Military Jokes

A young, freshly minted lieutenant was sent to Bosnia as part of the peace keeping mission. During a briefing on land mines, the captain asked for questions. Our intrepid solder raised his hand and asked, "If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?" " Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area."

Airman Jones was assigned to the induction center, where he advised new recruits about their government benefits, especially their GI insurance. It wasn't long before Captain Smith noticed that Airman Jones was having a staggeringly high success-rate, selling insurance to nearly100% of the recruits he advised. Rather than asking him about this, the Captain stood at the back of the room and listened to Jones' sales pitch. Jones explained the basics of GI Insurance to the new recruits, and then said, "If you are killed in a battle and have a GI Insurance, the government has to pay $200,000 to your beneficiaries. But, if you don't have a GI insurance and get killed in the battle, the government only has to pay a maximum of $6000." "Now," he concluded, "which group do YOU think they are going to send into battle first?"

After numerous rounds of, "We don't know if Osama is still alive," Osama himself decided to send Ted Kennedy a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game. Kennedy opened the letter which appeared to contain a single line of coded message, 370HSSV-0773H. Kennedy was baffled, so he e-mailed it to John Kerry. Kerry and his aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. Noone could solve it at the FBI, so it went to the CIA, then to the NSA. With no clue as to its meaning, the FBI finally asked Marine Corps Intelligence for help. Within a few seconds the Marine Corps cabled back with this reply, "Tell Kennedy he's holding the message upside down."

This is the transcript of an actual radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995.  Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations on November 10, 1995.

Americans:  Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Canadians:  Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans:  This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Canadians:  No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans:  THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET.  WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS.  I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse.  Your call.

On some air bases the Air Force is on one side of the field and civilian aircraft use the other side of the field, with the control tower in the middle. One day the tower received a call from an aircraft asking, "What time is it?" The tower responded, "Who is calling?" The aircraft replied, "What difference does it make?" The tower replied "It makes a lot of difference. If it is an American Airlines Flight, it is 3 o'clock. If it is an Air Force, it is 1500 hours. If it is a Navy aircraft, it is 6 bells.  If it is an Army aircraft, the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 3. If it is a Marine Corps aircraft, it's Thursday afternoon."