The nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside.
"Your son is here," she said to the old man.
She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened.
Heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack, he dimly saw the young uniformed Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.
The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit beside the bed.. All through the night the young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine move away and rest awhile.
He refused.. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital - the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients.
Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night.
Along towards dawn, the old man died. The Marine released the now lifeless hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse. While she did what she had to do, he waited.
Finally, she returned. She started to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted her.
"Who was that man?" he asked.
The nurse was startled, "He was your father," she answered.
"No, he wasn't," the Marine replied. "I never saw him before in my life."
"Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?"
"I knew right away there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his
son just wasn't here. When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, knowing how much he needed me, I stayed.
I came here tonight to find a Mr. William Grey. His son was killed in Iraq today, and I was sent to inform him. May I ask what this gentleman's name was?"
The nurse with tears in her eyes answered, "Mr. William Grey."
The next time someone needs you... just be there. Just stay.
THE ULTIMATE RESPONSE TO THE "DEAR JOHN LETTER"
You gotta love a man like this... Humor in the face of defeat.
A Marine was deployed to Afghanistan. While he was there he received a letter from his girlfriend. In the letter she explained that she had slept with two guys while he had been gone and she wanted to break up with him. AND, she wanted pictures of herself back.
So the Marine did what any squared-away Marine would do. He went around to his buddies and collected all the unwanted photos of women he could find.
He then mailed about 25 pictures of women (with clothes and without) to his girlfriend with the following note:
"I don't remember which one you are. Please remove your picture and send the rest back."
A while back, young Bobby Birman, a Michigan mountain man, answered his nation's call and joined the Army.
On the first day of boot camp, the Army issued him a tooth brush. That afternoon, an Army dentist yanked several of his teeth.
On the second day, the Army issued him a comb. That afternoon, an Army barber shaved his head.
On the third day, he was issued a jock strap. The Army is still looking for him...
The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.
The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories.
"Johnny, do you have a story to share?" the teacher asked.
"Yes ma'am. My daddy told me a story about my Aunt Karen. She was a pilot in the war and her plane got hit.
She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a small flask of whiskey, a pistol, and a survival knife.
She drank the whiskey on the way down, so the bottle wouldn't break, and then her parachute landed right in the middle of twenty enemy troops, all with their guns drawn on her.
She shot fifteen of them with her gun until she ran out of bullets, killed four more with her knife, until the blade broke, and then she killed the last one with her bare hands."
"Good Heavens" exclaimed his horrified teacher. "What kind of moral did your daddy tell you from this horrible story?"
"To stay the heck away from Aunt Karen when she's been drinking!"
The CIA has three candidates, two men and a woman, for one assassin position.
On the final day of testing, the CIA proctor leads the first male candidate to a large steel door and hands him a gun. "We must know that you will follow our instructions, regardless of the circumstances," he explains. "Inside this room, you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill her."
The man is horrified, "You can't be serious! I could never shoot my wife!"
"Well," says the proctor, "you're definitely not the right man for this job then."
The CIA proctor leads the second male candidate to another large steel door and hands him a gun. "We must know that you will follow instructions, no matter what the circumstances," the proctor explains. "Inside this room, you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill her."
The second man steadies himself, takes the gun and enters the room. After three quiet minutes, the man exits the room with tears in his eyes. "I wanted to do it I just couldn't pull the trigger and shoot my wife. I guess I'm not the right man for the job."
Finally, the CIA proctor leads the female candidate to yet another large steel door and hands her a gun. "We must be sure that you will follow instructions, no matter what the circumstances. Inside this room, you will find your husband sitting in a chair. Take this gun and kill him."
The woman takes the gun, enters the room, and before the door even closes completely behind her, she's fired off six shots. Then all hell breaks loose behind the door cursing, screaming, crashing. Suddenly, all goes quiet.
The door opens slowly, the woman exits, and wiping the sweat from her brow, she says, "Did you guys know the gun was loaded with blanks? I had to beat the son of a bitch to death with the chair!"
Years ago, I was taking an algebra class over the summer, and had a teacher who liked to reminisce about his past with funny stories. He relates that he had been a math teacher in the Air Force, where it was his duty to force sleepy young recruits to stay awake for an hour of math at 8:00 in the morning in a large, warm, dimly-lit auditorium. One day, he came into the auditorium and saw his class even sleepier and less attentive than usual. He realized that something drastic would have to be done.
Now this classroom was very old, and the blackboard, which had been nailed on to the walls with old black iron nails, had become loose over the years. As a result, these black nails jutted almost invisibly from the blackboard and this teacher kept banging his hands on them while erasing the board. He decided to put them to good use.
With enough of a flourish to guarantee the class's attention, he went to the front of the room, near one edge of the board. Then, clearing his throat, he drew a coathook right near one of the protruding nails. He proceeded to hang his coat and hat on the hook that he had drawn in chalk (really on the nail, of course). Then he went on to give that day's lecture. He told us that the entire class had their eyes to the front of the room throughout the lecture. He didn't know if they'd heard a single word he'd said, but at least they looked attentive.
At the end of the class, the lecturer would usually leave by a small door near the blackboard, while the class would leave through the large doors at the back of the hall. When class was over, he took his coat and hat, erased the coathook, and left through the small door... and was followed by the entire class, lining up to go past the blackboard to see how he'd done it.
You've all heard of the Air Force's ultra-high-security, super-secret base in Nevada, known simply as "Area 51?"
Well, late one afternoon, the Air Force folks out at Area 51 were very surprised to see a Cessna landing at their "secret" base. They immediately impounded the aircraft and hauled the pilot into an interrogation room.
The pilot's story was that he took off from Las Vegas, got lost, and spotted the Base just as he was about to run out of fuel. The Air Force started a full FBI background check on the pilot and held him overnight during the investigation.
By the next day, they were finally convinced that the pilot really was lost and wasn't a spy. They gassed up his airplane, gave him a terrifying "you-did-not-see-a-base" briefing, complete with threats of spending the rest of his life in prison, told him Las Vegas was that-a-way on such-and-such a heading, and sent him on his way.
The next day, to the total disbelief of the Air Force, the same Cessna showed up again. Once again, the MP's surrounded the plane ... only this time there were two people in the plane.
The same pilot jumped out and said, "Do anything you want to me, but my wife is in the plane and you have to tell her where I was last night!"
It was a dark, stormy night. The Marine was on his first assignment, and it was guard duty.
A General stepped out taking his dog for a walk. The nervous young Private snapped to attention, made a perfect salute, and snapped out, "Sir, Good Evening, Sir!"
The General, out for some relaxation, returned the salute and said, "Good evening soldier, nice night, isn't it?"
Well it wasn't a nice night, but the Private wasn't going to disagree with the General, so he saluted again and replied, "Sir, Yes Sir!".
The General continued, "You know there's something about a stormy night that I find soothing, it's really relaxing. Don't you agree?"
The Private didn't agree, but then the private was just a private, and responded "Sir, Yes Sir!"
The General, pointing at the dog, "This is a Golden Retriever, the best type of dog there is to train."
The Private glanced at the dog, saluted yet again and said, "Sir, Yes Sir!"
The General continued, "I got this dog for my wife."
The Private replied, "Sir, Good trade, Sir!"
A US Air Force C-141 was scheduled to leave Thule Air Base, Greenland at midnight. During the pilot's preflight check, he discovered that the aircraft's latrine holding tank was still full from the last flight. So a message was sent to the base, and an airman who was off duty is called out to take care of it.
The young man finally got to the air base and made his way to the aircraft, only to find that the latrine pump truck had been left outdoors and was frozen solid, so he had to find another one in the hangar, which takes even more time. He returned to the aircraft and was less than enthusiastic about what he had to do. Nevertheless, he went about the pumping job deliberately and carefully (and slowly) so as to not risk criticism later.
As he's left the plane, the pilot stopped him and said, "Son, your attitude and performance has caused this flight to be late, and I'm going to personally see to it that you are not just reprimanded, but punished."
Shivering in the cold, his task finished, the airman took a deep breath, stood up tall and said, "Sir, with all due respect, I'm not your son; I'm an Airman in the United States Air Force. I've been in Thule, Greenland for 11 months without any leave, and the reindeer are beginning to look pretty good to me. I have one stripe, it's two-thirty in the morning, the temperature is 40 degrees below zero and my job here is to pump sh*t from your aircraft. Now just exactly what form of punishment did you have in mind?"
I read this on Reddit in response to the question, "What is the laziest thing you've ever done?" It was a response by "TupperWolf," who told the story of the laziest thing he ever witnessed. It is pure diabolical lazy genius!
"I was once on a US military ship, having breakfast in the wardroom (officers lounge) when the Operations Officer (OPS) walks in. This guy was the definition of NOT a morning person; he's still half asleep, bleary eyed... basically a zombie with a bagel. He sits down across from me to eat his bagel and is just barely conscious. My back is to the outboard side of the ship, and the morning sun is blazing in one of the portholes putting a big bright-ass circle of light right on his barely conscious face. He's squinting and chewing and basically just remembering how to be alive for today. It's painful to watch.
But then zombie-OPS stops chewing, slowly picks up the phone, and dials the bridge. In his well-known I'm-still-totally-asleep voice, he says "heeeey. It's OPS. Could you... shift our barpat... yeah, one six five. Thanks." And puts the phone down. And then he just sits there. Squinting. Waiting.
And then, ever so slowly, I realize that that big blazing spot of sun has begun to slide off the zombie's face and onto the wall behind him. After a moment it clears his face and he blinks slowly a few times and the brilliant beauty of what I've just witnessed begins to overwhelm me. By ordering the bridge to adjust the ship's back-and-forth patrol by about 15 degrees, he's changed our course just enough to reposition the sun off of his face. He's literally just redirected thousands of tons of steel and hundreds of people so that he could get the sun out of his eyes while he eats his bagel. I am in awe.
He slowly picks up his bagel and for a moment I'm terrified at the thought that his own genius may escape him, that he may never appreciate the epic brilliance of his laziness (since he's not going to wake up for another hour). But between his next bites he pauses, looks at me, and gives me the faintest, sly grin, before returning to gnaw slowly on his zombie bagel."
A former Sergeant Major in the Marine Corps took a new job as a high school teacher.
Just before the school year started, he injured his back.
He was required to wear a plaster cast around the upper part of his body. Fortunately, the cast fit under his shirt and wasn't noticeable.
On the first day of class, he found himself assigned to the toughest students in the school. The smart punks, having already heard the new teacher was a former Marine, were leery of him and he knew they would be testing his discipline in the classroom.
Walking confidently into the rowdy classroom, the new teacher opened the window wide and sat down at his desk. When a strong breeze made his tie flap, he picked up a stapler and stapled the tie to his chest.
Dead silence... the rest of the year went very smoothly.
