Our Military’s Wit and Wisdom
                         — or —
    the Military Version of Murphy’s Law

• “A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it.
   This would make you quite unpopular in what’s left of your unit.”
   –  Army’s magazine of preventive maintenance.
  
  
• “Aim towards the Enemy.”
   –  Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher
  
  
• “When the pin is pulled,  Mr. Grenade is not our friend.”
   –  US Marine Corps
  
  
• “If the enemy is in range,  so are you.”
  
  
• “Try to look unimportant;  they may be low on ammo.”
  
  
• “Five second fuses only last three seconds.”
  
  
• “If your attack is going too well,  you’re walking into an ambush.”
   –  Infantry Journal
  
  
• “Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword
    obviously never encountered automatic weapons.”
   –  General Douglas MacArthur
  
  
• “A good battle plan that you act on today can be better than a perfect one tomorrow.”
  –  Gen George S. Patton
  
  
• “You, you, and you . . .  Panic.
   The rest of you, come with me.”
   –  US Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt.
  
  
• “Everyone wants peace
  –  and they will fight the most terrible war to get it.”
  –  Miles Kington
  
  
• “Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.”
  
  
• “Coffee tastes better if the latrines are dug downstream from an encampment.”
  –  US Army Field Regulations, 1861
  
  
• “Tracers work both ways.”
   –  US Army Ordnance
  
  
• “Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.”
   –  David Hackworth
  
  
• “No combat–ready unit has ever passed inspection.”
   –  Joe Gay
  
  
• “Any ship can be a minesweeper . . . once.”
   –  Anonymous
  
  
• “Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.”
   –  Unknown Marine Recruit
  
  
• “Don’t draw fire;  it irritates the people around you.”
   –  Your Buddies
  
  
• “If you see a bomb technician running,  follow him.”
   –  USAF Ammo Troop
  
  
• “Blue water Navy truism:
  There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky.”
   –  An old sailor
  
  
• “Cluster bombing from B–52s are very, very accurate.
   The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground.”
   –  USAF Ammo Troop
  
  
• “Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death,  I Shall Fear No Evil.
    For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing.”
   –  At the entrance to the old SR–71 operating base,   Kadena,  Japan
  
  
• “You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach 3.”
    –  Paul F. Crickmore   (test pilot)
  
  
• “The only time you have too much fuel is when you’re on fire.”
  
  
• “If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage,
    it’s probably a helicopter  –  and therefore, unsafe.”
  
  
• “If something hasn’t broken on your helicopter,  it’s about to.”
  
  
• “When one engine fails on a twin–engine airplane you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash.”
  
  
• “What is the difference between air traffic controllers and pilots?
    If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies;
    If ATC screws up,  . . .  the pilot dies.”
  
  
• “Never trade luck for skill.”
  
  
• Three famous last words in aviation are:
  • “Why is it doing that?”,
  • “Where are we?”
  • “Aw Shit!”
  
  


• “Airspeed, altitude, and brains. Two of these are always necessary to successfully complete the mission.”


• “The three most useless things in aviation are:
  Fuel in the bowser; Runway behind you; and Air above you.”
  –  Basic Flight Training Manual




• “Pilots, please taxi up close when sumping your fuel cell. You may have lower manifold pressure and shorter exhaust stacks than you realized.”
  –  Sign over men's urinal,  Casey Jones Flying Service,  Ontario OR 1968




• “You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal.”
  –  Lead-in Fighter Training Manual




• “Progress in airline flying:  now a flight attendant can get a pilot pregnant.”
  
  
• “Mankind has a perfect record in aviation;  we never left one up there!”
  



• “It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.”
   –  US Air Force Manual
  
  
  
• “Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it.”
  
  
• “The three best things in life are:
  A good landing, a good orgasm, and, a good bowel movement.
  The night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life where you get to experience all three at the same time.”
  –  Ready room sign,  USS Enterprise, 1969, Gulf of Tonkin
  
  
• “When you’re short of everything but the enemy, you’re in combat.”
  –  F-16C Fighting Falcon,  From Moody AFB GA,  In Iraq
  
  
• “Just remember,  if you crash because of weather,  your funeral will be held on a sunny day.”
  
  
• Advice given to RAF pilots during WWII:
  “When a crash seems inevitable,  endeavor to strike the softest, 
    cheapest object in the vicinity as slowly and gently as possible.”
  
  
• “The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world;  it can just barely kill you.”
  –  Attributed to Max Stanley
  
  
• “Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you.”
  
  
• “When a flight is proceeding incredibly well,  something was forgotten.”
  –  Infantry Journal
  



• “If an airplane is still in one piece, don’t cheat on it; ride the bastard down. ”
  –  Ernest K. Gann, author & aviator
  
  
• “Now I know what a dog feels like watching TV.”
  –  AF C-9 (DC-9) copilot attempting to check out in a ‘glass cockpit’ C-40 (Boeing 737).
  
  
• “Without ammunition,  the Air Force is just an expensive flying club.”
  
  
  
• “An airplane is built to inherently want to fly.
  A helicopter is a compromised design that inherently wants to thrash itself apart.”
  –  939 Rescue Wing Squadron lounge sign for HC-130 and HH-60 pilots
  



• “There is absolutely no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime.”
  –  Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis–Monthan  AFB,  AZ
  
  
• Basic Flying Rules:
  • Try to stay in the middle of the air.
  • Do not go near the edges of it.
  • The edges of the air can be recognized by:
    • the appearance of ground
    • buildings
    • trees
    • sea
    • interplanetary space.
  • It is much more difficult to fly there.
  
  
• As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives, the rescuer sees a bloodied pilot and asks,
    “What happened?”.
  The pilot’s reply:  “I don’t know,  I just got here myself!”
  –  Attributed to Ray Crandell   (Lockheed test pilot)




• A good landing is when you can walk away from the plane,
  A great landing is when you can reuse the plane.
  
  
  

  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 a commercial flight,  it is 3 o’clock.
  If it is a Marine Corps plane,  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 an Air Force aircraft,  it’s Thursday afternoon and 120 minutes to  “Happy Hour.”
   

  
  
• If you hear me yell; “Eject, Eject, Eject!”, the last two will be echoes.
   If you stop to ask “Why?”  you'll be talking to yourself,
    because by then you’ll be the pilot.
  –  Pre-flight briefing from an F-15 Pilot
  
  


“There is no reason to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.”
-Sign at Pope AFB C-130 Squadron that supports Fort Bragg Airborne

 

Q: How do you know if there is a fighter pilot at your party?
A: He’ll tell you.

Q: What’s the difference between God and fighter pilots?
A: God doesn’t think He’s a fighter pilot.

Q: What’s the difference between a fighter pilot and a jet engine?
A: A jet engine stops whining when the plane shuts down.

Humor in uniform: