General Humor

"The Package"
When I was stationed in Germany as an Army LT, I never thought of the humorous situations that could occur with simple mail. As a birthday surprise I had purchased an item from Fredericks of Hollywood for my boyfriend. Because he was another officer in the same battalion, we wanted to be discreet as much as possible. I handed him the box thinking he would open it later. I checked on a couple of things and when I met him in the parking lot in front of the Company HQ, about 15 troops were standing around my boyfriend's car and when I approached, one of them said "Have fun tonight" then they all gave me an exaggerated salute and left. I asked my boyfriend what that was all about and he said that he had opened the box in the car and they saw what it was. A red, men's rip away bikini!
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"Read My Lips"
Long before the phrase became famous, " READ MY LIPS" was a favorite of a Platoon Sgt. of ours, usually when he frustrated with us. One very unpleasant day, Sgt.F was extremely unhappy with the male members of the platoon and hollered out for the females to "COVER YOUR EARS"..... to which a woman beside me answered,..."That won't work anymore Sgt. F, you taught us to read lips.".
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"The Tootsie Pop"
In 1986, I was stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas. I had been trying to stop smoking as the new rules of no smoking in government buildings was about to go into affect. Being the rank of a mere PFC, I was low man on the totem pole! I tried the nicorette gum, but that wasn't enough,,, I decided to go with a "tootsie pop," -- the suckers with the tootsie roll inside. I was walking down the sidewalk back to the S-4 section, when an officer popped around the building,,,, I had papers in one hand, and a tootsie pop in the other..... without even thinking of what I was doing, I whipped out my salute and hit myself in the head with the tootsie pop! I was so embarrassed, thought for sure, I'm in trouble now!!! But amazingly the officer burst out laughing, causing me in turn to laugh, and I was then able to rearrange what I had in hand, whipped out a proper salute, apologize and head on my merry way,,,,,the officer returned the salute while he was still cracking up about me cracking myself in the head with a sucker! I decided to get rid of the suckers after that, and was never able to quit smoking!
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"More on Smoking"
I remember the timeframe (1986ish) when the new no-smoking rules were going to be implemented in government buildings. My boss, a brand new lieutenant colonel, smoked like a chimney. Neither I nor any of my counterparts who worked for the LtCol smoked. Naturally, we hated having meetings in our boss's office because we had to endure his smoking. One day, on the way out, one of the bolder lieutenants in our small group said: "What are you going to do when the military says you can't smoke in your office anymore?" The LtCol looked at us with a forlorn look and said: "I guess I'll have to quit." The four of us walked out and didn't say a word and we never knew if our boss meant he'd have to quit smoking or quit the military.

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"Bunny"
When I was in the Air Force during the 1970s, we were implementing the new security procedures for the terminals. My job was to hand search all carry on packages for concealed weapons, knives with blades over 3 inches, etc. I was stationed at Travis AFB, CA. The war in 'Nam was on the down swing but it was still there. I think anyone could imagine my surprise when I reached down into what I thought was a shaving kit, and felt the contents wiggle under my hand. The passenger had a live rabbit in his hand carry bag. I screamed but was trapped between two tables and two posts. He didn't take the rabbit on the plane but the guys in my section called me "Bunny" for a while.