Well, I've got a crazy story but I wouldn't call it "good". I was sitting on the mess balcony in St. Jean one friday, having a beer with some buddies on my BOTC course. We were sitting around, looking forward to the weekend and dreading the upcoming field ex, doing our best to get reasonably drunk and not slobber over the smell of the steaks being cooked on the balcony's BBQ by some junior officers on SLT. From where I was sitting, I could see down the length of the building and as we're shooting the sh--, I hear a loud "WOOOOOOOOOO!!!" like you'd hear from someone riding a roller coaster or something. I look over towards where the noise came from (down the Mega a ways) and I see what looks like a person in combats plumetting down the face of the Mega and landing with a loud "THUMP" on the 2nd story roof that juts out along the eastern face. I couldn't see the landing spot since the edge of the roof was over my line of sight but I was sure he'd landed pretty badly given that he'd been falling face-down.
Well, needless to say I was a little shocked. At first I thought "no way that was a person"; I was hoping maybe it was a set of combats stuffed with someone's stuff (like instructors like to do when you leave your crap unsecure) but then one of the JO's says "what the hell was that?" and another answers "I think that was a person". So we tear-a-- out of the mess and I bump into a few buddies, tell them what happened, and one goes down to report it to the duty desk while the rest of us book it up towards where the guy landed. After a minute or two of frantically trying to find a pod in the area with an open door (so that we can see down to where the guy landed), we find one of our sister platoon's common room doors open. One of my buddies opened a window, looked out, and saw that we were right above the jumper. He punched out the screen (I remember thinking "Dude!!! You're gonna get in so much shi-!!!" but then it kind of clicked that a screen didn't matter much now) and started calling down to the guy, trying to get him to respond. He wasn't responsive in the slightest and you could see the pits his head and feet had made on impact with the gravel roof.
After about 5 or 10 minutes, my buddy who went down to the duty desk appears on the roof with a guy from our sister platoon who's a nurse. They get to the guy and the nurse starts looking him over while we try to find first aid kit to throw down to him. At this point, there are people watching from probably 5 or 6 different floors so when the nurse yells up that he needs rubber gloves, about 20 pairs flew down. My friend on the roof made the mistake of asking for a Gerber but realized it in time and countered the request before 20 Gerbers came streaking down at him. Finally the MP's show up and tell the NURSE not to touch the guy, at which point he kindly informs the MPs that he's a nurse and that if he doesn't help the guy, he's probably going to die. Then he tells the MPs to go get proper first aid supplies, bring help, etc. which they do. Anyways, after doing a cursory examination, my buddy and the nurse got the guy rolled over onto his back and covered with a wool blanket (it was drizzling rain at the time) and started CPR while they waited for the paramedics, which took about 20 minutes to show up and about 40 more to get the guy down off the roof.
Needless to say, the guy died (I think he probably died on impact or shortly thereafter - his internal and external injuries were quite extensive). I'd gone back to the mess to finish my beer by the time they got him off the roof (I can recall worrying about my beer being thrown out/taken while we were watching the guys on the roof check over the jumper - and yes, I felt guilty about it). It turns out he was an Ocdt. in his first or second week of training and that he'd been behaving very strangely that day. There was mention of him loudly announcing, in the dining mess, his devotion to God or Jesus or some such thing. Apparently the window he'd jumped from wasn't his own but that of someone else in his platoon. Supposedly he had gone upstairs after dinner and had one or two altercations with other members of his platoon (allegedly resultant from him trying to get in the shower with one or two of them, but I've never heard this confirmed), then proceeded to run into someone else's room, kick them out, lock the door, and jump out the window (on the 10th floor), thus falling 8 stories before he hit the 2nd story roof.
Just before our departure for our field ex on that Monday, our platoon commander asked if there was anyone that needed counselling and felt they couldn't do the exercise. Of course, none of us said yes. The fact of the matter is that the whole thing was largely over with and forgotten by the time Monday rolled around, what with us frantically trying to get everything prepared for the field.
That was probably my craziest story from summer '05.
Gasmonkey said:
Heres what i learned about SHARP training: sharp is a program designed to give bums off the street a job. furthermore, A good solider never feels harrassed.
I guess the Lt(N) that gave me my sharp training the summer before last was a bum off the street. As for the latter assertion - bullsh-t. A good soldier never feels harassed when he/she isn't being harassed. I'd wager a good soldier isn't any less of a soldier for feeling harassed when his CO fondles his package on a daily basis. :