Are you a prankster?

2015-01-07T15:12:46-05:00

Against my better judgement I'm going to go ahead and ask the community this question. Are you, or were you, a prankster? Have you ever prank called the staff duty desk? Did you ever lovingly mess with your first line supervisor (or higher!)? Tell us your stories, and for those currently serving make sure you practice OPSEC in this thread! Wouldn't want anyone getting in trouble. Also, unless it's original try to exclude cherry pranks. Everyone knows the classics like getting a new private to go to supply for grid squares and chem light batteries. I'll start things off with one of my own pranks.

When I was in Afghanistan it was part of my job to help get the platoon sergeants vehicle ready for mission. Making sure the gunners ammo cans were secured, helping set up the blue force tracker, all that good stuff. As part of an escalating prank war with my platoon sergeant I started leaving an artistic present for him when he arrived at his TC seat. I would draw on the plastic dash right in front of his seat a big ol' wiener drawn in chalk. He had a choice, he could either have it staring at him the entire mission, or he could rub it off!

Response by CW5 Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 7 at 2015 3:20 PM

2015-01-07T15:20:04-05:00

I was on the receiving end of this sort of thing when I first reported to the 82nd Aiirborne, back in 1975. After being yelled at ("Cherry! Cherry!!") when I stepped off the bus - the guys were literally hanging out of the windows yelling this - I reported to my unit, and one of the first things I had to do was go to the Supply Sergeant and get a key to Area 37 (I don't remember the actual number, but you get the idea). The Supply Sergeant didn't have the key, so he sent me to the next guy, who sent me to the next guy, and so on and so on. It was fun for them to watch and all in good fun. No harm done.

Response by Capt Richard I P. made Jan 7 at 2015 3:24 PM

2015-01-07T15:24:44-05:00

Valentine's candy-hearts in everything the Operations Officer owned. Every piece of clothing individually, carefully re-folded with a heart in it. Every bag of chips, every hand sanitizer, battery case, shaving kit item. Every map covered with a heart ticker on key positions. The air conditioner, the coffee, every pouch of his flak, anything unsecured...like pretty literally everything, got at least one candy heart before being carefully replaced exactly as it was. He thought it was the Batatlion XO. All in good deployment fun.... I think.

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 7 at 2015 3:24 PM

2015-01-07T15:24:54-05:00

I don't know if this qualifies as a prank per se, but I'll give it a go. My MOS is combat engineer, but I've worked in construction trades for a few years. So I was a de facto crew leader on a framing project in Afghanistan. My team leader had a fairly short fuse. So one day I decided to see if I could get him to walk off the job. I ridiculed everything he did for about an hour, and sure enough, he walked off, and I didn't see him till afternoon.

Response by MSgt Michael Durkee made Jan 7 at 2015 3:27 PM

2015-01-07T15:27:24-05:00

Yep, always have been and probably always will be. I've never really been a "mean prankster", but one of my favorites was when I was stationed in England in the late 80's.
I worked Swing Shift, from 1530 - 2330hrs as did my roommate. I had a fairly convincing "British" accent (although probably more Australian), but my coworkers and I gathered around as I called him claiming to be from the East Anglia Television Council and noticing that he hadn't purchased the mandatory television tax for the year. Mind you, we lived in the dorms/barracks and although it was allowed...we didn't have a TV in our room.
It went back and forth for a bit, and he admitted to not having a TV, but he came up with a list of everyone else in the dorm that did!
I never fessed up to it being me on the phone, but once we were back in our room after shift...he told us all about it, well except that he Blue Falconed us :P

Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 7 at 2015 3:59 PM

2015-01-07T15:59:48-05:00

Had a new guy running around the battalion looking for BA1100N's which supply told him before he could get them he had to go to cq to get chemlight batteries for there truck in turn cq told him to sign for some grid squares from staff duty who told him to go to the motorpool and sign for headlight fluid who told him to come to me and sign for some Ba11's first the kid ran around for the entire work day thank god for him it was rear d and we we're working for four hours still funny when I explained everything to him.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 7 at 2015 6:14 PM

2015-01-07T18:14:49-05:00

I'm not sure if this technically counts as a prank, but it fits with the spirit of the topic so I'm going to tell the story.

Another Afghanistan story. While over there I was a line medic so I wasn't at the aidstation much. The medics unfortunate enough to not be line medics (depends on your perspective) occasionally had impromptu medical training set up by the medical platoon sergeant. The thing was the medical PSG didn't always tell his PL, or anyone else for that matter, that he was about to orchestrate an elaborate training drill.

So one day right after the FOB takes indirect the medical PSG goes nuts saying that the ammo point got hit and that there's a mass cal situation. The medics, not knowing this was training, grabbed their aidbags and bolted out of the aidstation running as fast as they could to the ammo point. The medical PL, who again was also not in the loop, proceeded to run into his office and called in medevac birds, redirecting real helos from a real mission to our FOB.

The medics when they arrived at the ammo point found one guy laying on the ground with a bit of ketchup on their chest, and were obviously not amused. Neither was anyone else higher ranking as in hindsight it's a miracle the medical PSG didn't get in any serious trouble. The PL, God bless his innocent soul, didn't know better and probably caught some flak too for doing a damned good job of diverting emergency assets to our FOB.

Response by SFC Mark Merino made Jan 7 at 2015 6:40 PM

2015-01-07T18:40:28-05:00

3rd ACR got our deployment orders for Iraq on Valentines Day. I went home with flowers in one hand and the FRG list in the other. The ex thought I was trying to pull a prank.

Response by PO3 Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 7 at 2015 7:11 PM

2015-01-07T19:11:41-05:00

I'm a bit of a prankster (or I was when I was in)...

I was on Submarines and my favorite target were our Chiefs, especially the COB (Chief of the Boat aka the Senior Enlisted Advisor).

One time, when I was driving the boat as Helmsman, the COB was my Diving Officer. Generally, a very junior NUB (non-useful body aka non-qual, not qualified in Submarines) would be part of the watch-section as the Messenger, and was responsible for doing the wake-ups for the oncoming watch section and anyone who had requested a wake-up in the "wake-up log". As we were getting off watch, right before chow, I grabbed the wake-up log and signed the COB up fo for a wake up a few hours later...

After he was woken up (about 3 hours before his next watch), he realized what had happened and who was responsible. On my next off-watch, the messenger came by my rack every half hour to do a wake up and deliver the message, "COB says never to F* with him," lol...

Another time (possibly my favorite ever), we were leaving Bahrain after operating in the area for about 6 months. While we were in port, I bought an alarm clock in Manama that sounded like the Muslim call to prayer. I took the alarm clock and set it for just a few hours after we were going to dive, cranked the volume to 11 (lol), and then took EB Green (duct tape) and taped it up so that only the speaker was open (and so you couldn't get to the snooze).

I went into the Goat Locker (the Chiefs' berthing), opened an access panel in the outboard, taped it on the backside of the bulkhead (wall), and closed the access panel. A few hours after we dived, read: just a couple of hours after the chiefs who weren't on watch hit the rack, that alarm went off. I understand they tore the entire Goat Locker apart trying to find it, lol...

On my next watch, I was driving the boat at the Helm and my COB was my Dive. He said to me, "Glade, I know you've got your ear to the deck plates. Do me a favor and find out who the F' set that MF." I replied "Aye, COB," lol...

As I was leaving the boat (roughly 6 months later, having learned my lesson with the wake-up incident), I came clean to him, lol...

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Jan 8 at 2015 2:20 AM

2015-01-08T02:20:59-05:00

I used to work on a Medsurg ward. We had two nursing stations that were far from each other. I used to get another nurse that could imitate the nursing supervisor's voice, to call the main nursing station to speak to the charge nurse and make up a patient that was going to be admitted to our ward. Our charge nurse would get all flustered because he couldn't find the fictional patient in any of the military health databases. We could never keep the ruse up over the phone because we cracked up too much.

Response by TSgt Jackie Jones made Jan 8 at 2015 10:05 PM

2015-01-08T22:05:46-05:00

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 28 at 2015 9:34 PM

2015-02-28T21:34:21-05:00

While working in the Emergency Room in Germany, we sent a Soldier all over the clinic asking for a box of fallopian tubes. When he ask the Chief of the OB/GYN she laughed and said she only had two and he could not have them.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 28 at 2015 9:42 PM

2015-02-28T21:42:24-05:00

We had a prank ware going at Camp Shelby. I saran wrapped (using the moving-van version) our MAJ's van (he created a WICKED OPORD as a response), tin-foiled our civilian receptionists desk (including the mouse, chair, pens, note pads, etc), post-it note wallpapered our NCOICs desk, switched the keys on our LTC/Chief Doctor's keyboard and stole his pens and mouse, replacing them with bedazzled pink/neon blue replacements, and created a food drive for my OIC's desk, where the whole department purchased more than $200 in canned foods that was organized into a "Great Wall" that was 5 feet high and 2 cans deep, forcing him to climb over his desk to access his workstation.

Our civilian (whom I knew VERY well wouldn't get upset) also had her car moved, saran wrapped, and confetti was placed in the AC vents (I wouldn't advise this if you know someone will get upset about this....as this is the "HIV of pranks"....you NEVER get rid of it....months later a piece or two of glitter will blow out).

In exchange, they placed balloons filled with confetti in my office and sprinkled it all over my office.....vaselined under the door handles of my car. I DID get upset when they placed Vaseline on my windshield wipers because of the safety component, but everything else was done in good spirits.

My MAJ (the van prank recipient) attempted to get our Dustoffs to slingload my car on top of the pharmacy CONNEX....when that failed, he attempted to enlist the help of the engineers help to forklift my car onto a Bailey bridge segment and float it to the middle of a lake, then have me land-nav my way out there (I was a 1LT at the time).

I don't think I've laughed so hard that he talked to EVERY NG unit in the So Mississippi area, and even the Navy Seabees stationed nearby......nobody had one to spare, otherwise they were going to authorize it.
v/r,
CPT Butler

Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 28 at 2015 9:43 PM

2015-02-28T21:43:58-05:00

When I was in AIT we had a running gag where a battery powered alarm clock would be place into someone's ceiling with an alarm set for a random time in the middle of the night.

Response by MSgt Michael Durkee made Mar 1 at 2015 10:26 AM

2015-03-01T10:26:18-05:00

Yes, that's me filling a fellow NCO's workspace with packing peanuts... :)

Response by SrA Matthew Knight made Mar 1 at 2015 2:16 PM

2015-03-01T14:16:15-05:00

I am not too good with pranks. The one I have used so far is my accent. I am good at mimicking a Russian accent and have used it over the phone with people before just to see if they say anything. One guy called and I had stopped using it, he asked for the person he had talked to before. Said I sounded different before when I told him I was the same guy.

Response by CMSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2015 4:17 PM

2015-03-01T16:17:20-05:00

I dare admit, I was punked. When I worked in Honolulu, I work with two Army ladies (one SNCO, one junior Enlisted) that would feed each other with wicked ideas when they were bored. I was typically in on the gag, but they felt a burning desire to make me the mark.

They simply taped the mouthpiece of the phone. I genuinely did not see it, since if I had, the following would not have happened. I started by dismantling the phone. Then I called Comm. They came up with a team of guys that had to crawl down underneath the floor tiles to test lines. The line testing had to extend to the other office spaces. Work order had to be extended therefore approved by Commander.

The Army SNCO had innocently been on appointments and had no idea this sh*t-storm was occurring. It swept so fast and far, she returned to work to hear about the onslaught of activity. She was mortified and sheepishly had to stand on the carpet and explain her shenanigans to the Commander.

Oh, yeah. I was right there smiling as she hemmed-hawed through the story. I believe that she uttered something under her breath to me when I laughed as the story unraveled to the less-then-amused Commander. :)

Response by Sgt Adam Jennings made Mar 1 at 2015 6:04 PM

2015-03-01T18:04:13-05:00

Am I a prankster? Well, I was a professional firefighter for 7 years and a Marine for 5, sonic say if I wasn't before I pretty much converted lol. And yes, we used to prank call the duty NCO's all the time.

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2015 7:01 PM

2015-03-01T19:01:29-05:00

Walk into a shower tent and shut off the hot water while there's a few guys showering. Or fill a bucket with cold water and throw it into a guy's shower stall. I reached into the stall with a can of shaving cream and sprayed my team leader down once. I'm sure there's more, but these just came to mind.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 26 at 2021 6:20 PM

2021-10-26T18:20:54-04:00

Afghanistan. I was the oldest person in my company. 48. Always caught shit from command about being old enough to be there dad.
PT test I am on a permanent profile for running due to multiple ankle surgeries.
Doing the 10 k on the stationary bike. 1SG in the gym working out. He was on treadmill next to me. When I finished he of course had something to say about my age.
So I rolled my eyes back, grabbed my chest and fell down.
Hint.
Don't fake a heart attack for the 1Sg. Things went southh real quick.
CW4 in the shop a few months younger tham me.
Great horseshoe haircut. Kind of self conscious about it.
Stencilled his name and EXTRA STRENGTH ROGAINE on a 55 gallon drum and had it delivered to his office.
Tons more but........