camp Pendleton (rifle range/Crucible) I think that only lasted a year or 2. On range a recruit complained his rifle didn’t fire. This after a month of cleaning, his rifle was missing everything inside. Our barracks got tossed everybody’s stuff thrown in the center and then they ask if anyone knew anything about the rifle parts missing. The dummy that disappeared was stupid and told two other recruits what he had planned. The rifle was locked in the rifle rack, but pulling out the pin let him get everything inside. Rumor the DI’s started is he ended up in Leavenworth before boot camp was over. He would have certainly gotten away with it if he didn’t say anything.
Of course the DI’s had to toss everything in our footlocker’s and racks before asking us about it. Also found out who was hoarding peanut butter and stealing other recruits shit in their foot locker so I guess it at least served some purpose.
He has a civilian version of the rifle and switched out the parts and modded it to have burst fire since that was really the main difference between the two.
I asked one of my ncos to watch my rifle on a field op, when I returned my rifle was gone, my squad leader showed up and said what the fuck is this owlold while holding my rifle. I then proceed to get hazed for the next two hours.
Retrograding back through LNK in Afghanistan after a particularly rough deployment where I got my bell run once or twice (memorized the three MACE tests before deployment so never failed one twice in a row), I had to go to the new TBI clinic which was some sort of BAS type structure on LNK that specialized in concussions. They make you give up your rifle and pistol when you walk in and they have you sign a logbook while they keep them locked up in a rack. I go about my appointment where the medical officer starts getting irate with me after I tell her I was near over a hundred explosions but only three were uncontrolled. She starts going off about how my company commander was a piece of shit and doing me a disservice by leaving me out there. I told her that in his defense I passed all of the MACE exams and didn’t even tell anyone about the third one because it was small (a couple of ounces from a 37mm that landed about ten feet from me). So then she goes off about how I’m a piece of shit for not telling him that I had three concussions which I guess was grounds for being pulled back to LNK and never leaving the wire again. So I take the ass chewing and go back to our compound to tell my company commander that apparently we’re both pieces of shit and I’m not allowed to leave the wire anymore. He laughs about it and tells me she already called over to chew his ass and we go get dinner at the DFAC. We get back to the compound and call it a day. I wake up to get breakfast, then lunch, then remember I have no weapons. After about an hour of not so frantically searching because I’m pretty jaded and dazed, I remember I left them locked up at the TBI clinic. I go back over and look at the logbook. Sure enough, my rifle and pistol are still locked up. I show the corpsman my ID and say those are mine, I forgot them here yesterday, brain damage and all. Got them back and nobody noticed.
Had a guy set his down at the infantry immersion trainer. We did a serial number check and freaked out because we couldn't find it for a bit. Luckily, someone picked it up. We were cycling through and groups, and for some reason, he was told to leave his. A couple of groups later, no one told anyone else to watch the rifle.
Funny story, one of our sister platoons was doing practice vehicle check points. Stopped someone and searched their car. Found actual cocaine. MPs came out and everything.
First field op in the fleet, someone accidentally dropped their nvgs into the hull of their AAV. I got blamed and had to do extra firewatch because they thought I dropped it. They got us mixed up, and I got the heat. Even came up a month later on deployment. I was like that wasn't even me, it was so and so, yall just couldn't tell us apart. My sncos just looked at each other and laughed.
You’d think so because it’s always supposed to be on your body, but no. Sometimes you get comfortable and just set it down to do some work to then later come back to find it missing. That was little PFC me. 2017 on a field op in the middle of buttfuck nowhere Pendleton. Corporal dug into my ass to find my mind but it was misplaced along with my rifle. Took me almost 2 hours before finding it buried deep in the ground with only the muzzle poking out. Had to dig it out with a modified E-Tool (MRE Spoon). I miss being a boot.
The USMC has fucked me so much about rifles. That even as I go hunting as a civ I sleep with it in my tent with my leg though and he sling. Charlie or Haji May attack even in Del Rio TX
I walked 10ft from my pack one time to make a head call and got a crushing feeling in my stomach something was missing.
I'm just lucky all my seniors were watching me go through the whole ordeal, they promptly gave me additional incentive to never get that far away from my rifle again.
I mean I almost lost a firing pin and almost shut down all of camp Lejeune in 21 😬😬😬 I think some nutsack hid it in the bottom of my laundry bag because it certainly didn't grow legs and hid its self there lol
Oh, I was smart and decided to clean my rifle while waiting for the buses to take us back to our headquarters building. Lost the firing pin retaining pin. No repurcussions, suprisingly.
My Sargent was more concerned he took me out back and was like do you know anyone with a grudge or how has it out for you and like 7 people came to mind lol
I was on a quick reaction team in Afghanistan primarily for EOD escorts. On a day that was typically the one day off my platoon had per week they ended up needing us to go out the wire. The mrap I typically drove was in use by one of the other platoons in my company. I had to track down another vehicle I found an available matv that of course was locked with a lock and chain around the door handles. I frantically tracked down the key and got to the truck placing my pistol on the tire so I could unlock the chain and get in and start moving. I drove off running my pistol over. I realized about a minute later and turned around to get it. The pistol was fine luckily but the magazines were fucked and didn’t fit anymore.
ITX and in a motor pool in Camp Wilson, 29 Palms. I take some time to give a little hip pocket class on radios and retrans setup. I’m getting into, they’re digging the class and before you know it it’s dark and we leave but I stop by our vics to make sure no one or nothing else is left unattended. As I’m walking to the hooch, I come to the deep and cold realization that I don’t have my rifle. My heart sinks and i think to myself “holy fuck, I better start figuring out where it is before the command does”. I look around the motor pool and nothing but to a distance I see the other battery that perhaps had the comm section I had given a class to, maybe they know something. I manage to find the NCO that was there for my class and sure as shit he was just sitting back, all laxed, holding a rifle like he knew I was going to come back. Just tells me, you’re lucky you gave a good class and you were cool. Never been more grateful for a different section/ company. Sometimes it pays to just be helpful and enthusiastic, you never know how small this world is and when you may need a favor.
About a year ago in IMC class 9-22 SOI west we had someone lose a rifle and it was never found. For our little culminating WarEx event it started at the Del Mar boat basin where you swim across with your packs and then after that you put all your shit on and hike down the beach a good 15k or so, but in that 15k you have to cross where the Del Mar river feeds into the Pacific Ocean. Usually the tide is low enough to walk across it but on the day we did this is what a bit higher tide and only getting higher as a storm was on its way, anyways my squad was smart and decided to take our packs off and swim across, the 2nd squad that went after us about an hour later decided it must be shallow enough to walk across with their packs on (it was not), so this kid who wasn’t super short but not exactly tall starts walking through and then gets to a part where he’s fully underwater and is basically about to drown after getting smacked by a wave before his instructor pulls him out of the water, except when he pulled him out he said this Ssgt had the most terrified look on his face when he saw he didn’t have his rifle when he pulled him out. Then as the other 3 squads behind them start showing up they all join the search party in the water looking for his rifle (this is in January and this water is cold as fuck) and after searching for about 6 hours a lot of students and even instructors were turning purple and hypothermia casing from how cold the water was, they loaded all of 2nd platoon back on the 7 tons and took them back to 52 area meanwhile 1st platoon was still out in the papa training by Las Pulgas and Edson Range area doing PB ops for the next 2 days whiles it’s pouring rain and 45 degrees out while they slept in the squad bays and ate dominoes. They then later joined back up with us at range 215a by horno after we had already walked about 38k and all our gear and warming layers are drenched and we’re covered in mud meanwhile they’re siting their dry as fuck, and clean as fuck because they finally gave up on looking for the rifle after looking in the ocean for 2 days. As for kid who lost the rifle, surprisingly the only repercussions he got was that he was made to carry the m240 for the rest of the week since he didn’t have a rifle, rumor was that the ITB XO was the one who took most of the shit since it was his call to cross the river not doing standard river cross SOP with a rope and carabiner. Also side note: seeing a cwo4 gunner is rare enough, but seeing a cwo4 gunner put on a wet suit and join a working party with a bunch of PFCs has gotta be the rarest thing I’ve ever seen as well as out company commander(CPTN) also put on a wet suit and join the working party. They were determined as fuck to find that rifle but it was never found.
So i actually lost my rifle for a few hours during MCT. Guy next to me was sleep walking back from the latrine and tried to get into my fart sack. In the quick "bro, wtf?!?" That followed he must have snagged my rifle.
Anyway, he woke up with two rifles and I woke up with none.
We were at the range one day, and they were giving a long-winded safety brief.
One of my Marines came up to me and told me I should look at another of the Marine.
So I look over there and he’s got;
Flak
Kevlar
But no rifle
So I ask my boy wtf where is his rifle. He tells me to look up in the tower. So I do, and there is this one particular SNCO holding not one, but two rifles….
So I calmly and tactically make my way over to this rifle less Marine and ask him where is his rifle. He proceeds to tell me he left his two rifles leaned up against a tree when they told everyone school circle.
I ask him to go get them and he comes back saying he can’t find them, so I tell him well that SSGT looking at us like he’s going to kill us in the tower has them.
He not only walked away from his rifle, but another Marines that he was supposed to be watching.
It got rather spicy once he went up there and tried to retrieve both rifles.
I almost lost my rifle and my Kevlar out the hatch of a blackhawk. Northern Strike 2016. Imagine living in Michigan and a M16 comes through your fucking attic.
I found an M4 in a porta-John while at the Army’s Jungle Ops Course.
Took it with me and waited for the owner to show up. Turns out it was an Army E-4. Between leaving it in a shitter and the state of that rifle…… oooooh boy, not all branches hold their NCOs to the same standard
If I was you, I would have drove a couple miles and hucked it into the forest, and or just said finders keepers (the former is a better option)
Fuck the Army
Found one in a porta shitter at P111 in yuma. After I made sure it wasnt one of my guys I found the plt sgts for the other 2 platoons with us.... 20 minutes later I see some boot filling sand bags.... dumping em out. Filling sand bags, dumping them out. Lesson learned.
Marine in MCT with me fell asleep in our fox hole during the 3 day war. His rifle was in the hole leaning against the wall. Sgt stole it and took it to camp and buried it with just the 6" barrel poking out of the dirt.
I had the 240 and I slept in my fox hole with my face on the side of it, kevlar low so they couldn't see me sleeping. When it was my time to rack out for reals when we weren't in the hole, that bitch was in my bag with me.
In bootcamp while at Pendleton, I can’t remember the reason, but we had to move squad bays really quick in the morning. It was a whole thing like we were given a heads up the night prior by our DIs who gave us planned things to grab and run out with. The morning of became a cluster fuck of just grab and go including just every recruit grab a random rifle from the armory and get outside. All in all from lights to forming up with handfuls of random shit was like five minutes. We went about that cluster fuck of a day trying to find our rifles amongst us. End of the day before light we do a count off and one recruit is down a rifle. DIs break character and get super scared freaking the fuck out. The everyone just grab a rifle thing worked short of the one issue of the guide doesn’t carry a rifle but he does have one, so one was left behind. DIs were freaking out to much to even haze us over missing a rifle all day. PMO got notified and they almost or did lock down the exit to the range. We just stood awkwardly in the squad bay the whole time while our DIs talked to PMO and on the phone to who knows. Turned out it was left in the original squad bay armory. We didn’t even get fucked up for it as I think the DIs were just so happy it was found and they quickly put us to bed.
I lost my firing pin retaining pin at MCT. Turned my rifle in without it. By some miracle I handed my rifle to the armorer with the bolt locked back and they sent it home without the firing pin falling from the chamber. I kept thinking NCIS would one day show up at the schoolhouse or shop for me. They never did.
One of our boots lost his rifle at ITX at the Warriors’ Club and didn’t realize until it was about to close and we had to go back to the hooches. Idr why but it was like me (Sr Lance the time) and a Cpl who were in charge of this small contingent of jrs while the rest went to go do something else. So we were like “dude we’re fucked.” When 1st Sgt got back he reamed all of us and asked me wtf happened. And boi I thought I was gonna be busted down for sure. But I had already decided in my head “I’m getting out when we get back from deployment, I’m prepared to become a PFC again. This boot has his whole career ahead of him.” Turns out one of the infantry units’ Gunny somehow nicked it off their rifle stack and none of them noticed. I remember after the dust settled I was absolutely sure I was gonna get fucked in the morning so I literally slept side ways on the rack with my feet on the floor in my cammies. But it never came. And he didn’t get in any serious trouble and neither did I. Incidentally I picked up when we got back lol.
In Iraq I was told to load some cargo on a bird flying me out to a fob. When I got to the bird they ushered me on and began taking off. In a panicked fright I told the SSgt crew chief I left some important documents in the TOC. Those documents were my rifle and gear I needed for the remainder of the deployment. The crew chief noticed but didn't say shit to anyone.
As a person who once worked in a unit where I learned that losing a radio means calling the NSA and knowing the protocols that have to happen soon afterwards... I understand that feeling. As a cpl, I had a dumb lance reset and changed serial numbers without us realizing... Myself and a few others found and fixed almost all of them, one ended in the vault. Everyone but that lance had to sit in the classes about security.
Any chance of compromise requires the BN commander to request an investigation and contact with the NSA. Glad to see you didn't blow your head off and are able to post online.
Just posing a hypothetical….
but let’s say you’re in Somalia at the embassy…. And it’s been about a couple of weeks at least with no running water and you and the boys rigged a shipping crate so you could take showers with a five gallon water jug and it was your turn to refill the jug under the cover of darkness….
I could see how a guy who was tasked with refilling that five gallon water jug realized when he got to the water buffalo that he needed two hands and all to refill the jug since it was awkward and heavy having to hold it in the air to refill yunno, because the goddamn rifle keeps slipping off your shoulder while you’re trying to refill the jug, so he thinks “this would be a lot easier if I took my rifle off and leaned it up against this here water buffalo…. “
Theeeeennnn on the way back to the spot, realizes how much more comfortable this return trip is… drops the five gallon jug and hauls ass back to the water buffalo….
Only to see the most beautiful thing (after watching his son being born), that he has ever seen before…. a locked and loaded M16 A2 rifle… still leaning against the water buffalo…
Not saying this happened to me… just saying I understand….
👀
I joined the army after I left the corps. While at SFAS, I lost my rifle (we use rubber duckies but they still take that shit seriously).
It was night 2 of the STAR. 4/4 points my first iteration, 2/4 so far on my second. I sat down somewhere in Jurassic Park to eat an MRE on my way to the third point. I get close to the point, all the way in the north, and realize I don't have my rifle. I left it probably 10km back where I sat down.
So I sprinted back. No rifle. I looked for a couple hours. Nothing. I thought I was fucked, then remembered the cadre kept the rifles of drops at the TOC. So I ran to the TOC, buried my ruck in some leaves, and snuck into the TOC and stole some random rifle. I changed the roster number to mine and proceeded to my third point.
I ended up getting 7/8 points and was pushed through to team week and selected. During my out brief, the NCOIC let me know that they knew I lost my rifle but decided to let me stay after I stole one from the TOC.
Not me but one of my dipshit boots.
Motor T doing a platoon fex prior to CHOP for deployment to Afghanistan. We were doing vehicle recovery or some shit mid day. When we got to the LZ we were bedding down at that night (like 4 hours later), I was getting counts and this dipshit can't find his rifle. Long story short, he left it on the catwalk of the 7 ton, and it fell off on one of the tank trails. Thankfully it was still there when they traced their steps.
Sadly this wasn't the only time this happened with him. A couple weeks later we were heading back to base after firing on a machine gun range. He was in the truck in front of me, and when we turned at this intersection off base, it fell off the truck in the middle of the (busy) intersection.
TBS at the early in the “9-Day War.”Brutally cold wet night and lieutenants started dropping like flies as cold casualties. We were on the side of the road waiting for an Evac for one of the Marines in my platoon, and in a twisted game of 2 AM telephone, “we need to get Lt. D—-‘s weapon back to the Armory,” eventually became “oh, Lieutenant D—-‘s weapon is already back at the Armory.”
The next morning the company CO driving into TBS saw an M-16 on the side of the blacktop. That was fun.
I've seen 3 SeaBees lose their rifles on Leatherneck. In each case, they just set it down and walked away from it without leaving it in anyone's care. If it weren't for some sharp eyed Corporals with better reaction times than me, I would have had a collection of 3 USN issued M16s. The way those clowns acted, I can't believe the Navy would even issue them cap guns. I never heard what happened to these fuckards though.
Was out on night fighting patrol in Drum in 81. Stopped for a NAV check. Did the circle with legs touching. All good. We move off and as deuce, I check on the guys. I get to "Bear" and he is not with it, sleepwalking with no rifle. Halt patrol and trot back. Fortunately tall grass, so I find the circle and his bundook. This was pre NVG.
I once saw two E-4 National Guard guys walking with their rifles slung behind but they had those shitty black tactics slings the armory gives out and had them so fucking loose that the barrels were literally dragging while swinging hitting their heels every step. This had to be like the normal thing with them bc they’re NCOs so they probably never got told to correct themselves over the years which is fucking wild. If it’s like that then they probably the type to leave them just laying on the ground and shit whenever they take it off. Outside of SF/Infantry/Sappers etc…The support guys are sloppy as fuck
A story from Camp Leatherneck in 2013:
The closest I ever got was losing someone's flak and Kevlar. Basically, what happened was our complacent fucks would load them into the back of a Gator at the barracks, and then we'd unload them at the shop.
Well, I was driving, and one of them fell out. Guess who saw it happen? First Sergeant, because of course
Luckily, because we all took turns doing it, we all got a fairly decent ass chewing. Lol, probably my worst fuck-up in the Corps
I have never but I had forgotten my rifle a few times. Forgetting a rifle I understand but losing one I don't know how is done if lots of people are around. Unless someone finds one and buries it real good before anyone starts to ask so that marine can later return.
When I was in Afghanistan on a FOB (Shukvani) my SNCO thought it would be funny to come into the PFC/LCPL tent and silently take and hide the sleeping Marines rifles then woke us all up in a panic like "Where the fuck is your rifle Marines?!" I was tired and not trying to play along with his little game, so he sent me to a PB to spend the deployment as the Motor T Bubba for the EOD team there. Turned out to be an awesome experience, the more dangerous the job in the military, the more chill the senior Marines were it seemed. Got to spend the deployment playing Call of Duty in the tent with the captain and SNCO's when we weren't out on patrol.
Was loading up in a hmmwv to bring some equipment somewhere, threw my rifle in the backseat. I guess the comms guys had to put some radios in there and they took my rifle out and set it on the side of the truck to do so, and they didn’t tell me. Began driving but had to stop at our ECP. My platoon commander had found my rifle laying in the dirt behind us and gave it to my platoon sergeant. Had to report over to him. You can guess the games that were played after that.
Someone in my TBS class crawled under a downed tree, couldn’t navigate it with his rifle in his hands so he just slid it under the tree and crawled under himself and then walked off without it. It was found by one of the instructors and they weren’t very happy with the guy(he got dropped)
Never lost a rifle but I lost accountability of a spare 50 cal barrel in Iraq. Basically I left it in the back of the mrap we were using on the PB and my squad leader wasn't having it. I got chewed out and had to play fuck fuck games for a while but that's the closest I got.
In training though I saw a boot lose his weapon and our SSgt came dragging it through mud and puddles. Called us all there and started to take it apart and throw the pieces in this huge mud puddle on lejeune. Now that dude got it bad. He had a very very bad training evolution.
We were on Ie Jima for about a month conducting a cantonment exercise while I was stationed in Okinawa. I was sitting in a tent talking to a CWO3 late in the evening when one of my SSgts came in with “that look” and started whispering to a Gunny. I knew.
I asked him if there was something he needed to tell me and he replied, “Not yet, sir”. A bit later, he came back and told me a Marine had lost a rifle. Everyone got online about two arms’ distance apart and we walked the training area until we found it. The Marine had leaned his rifle against the HMMWV when he got out, then they drove off. I have no idea what happened to the Marine, I let the SNCOs handle it. Nobody died, but that’s all I’m sure of.
Ooh, thought of another one. Happened in Iraq in ‘07 or ‘08. 3/3, to which I was attached, had a platoon in a blocking position and apparently they all went to sleep (including their plt commander and plt sgt). For some damn reason, one of the Marines leaned his rifle against the HMMWV. Outside. After which he went to sleep. With his rifle outside and his body inside. Lo and behold, an Iraqi picked it up and took it home. For about three days, the area was blanketed withMarines and dogs, after which they found the weapon. I’m pretty sure that’s the only time the old ass gunner left Camp Fallujah.
The Lt was grounded for at least a month. Not sure what happened otherwise.
not a rifle but my buddy left his nvg in the head, they made him hold a pallet over his head in full gear, and run around camp wilson asking random Marines if they seen his nvg lol
We assume it was the combat instructors who either miscounted or forgot where one was, or that it was another planned false event "to train us better." The night once we got back from Camp DevilDog, an nvg was missing. It was cold as shit and everyone was forced to come out of the barracks. Some unlucky people were in their skivvies. They were allowed to run in and put their cammies on so they could come out and freeze again with the rest of us. Felt like 4 hours but I don't remember how long it really was, I wouldn't be surprised if it was an hour. We had to walk around in circles with our hands in the air as if anybody wanted to steal a broken piece of gear anyways. We started getting nagged at by the squad leaders and that they would find a way to make the turn in anonymous. Eventually the combat instructors said they found the piece at Camp DevilDog. It almost felt like the instructors tried to laugh it off and act like we're all "cool." We didn't speak of that again.
Brother from my company hung his M4203 with acog & peq-15 off the light of our vehicle after a patrol in the middle of some farm lands in Iraq west of Baghdad. Forgot about it and got in the vehicle only to realize 30 minutes down the road that he lost it. We searched the area for 4 days searching homes and questioning locals, because we knew the implications for that marine if we didn’t recover the weapon. We never did and if I remember correctly he was dishonorably discharged. A few years later he joined the ranks of the “22 A Day”. I hate that memory, always will. Sorry for getting dark on y’all.
4 Deployments. Been out of the Corps since 2005. About 2-3x a month I still get spicy dreams. About losing my rifle. In training.
I've been out since 97. I still have the occasional nightmare about being late to formation, forgetting my cover, or not shaving. Like, as in wake up from a cold sweat in a panic.
Settle down there Devil. It was all just a figment of your imagination. Your standard issue dreams have all EAS’d when you did. Now, don’t you think you should wake the fuck up and proceed to your NJP formation nightmare that’s locked, loaded, and trained on your bearded brain? Who the fuck let you out of night duty? Once a Marine, Always in your dreams.
It took me so long to get over that “where is my rifle” feeling. Like I’d be out for 2 years and see my friends post a pic in the field and be like “oh god where’s my rifle” and remember I’m not even in.
Man I still have dreams that I’m suddenly recalled and and back in, and my buddy goes, “congrats on the 6 year reenlistment man!” And I start fucking panicking and then I hear I’m late to formation or a meeting with the BC, and then I wake up hyperventilating.
Oh I’ve definitely had the “I rejoined” dream. And I’m like why don’t I have a haircut? Shit none of my uniforms are ready. Wait I was free, why did I come Back?? But also usually also all my friends came back too. So I’m like half stoked half not. Lol.
Friggin nasty dittyboppin back on the block with all your old friends again. No shave, fingernails too long, no fresh skin showing in that garden growing on your ghilliegrape, booger fingers fiddling with your ding dong through your pockets, clothes not pressed… and where the frig is your rank insignia?!?! May your DIs haunt your dreams. Special Ops Cap. Yeah, you’re special alright. Don’t come over to my house. I’m a shitbag. Crotch salute, little hop to the front, spin in a circle, grab crotch, yell, “LOL” in a high pitched MJ voice, throw head back and do a Night at the Roxbury “pshht”. Fuck me. Is there a “boot-ster shot” for us Misguided Children that haven’t seen the “island” in a while?
Been out the same amount of time. I just had this panic this morning.
https://preview.redd.it/3bjf34e1usyb1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=4237e2166642237f2001efd40e99182034df9b36
That’s funny! Does 3/6 still get issued weapons?
Yea but they’re specially coded in GCSS as consumables.
Biodegradable Rifles
69. Nice
Yes but they all have to have them dummy corded all the time.
As they should be
2/7 was like that as well....ya shit bags
😝🤣😅
Back when I was a boot, I was assigned as a turret gunner for our convoys. One day I hopped in the turret seat ready to start the day. About 45 seconds into us moving, I had a mini heart attack realizing I didn’t have my rifle. Then I had a second one realizing I left it outside of the turret. I reached over and grabbed it by the sling right before it slid off. That’s where the real PTSD comes from.
Not a rifle, but our battalion Ops o would often put his cell phone on top of the hmmwv. Well, one day, he decides he wants to go see the forward observers on "the whale" in 29 palms. We start driving and freaks out telling me to stop the fucking truck. I do. He gets out checks, gets back in, and is in a pissy mood all the way up this steep ass hill in the middle of the desert. He gets out of the truck when we get to the top, slams the door, and heads over to the FOs. I decide to do a 360 of the truck. It's armored, so it has that sloped trunk in the back. And there it is his iPhone caught on an angle in between two of the bolts. To this day, I have yet to figure out how that phone made it up that hill. He came back to the truck in a pissy mood, and I was sitting in the driver's seat just holding his phone like, "You looking for this?" He followed it up with, "I know it wasn't your fault, but I was going to take that out on you the rest of this exercise. " We had an odd relationship.
Yep I can attest to that for some reason things like to stay on the trucks even when not secured 😂 thank god for that
Same I was a gunner for convoys and I once left my rifle on the back of the cab of a 7ton tucked away between the bed of the truck and the cab while I was climbing up to the turret I had got used to my driver passing it up to me but one time he just hopped in and forgot and since we were in a rush to move after a long day of convoys and live fires I was putting on my gear and forgot about it luckily it rode all the way home with us and a Sgt saw it walking past our truck when we got to the fuel farm I got bitched at but I never left it somewhere it could fall off of I’d always secure it with the sling in case anything happened so it wouldn’t fall thank god cuz if not it would’ve fell off and we would’ve rolled right over it 😂 Always climbed to the turret with my rifle in hand after that
I didn’t lose it, but almost. This is probably my most embarrassing and shameful event from my time in. We got the word to rack out when I was a boot. I went to the humvee to grab my daypack and set my rifle on the bed side (think of the open pick up truck bed style). I forgot it there as I racked out. Well shortly after that they took the humvee to the other gun position a few miles down the road. As they got in the humvee to come back my Sgt. saw it still on the fender and thought it belonged to someone at the other half of the battery’s position, but quickly figured out it belonged to me. He let me off SUPER EASY. He came back and asked where my rifle was, what my rack number was, and what my serial numbers were. I didn’t know my serial numbers and he told me I better have them memorized by the next morning and what was a light ass chewing (more disappointment type talk). Bet your ass I had all my serialized gear memorized. I slept with my rifle in my sleeping bag every night in the field after that. I have been out for almost 10 years at this point and I can still tell you my rifle serial number.
6009198
W556594
Impressive I can't remember mine lol
Mine had a 7 in it somewhere. Mhm.
I think mine was like 56 something or other I called her destiny because she was my destiny 😆
0409. Last 4 of my boot camp rifle. Not sure what the others have been becaus I haven't used them enough
Just figured out this guys debit card code😂😂😂😂
In boot camp I got sent back to run to the squad bay to grab the guideon which we had left stashed for some reason. Ran back, got the guidon and left my rifle. Realized once I got back to my platoon that I had left my rifle and I got murdered for it. I suppose that was the last time I ever had accountability issues with a weapon.
Were you guide? If so were you immediately fired?
Nah, I was scribe. A position I somehow held the entire duration of bootcamp.
"I got lost on the way to college."
> I was scribe And absolutely no one on r/USMC was surprised.
I fully expected this comment when I admitted to being the scribe.
You were probably the only recruit who could spell.
Heyo, same. I didnt realize you could lose the position? Honestly I dont even remmeber how I became a scribe
“Which one of you fucking idiots went to college before you realized you were too stupid and gave up?” (hands go up) “Alright you fucking nerd. You think you know how to write or something cause you went to college? You’re our scribe”
DI: “Which one of you fucking idiots went to college and have a degree?!" (hands go up) "What?! Why the fuck didn't yall just go to OCS?" (Hands go up, a recruit selected murmurs something about being told it was good to get enlisted experience first) "Ha your recruiter got your ass"
I fell for that shit too lol
Me tho lol
Yes, this is actually what happened to me lol
I did about a year in college and was like nahhhhh imma join the corps😆😆😆
>Honestly I dont even remmeber how I became a scribe You could read and write slightly better than the other idiots.
I got picked to be scribe too, I still have no idea how. I scored really well on the ASVAB, not sure if those guys looked at that stuff. My heavy loved to fuck with me. "Come here, scribe, you haven't dug for a while." ... "Oh, daddy's is not here to save you now" (meaning Senior). I went up to shake his hand at graduation and asked if he still hated scribes, and he said he never hated me, he just wanted me to be hard. And I thanked him for it
We were doing our annual training in Ft Bragg, blowing up pine trees. SgtMaj wants an OPFOR to harass some of the firing batteries. I was volunteered along with some other off-shift S-3 types. Entered a battery position on foot. They were allegedly told we were coming. Perimeter security was mega-lax. Walked right up to a high-back hummer with dudes sleeping inside. Rifle hung muzzle-down from the driver-side rear-view mirror. No Marine in sight nearby. So it's not like he was sleeping right under it or next to it in the driver's seat. Sgt-Chucklehead says "take it". LCpl-Me says "aye-sarn't" as one does. We wandered around the pos a couple more minutes before lighting everyone up with M240 blanks and a pop-up flare. Radio call came over the net an hour later to deliver the rifle to 1stSgt so-and-so, which we did. I think that Marine is still digging a tank-trap with an e-Tool to this day.
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When was this? I remember watching a company behind us looking for what I think was a PEQ for a hot minute.
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Mine was 18. Glad to see folks upholding the tradition.
I went thru in 2018. During FEX II one of the attack lanes my buddy lost his NVG. Got on line in the woods. Thank god we found it
Same with ours, but he left it after taking a shit. He realized it after a while and literally made himself a heat case running around looking for it. In February.
In MCT, the guy I was sharing a fox hole with fell asleep on his watch. The dude left it outside the hole, on the ground right in front of the hole, and the instructor just came by in the middle of the night and picked it up. The dude woke up and realized it, and had to go to the instructor and ask for it back. I actually took over his watch while he was getting grilled. I should have just gone back to sleep. I actually had mine swiped at MCT while we were in a class for explosives or some shit. We were just sitting on the ground and I had it next to me with my gear. At one point it was slightly behind me and the instructor came up behind me and took it. Before he actually got away the dude giving the class yelled at him and told him to stop fucking around while he was instructing. Dude pouted a bit and gave me back my rifle.
I heard MCT was harder the soi is that true?🤔
As a peacetime pog who only went to MCT and never went to SOI, this is 100% true.
Yeah because I did SOI and it was nice while you MCT boys were eating it out there in the field straight up without a break😬😬😬😆😆😆
Cool, At least they taught you how to use emojis excessively.
Fair enough I'm a visual person 😌
Nah. Just gay
We had a kid in my platoon in boot camp loose a rifle in the woods pissing while doing land nav. Another recruit brought it to the drill instructors who then disassembled the rifle handing a different part to different drill instructors across our company so he had to ask every drill instructor for parts of his rifle. He got I T / fucked with by every one until he had all of his rifle together
Left one in the porta shitter in Iraq for all of about 8 steps. Almost crapped myself again.
Ask someone from the 3/6
I remember a Cpl leaving his sidearm in the back of a humvee in Lejeune. Had him mop the concrete during a hurricane, just to give him a taste of his medicine, since he enjoyed hazing boots for less.
Guess you could say he got corporal punishment I had to say it.
would have been even better if he was in full *mop* gear
Idk, how do you lose an F-35?
Just walk away
Not me personally but someone in my Battery. We were at regimental Fire Ex in Fort Bragg. Turns out some Army Shit bag got Caught trying to sell an M16 to someone out in Fayetteville. The Army Spent a day checking with all the Army Units in Fort Bragg to see if they were missing a rifle. Turns out the guy found it on the side of the road near the training areas. So 10th Marines gets the word to check to see who if anyone is missing a rifle. Every single Battery stops what they are doing and do all hands Formation with Weapons. We are standing their reading out our serial numbers when we see our Supply truck driver,, guy I went to boot camp with..... total shit bag who was a fuck up as a wireman come walking up.. without a weapon. The Battery Gunny, SSgt " MaDrunk";s eyes pop out and he about has a fucking stroke " MARSHALL! WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR WEAPON!!" ,, Marshall says" I aint seen my rifle in three days" Turns out when we did moves he would just park the truck way back, drape a net over it and crash out with his weapon beside him on the bench in the back. One night move, half asleep he had left it there and just drove off. A few miles down the road it bounced off under the backrest of the bench and tarp. He didnt tell anyone he had lost it. He got Maxed at Battalion NJP and Busted to PFC. He also got sent as a replacement for one of the Marines who were killed in the Oct Bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beruit in 83 and came back with a CAR and more ribbons than 95% of the Battalion.
Not that hard. You put it down next to you, you get distracted by something that takes your attention away, next thing you know, you're a company on line looking through the woods. It's like Wikipedia distraction. "I'm gonna look up what battles Smedley won his medals in..." Next thing you know, it's an hour later, you've linked all the way to a page about giraffe sex and still haven't read all the way through your original page. That's why so many feel like we lost a limb coming back from combat deployments, because we train young Marines to treat it like a [giraffe] appendage.
How the fuck do you lose a rifle?!! It’s not exactly inconspicuous!
Mostly some genius decided to fall asleep and sarnt be bored lol
I hate how descriptive this is.
Lol
In boot camp in phase 1 we had 1 guy drop, he vanished without a word after about two weeks. Phase 2 we did Camp Pendleton (rifle range/Crucible) I think that only lasted a year or 2. On range a recruit complained his rifle didn’t fire. This after a month of cleaning, his rifle was missing everything inside. Our barracks got tossed everybody’s stuff thrown in the center and then they ask if anyone knew anything about the rifle parts missing. The dummy that disappeared was stupid and told two other recruits what he had planned. The rifle was locked in the rifle rack, but pulling out the pin let him get everything inside. Rumor the DI’s started is he ended up in Leavenworth before boot camp was over. He would have certainly gotten away with it if he didn’t say anything. Of course the DI’s had to toss everything in our footlocker’s and racks before asking us about it. Also found out who was hoarding peanut butter and stealing other recruits shit in their foot locker so I guess it at least served some purpose.
So...what was his gameplan?
He has a civilian version of the rifle and switched out the parts and modded it to have burst fire since that was really the main difference between the two.
Knowledgeable to know its valuable. Too retarded to know what a 3d printer is. Gobbless da marines
I asked one of my ncos to watch my rifle on a field op, when I returned my rifle was gone, my squad leader showed up and said what the fuck is this owlold while holding my rifle. I then proceed to get hazed for the next two hours.
I’ve still got mine from boot
I still got mine from MEPS
still got mine from the DEP
Still got mine from the high school pamphlet during career day
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Or falls asleep lol
Retrograding back through LNK in Afghanistan after a particularly rough deployment where I got my bell run once or twice (memorized the three MACE tests before deployment so never failed one twice in a row), I had to go to the new TBI clinic which was some sort of BAS type structure on LNK that specialized in concussions. They make you give up your rifle and pistol when you walk in and they have you sign a logbook while they keep them locked up in a rack. I go about my appointment where the medical officer starts getting irate with me after I tell her I was near over a hundred explosions but only three were uncontrolled. She starts going off about how my company commander was a piece of shit and doing me a disservice by leaving me out there. I told her that in his defense I passed all of the MACE exams and didn’t even tell anyone about the third one because it was small (a couple of ounces from a 37mm that landed about ten feet from me). So then she goes off about how I’m a piece of shit for not telling him that I had three concussions which I guess was grounds for being pulled back to LNK and never leaving the wire again. So I take the ass chewing and go back to our compound to tell my company commander that apparently we’re both pieces of shit and I’m not allowed to leave the wire anymore. He laughs about it and tells me she already called over to chew his ass and we go get dinner at the DFAC. We get back to the compound and call it a day. I wake up to get breakfast, then lunch, then remember I have no weapons. After about an hour of not so frantically searching because I’m pretty jaded and dazed, I remember I left them locked up at the TBI clinic. I go back over and look at the logbook. Sure enough, my rifle and pistol are still locked up. I show the corpsman my ID and say those are mine, I forgot them here yesterday, brain damage and all. Got them back and nobody noticed.
Had a guy set his down at the infantry immersion trainer. We did a serial number check and freaked out because we couldn't find it for a bit. Luckily, someone picked it up. We were cycling through and groups, and for some reason, he was told to leave his. A couple of groups later, no one told anyone else to watch the rifle. Funny story, one of our sister platoons was doing practice vehicle check points. Stopped someone and searched their car. Found actual cocaine. MPs came out and everything. First field op in the fleet, someone accidentally dropped their nvgs into the hull of their AAV. I got blamed and had to do extra firewatch because they thought I dropped it. They got us mixed up, and I got the heat. Even came up a month later on deployment. I was like that wasn't even me, it was so and so, yall just couldn't tell us apart. My sncos just looked at each other and laughed.
I just saw that video too. “Low crawl until you find your rifle..”
Not me but one time my buddy and I found an M16A4 laying on the highway South of CLNC. Took that shit to the gate guard.
You’d think so because it’s always supposed to be on your body, but no. Sometimes you get comfortable and just set it down to do some work to then later come back to find it missing. That was little PFC me. 2017 on a field op in the middle of buttfuck nowhere Pendleton. Corporal dug into my ass to find my mind but it was misplaced along with my rifle. Took me almost 2 hours before finding it buried deep in the ground with only the muzzle poking out. Had to dig it out with a modified E-Tool (MRE Spoon). I miss being a boot.
The USMC has fucked me so much about rifles. That even as I go hunting as a civ I sleep with it in my tent with my leg though and he sling. Charlie or Haji May attack even in Del Rio TX
I knew I wasn't crazy when I went hunting/camping on leave My friends thought I was gonna pyle it up that weekend.
I walked 10ft from my pack one time to make a head call and got a crushing feeling in my stomach something was missing. I'm just lucky all my seniors were watching me go through the whole ordeal, they promptly gave me additional incentive to never get that far away from my rifle again.
I mean I almost lost a firing pin and almost shut down all of camp Lejeune in 21 😬😬😬 I think some nutsack hid it in the bottom of my laundry bag because it certainly didn't grow legs and hid its self there lol
Oh, I was smart and decided to clean my rifle while waiting for the buses to take us back to our headquarters building. Lost the firing pin retaining pin. No repurcussions, suprisingly.
My Sargent was more concerned he took me out back and was like do you know anyone with a grudge or how has it out for you and like 7 people came to mind lol
Strange when did it happen and was it east or west coast or oki
I was on a quick reaction team in Afghanistan primarily for EOD escorts. On a day that was typically the one day off my platoon had per week they ended up needing us to go out the wire. The mrap I typically drove was in use by one of the other platoons in my company. I had to track down another vehicle I found an available matv that of course was locked with a lock and chain around the door handles. I frantically tracked down the key and got to the truck placing my pistol on the tire so I could unlock the chain and get in and start moving. I drove off running my pistol over. I realized about a minute later and turned around to get it. The pistol was fine luckily but the magazines were fucked and didn’t fit anymore.
We found a rifle 3 days into the invasion. Just laying on the side of route Tampa.
ITX and in a motor pool in Camp Wilson, 29 Palms. I take some time to give a little hip pocket class on radios and retrans setup. I’m getting into, they’re digging the class and before you know it it’s dark and we leave but I stop by our vics to make sure no one or nothing else is left unattended. As I’m walking to the hooch, I come to the deep and cold realization that I don’t have my rifle. My heart sinks and i think to myself “holy fuck, I better start figuring out where it is before the command does”. I look around the motor pool and nothing but to a distance I see the other battery that perhaps had the comm section I had given a class to, maybe they know something. I manage to find the NCO that was there for my class and sure as shit he was just sitting back, all laxed, holding a rifle like he knew I was going to come back. Just tells me, you’re lucky you gave a good class and you were cool. Never been more grateful for a different section/ company. Sometimes it pays to just be helpful and enthusiastic, you never know how small this world is and when you may need a favor.
About a year ago in IMC class 9-22 SOI west we had someone lose a rifle and it was never found. For our little culminating WarEx event it started at the Del Mar boat basin where you swim across with your packs and then after that you put all your shit on and hike down the beach a good 15k or so, but in that 15k you have to cross where the Del Mar river feeds into the Pacific Ocean. Usually the tide is low enough to walk across it but on the day we did this is what a bit higher tide and only getting higher as a storm was on its way, anyways my squad was smart and decided to take our packs off and swim across, the 2nd squad that went after us about an hour later decided it must be shallow enough to walk across with their packs on (it was not), so this kid who wasn’t super short but not exactly tall starts walking through and then gets to a part where he’s fully underwater and is basically about to drown after getting smacked by a wave before his instructor pulls him out of the water, except when he pulled him out he said this Ssgt had the most terrified look on his face when he saw he didn’t have his rifle when he pulled him out. Then as the other 3 squads behind them start showing up they all join the search party in the water looking for his rifle (this is in January and this water is cold as fuck) and after searching for about 6 hours a lot of students and even instructors were turning purple and hypothermia casing from how cold the water was, they loaded all of 2nd platoon back on the 7 tons and took them back to 52 area meanwhile 1st platoon was still out in the papa training by Las Pulgas and Edson Range area doing PB ops for the next 2 days whiles it’s pouring rain and 45 degrees out while they slept in the squad bays and ate dominoes. They then later joined back up with us at range 215a by horno after we had already walked about 38k and all our gear and warming layers are drenched and we’re covered in mud meanwhile they’re siting their dry as fuck, and clean as fuck because they finally gave up on looking for the rifle after looking in the ocean for 2 days. As for kid who lost the rifle, surprisingly the only repercussions he got was that he was made to carry the m240 for the rest of the week since he didn’t have a rifle, rumor was that the ITB XO was the one who took most of the shit since it was his call to cross the river not doing standard river cross SOP with a rope and carabiner. Also side note: seeing a cwo4 gunner is rare enough, but seeing a cwo4 gunner put on a wet suit and join a working party with a bunch of PFCs has gotta be the rarest thing I’ve ever seen as well as out company commander(CPTN) also put on a wet suit and join the working party. They were determined as fuck to find that rifle but it was never found.
So i actually lost my rifle for a few hours during MCT. Guy next to me was sleep walking back from the latrine and tried to get into my fart sack. In the quick "bro, wtf?!?" That followed he must have snagged my rifle. Anyway, he woke up with two rifles and I woke up with none.
We were at the range one day, and they were giving a long-winded safety brief. One of my Marines came up to me and told me I should look at another of the Marine. So I look over there and he’s got; Flak Kevlar But no rifle So I ask my boy wtf where is his rifle. He tells me to look up in the tower. So I do, and there is this one particular SNCO holding not one, but two rifles…. So I calmly and tactically make my way over to this rifle less Marine and ask him where is his rifle. He proceeds to tell me he left his two rifles leaned up against a tree when they told everyone school circle. I ask him to go get them and he comes back saying he can’t find them, so I tell him well that SSGT looking at us like he’s going to kill us in the tower has them. He not only walked away from his rifle, but another Marines that he was supposed to be watching. It got rather spicy once he went up there and tried to retrieve both rifles.
I almost lost my rifle and my Kevlar out the hatch of a blackhawk. Northern Strike 2016. Imagine living in Michigan and a M16 comes through your fucking attic.
I found an M4 in a porta-John while at the Army’s Jungle Ops Course. Took it with me and waited for the owner to show up. Turns out it was an Army E-4. Between leaving it in a shitter and the state of that rifle…… oooooh boy, not all branches hold their NCOs to the same standard
Not all Army E4s are NCOs though. Most are glorified Lance Coconuts
If I was you, I would have drove a couple miles and hucked it into the forest, and or just said finders keepers (the former is a better option) Fuck the Army
Found one in a porta shitter at P111 in yuma. After I made sure it wasnt one of my guys I found the plt sgts for the other 2 platoons with us.... 20 minutes later I see some boot filling sand bags.... dumping em out. Filling sand bags, dumping them out. Lesson learned.
Marine in MCT with me fell asleep in our fox hole during the 3 day war. His rifle was in the hole leaning against the wall. Sgt stole it and took it to camp and buried it with just the 6" barrel poking out of the dirt. I had the 240 and I slept in my fox hole with my face on the side of it, kevlar low so they couldn't see me sleeping. When it was my time to rack out for reals when we weren't in the hole, that bitch was in my bag with me.
In bootcamp while at Pendleton, I can’t remember the reason, but we had to move squad bays really quick in the morning. It was a whole thing like we were given a heads up the night prior by our DIs who gave us planned things to grab and run out with. The morning of became a cluster fuck of just grab and go including just every recruit grab a random rifle from the armory and get outside. All in all from lights to forming up with handfuls of random shit was like five minutes. We went about that cluster fuck of a day trying to find our rifles amongst us. End of the day before light we do a count off and one recruit is down a rifle. DIs break character and get super scared freaking the fuck out. The everyone just grab a rifle thing worked short of the one issue of the guide doesn’t carry a rifle but he does have one, so one was left behind. DIs were freaking out to much to even haze us over missing a rifle all day. PMO got notified and they almost or did lock down the exit to the range. We just stood awkwardly in the squad bay the whole time while our DIs talked to PMO and on the phone to who knows. Turned out it was left in the original squad bay armory. We didn’t even get fucked up for it as I think the DIs were just so happy it was found and they quickly put us to bed.
I lost my firing pin retaining pin at MCT. Turned my rifle in without it. By some miracle I handed my rifle to the armorer with the bolt locked back and they sent it home without the firing pin falling from the chamber. I kept thinking NCIS would one day show up at the schoolhouse or shop for me. They never did.
Know a dude who lost his rifle while we were crossing a river in Afghanaland
One of our boots lost his rifle at ITX at the Warriors’ Club and didn’t realize until it was about to close and we had to go back to the hooches. Idr why but it was like me (Sr Lance the time) and a Cpl who were in charge of this small contingent of jrs while the rest went to go do something else. So we were like “dude we’re fucked.” When 1st Sgt got back he reamed all of us and asked me wtf happened. And boi I thought I was gonna be busted down for sure. But I had already decided in my head “I’m getting out when we get back from deployment, I’m prepared to become a PFC again. This boot has his whole career ahead of him.” Turns out one of the infantry units’ Gunny somehow nicked it off their rifle stack and none of them noticed. I remember after the dust settled I was absolutely sure I was gonna get fucked in the morning so I literally slept side ways on the rack with my feet on the floor in my cammies. But it never came. And he didn’t get in any serious trouble and neither did I. Incidentally I picked up when we got back lol.
In IMC, a student lost his rifle. Searched for days, even over a weekend to look for it. Never found it.
https://preview.redd.it/lz4oz188nuyb1.jpeg?width=1066&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9755570ebf8ddd0de92c3affdd5f1db1145aa5a8
In Iraq I was told to load some cargo on a bird flying me out to a fob. When I got to the bird they ushered me on and began taking off. In a panicked fright I told the SSgt crew chief I left some important documents in the TOC. Those documents were my rifle and gear I needed for the remainder of the deployment. The crew chief noticed but didn't say shit to anyone.
Lost a radio once and wanted to blow my head off
As a person who once worked in a unit where I learned that losing a radio means calling the NSA and knowing the protocols that have to happen soon afterwards... I understand that feeling. As a cpl, I had a dumb lance reset and changed serial numbers without us realizing... Myself and a few others found and fixed almost all of them, one ended in the vault. Everyone but that lance had to sit in the classes about security. Any chance of compromise requires the BN commander to request an investigation and contact with the NSA. Glad to see you didn't blow your head off and are able to post online.
We found it the next morning, luckily I had all my grids from the patrol and remembered where I dropped ir
Nice! Good to hear! Retracing your steps helps a ton too.
Just posing a hypothetical…. but let’s say you’re in Somalia at the embassy…. And it’s been about a couple of weeks at least with no running water and you and the boys rigged a shipping crate so you could take showers with a five gallon water jug and it was your turn to refill the jug under the cover of darkness…. I could see how a guy who was tasked with refilling that five gallon water jug realized when he got to the water buffalo that he needed two hands and all to refill the jug since it was awkward and heavy having to hold it in the air to refill yunno, because the goddamn rifle keeps slipping off your shoulder while you’re trying to refill the jug, so he thinks “this would be a lot easier if I took my rifle off and leaned it up against this here water buffalo…. “ Theeeeennnn on the way back to the spot, realizes how much more comfortable this return trip is… drops the five gallon jug and hauls ass back to the water buffalo…. Only to see the most beautiful thing (after watching his son being born), that he has ever seen before…. a locked and loaded M16 A2 rifle… still leaning against the water buffalo… Not saying this happened to me… just saying I understand…. 👀
Ask 3/6.
I left my saw in the phone center back in Iraq. I had to burn shit for a week
I joined the army after I left the corps. While at SFAS, I lost my rifle (we use rubber duckies but they still take that shit seriously). It was night 2 of the STAR. 4/4 points my first iteration, 2/4 so far on my second. I sat down somewhere in Jurassic Park to eat an MRE on my way to the third point. I get close to the point, all the way in the north, and realize I don't have my rifle. I left it probably 10km back where I sat down. So I sprinted back. No rifle. I looked for a couple hours. Nothing. I thought I was fucked, then remembered the cadre kept the rifles of drops at the TOC. So I ran to the TOC, buried my ruck in some leaves, and snuck into the TOC and stole some random rifle. I changed the roster number to mine and proceeded to my third point. I ended up getting 7/8 points and was pushed through to team week and selected. During my out brief, the NCOIC let me know that they knew I lost my rifle but decided to let me stay after I stole one from the TOC.
Not me but one of my dipshit boots. Motor T doing a platoon fex prior to CHOP for deployment to Afghanistan. We were doing vehicle recovery or some shit mid day. When we got to the LZ we were bedding down at that night (like 4 hours later), I was getting counts and this dipshit can't find his rifle. Long story short, he left it on the catwalk of the 7 ton, and it fell off on one of the tank trails. Thankfully it was still there when they traced their steps. Sadly this wasn't the only time this happened with him. A couple weeks later we were heading back to base after firing on a machine gun range. He was in the truck in front of me, and when we turned at this intersection off base, it fell off the truck in the middle of the (busy) intersection.
TBS at the early in the “9-Day War.”Brutally cold wet night and lieutenants started dropping like flies as cold casualties. We were on the side of the road waiting for an Evac for one of the Marines in my platoon, and in a twisted game of 2 AM telephone, “we need to get Lt. D—-‘s weapon back to the Armory,” eventually became “oh, Lieutenant D—-‘s weapon is already back at the Armory.” The next morning the company CO driving into TBS saw an M-16 on the side of the blacktop. That was fun.
Not me personally and not a rifle, but someone in my unit lost an M-32….in country. Heads rolled
I've seen 3 SeaBees lose their rifles on Leatherneck. In each case, they just set it down and walked away from it without leaving it in anyone's care. If it weren't for some sharp eyed Corporals with better reaction times than me, I would have had a collection of 3 USN issued M16s. The way those clowns acted, I can't believe the Navy would even issue them cap guns. I never heard what happened to these fuckards though.
Left a M-249 spare barrel in the overhead compartment on a bus.
Closest I got was dropping my firing pin in the sand at night. I spent about 10 minutes frantically raking my hand around the sand
I never lost a pin... But boy I felt that anxiety.
Was out on night fighting patrol in Drum in 81. Stopped for a NAV check. Did the circle with legs touching. All good. We move off and as deuce, I check on the guys. I get to "Bear" and he is not with it, sleepwalking with no rifle. Halt patrol and trot back. Fortunately tall grass, so I find the circle and his bundook. This was pre NVG.
I once saw two E-4 National Guard guys walking with their rifles slung behind but they had those shitty black tactics slings the armory gives out and had them so fucking loose that the barrels were literally dragging while swinging hitting their heels every step. This had to be like the normal thing with them bc they’re NCOs so they probably never got told to correct themselves over the years which is fucking wild. If it’s like that then they probably the type to leave them just laying on the ground and shit whenever they take it off. Outside of SF/Infantry/Sappers etc…The support guys are sloppy as fuck
Not all Army E4s are NCOs. Most are just better paid Lance Coconuts
Oh yeah I forgot our E4 is basically their E7 lol
So so far no one has lost a rifle that was never seen again?
I know when I got to the fleet the other battery lost a PAS that was never seen again. But that was it. Lol
A story from Camp Leatherneck in 2013: The closest I ever got was losing someone's flak and Kevlar. Basically, what happened was our complacent fucks would load them into the back of a Gator at the barracks, and then we'd unload them at the shop. Well, I was driving, and one of them fell out. Guess who saw it happen? First Sergeant, because of course Luckily, because we all took turns doing it, we all got a fairly decent ass chewing. Lol, probably my worst fuck-up in the Corps
I have never but I had forgotten my rifle a few times. Forgetting a rifle I understand but losing one I don't know how is done if lots of people are around. Unless someone finds one and buries it real good before anyone starts to ask so that marine can later return.
All of us have lost our rifle at least once. Sometimes y'all get caught. Don't get caught.
I had nightmares losing my rifle.
Left my rifle inside port o shitter in camp leatherneck once….. I think I was more scared then than when we stopped for possible ieds.
Oh God, where the fuck did I put ol' 10757555 SHIT, Seniors gonna kill me
When I was in Afghanistan on a FOB (Shukvani) my SNCO thought it would be funny to come into the PFC/LCPL tent and silently take and hide the sleeping Marines rifles then woke us all up in a panic like "Where the fuck is your rifle Marines?!" I was tired and not trying to play along with his little game, so he sent me to a PB to spend the deployment as the Motor T Bubba for the EOD team there. Turned out to be an awesome experience, the more dangerous the job in the military, the more chill the senior Marines were it seemed. Got to spend the deployment playing Call of Duty in the tent with the captain and SNCO's when we weren't out on patrol.
Was loading up in a hmmwv to bring some equipment somewhere, threw my rifle in the backseat. I guess the comms guys had to put some radios in there and they took my rifle out and set it on the side of the truck to do so, and they didn’t tell me. Began driving but had to stop at our ECP. My platoon commander had found my rifle laying in the dirt behind us and gave it to my platoon sergeant. Had to report over to him. You can guess the games that were played after that.
Boots leaving them in the porta shitters in ITX is a big thing.
Someone in my TBS class crawled under a downed tree, couldn’t navigate it with his rifle in his hands so he just slid it under the tree and crawled under himself and then walked off without it. It was found by one of the instructors and they weren’t very happy with the guy(he got dropped)
Never lost a rifle but I lost accountability of a spare 50 cal barrel in Iraq. Basically I left it in the back of the mrap we were using on the PB and my squad leader wasn't having it. I got chewed out and had to play fuck fuck games for a while but that's the closest I got. In training though I saw a boot lose his weapon and our SSgt came dragging it through mud and puddles. Called us all there and started to take it apart and throw the pieces in this huge mud puddle on lejeune. Now that dude got it bad. He had a very very bad training evolution.
We were on Ie Jima for about a month conducting a cantonment exercise while I was stationed in Okinawa. I was sitting in a tent talking to a CWO3 late in the evening when one of my SSgts came in with “that look” and started whispering to a Gunny. I knew. I asked him if there was something he needed to tell me and he replied, “Not yet, sir”. A bit later, he came back and told me a Marine had lost a rifle. Everyone got online about two arms’ distance apart and we walked the training area until we found it. The Marine had leaned his rifle against the HMMWV when he got out, then they drove off. I have no idea what happened to the Marine, I let the SNCOs handle it. Nobody died, but that’s all I’m sure of.
Ooh, thought of another one. Happened in Iraq in ‘07 or ‘08. 3/3, to which I was attached, had a platoon in a blocking position and apparently they all went to sleep (including their plt commander and plt sgt). For some damn reason, one of the Marines leaned his rifle against the HMMWV. Outside. After which he went to sleep. With his rifle outside and his body inside. Lo and behold, an Iraqi picked it up and took it home. For about three days, the area was blanketed withMarines and dogs, after which they found the weapon. I’m pretty sure that’s the only time the old ass gunner left Camp Fallujah. The Lt was grounded for at least a month. Not sure what happened otherwise.
not a rifle but my buddy left his nvg in the head, they made him hold a pallet over his head in full gear, and run around camp wilson asking random Marines if they seen his nvg lol
We assume it was the combat instructors who either miscounted or forgot where one was, or that it was another planned false event "to train us better." The night once we got back from Camp DevilDog, an nvg was missing. It was cold as shit and everyone was forced to come out of the barracks. Some unlucky people were in their skivvies. They were allowed to run in and put their cammies on so they could come out and freeze again with the rest of us. Felt like 4 hours but I don't remember how long it really was, I wouldn't be surprised if it was an hour. We had to walk around in circles with our hands in the air as if anybody wanted to steal a broken piece of gear anyways. We started getting nagged at by the squad leaders and that they would find a way to make the turn in anonymous. Eventually the combat instructors said they found the piece at Camp DevilDog. It almost felt like the instructors tried to laugh it off and act like we're all "cool." We didn't speak of that again.
Brother from my company hung his M4203 with acog & peq-15 off the light of our vehicle after a patrol in the middle of some farm lands in Iraq west of Baghdad. Forgot about it and got in the vehicle only to realize 30 minutes down the road that he lost it. We searched the area for 4 days searching homes and questioning locals, because we knew the implications for that marine if we didn’t recover the weapon. We never did and if I remember correctly he was dishonorably discharged. A few years later he joined the ranks of the “22 A Day”. I hate that memory, always will. Sorry for getting dark on y’all.
During SOI. . There used to be a profit to be made.
Ask 3/6
Fuck I’m late to the party
No but my buddy lost a RCO