Drill Sergeants are supposed to motivate and push soldiers to do their best and work their hardest. However, their methods of inspiring soldiers are often… creative. Here are some of the funniest things Drill Sergeants have said.
Check out the source at the end of the article!
“I am going to take a crap in a box and send it to your parents for sending me theirs!”
Bluuuur
My battle buddy and I were ordered to dig holes, so when were about to the waist he proceeded to turn on a hose. He started to fill the holes with water and told us to stay in the hole. Another Drill Sergeant walks by and asks him what he’s doing. He says “I’m watering my petunias”.
I_suck_at_grammar619
This is actually my father in law’s story- he was in basic and a guy missed a spot shaving. So the Drill Instructor yelled at him “GET UPSTAIRS AND SHAVE EVERY BIT OF HAIR OFF THAT STUPID MUG AND GET BACK DOWN IN FORMATION!” Everyone had to do push-ups for as long as it took him.
He comes back and the Drill Instructor got up in his face, did a double-take, and screamed, “SOLDIER, WHERE ARE YOUR EYEBROWS?!?”
Shaysdays
The Drill Sergeant did this thing where they would yell “Freeze, Recruit, Freeze”. We would have to stop whatever we were doing.
As my bunk mate was running back from the showers wearing nothing but a towel the Drill Sergeant screamed “Freeze, Recruit, Freeze”. My bunk mate tried to freeze on one leg and then fell down, naked, and because he was following orders, just laid there naked. I laughed.
tardayanami
“I just want to stand here and stare at my privates!”
gonzalombaker
A recruit interrupted the Chief to say, “Chief, there’s a bunny rabbit behind you.”
Chief looked like his brain had actually shorted out, then responded, “Is it armed?”
DukeMaximum
I have a couple.
Someone was talking and she shouted, “If I wanted to hear crap, I would have farted!”
Also, during roll call there was a soldier whose last name was Parts, so the Drill Sergeant would read out loud, “Private Parts! Private Parts! Where is Private Parts?!”
dastard82
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We were lined up in 4 rows, or “Elements.”
One day a lone soul lined up in his own element. The instructor came running around the corner staring at this guy. He got right up to his face and screamed,
“ARE YOU BRUCE WILLIS?!”
“No, …sir” he whimpered.
“THEN WHY ARE YOU IN THE FIFTH ELEMENT?!”
I had to use everything within me to not laugh.
PenroseParadigm
One of the first days in basic a guy in my platoon was standing at attention while having his room inspected by the instructor.
It didn’t matter how nice his room was because there was a large piece of fuzz/fluff on his shirt that immediately drew the sergeant’s attention.
“Recruit Bloggins! What is that on your shirt?! Is that a fluffy!?”
“Yes sergeant!”
“Why is there a fluffy on your shirt Bloggins!?”
“I must have missed it sergeant!”
“Missed it? It is so huge, how did you miss such a big fluffy!?” She picks it off of him. “Hold out your hand” He holds out his hand and she places it in his palm. “This is Mr. Fluffy. Find a home for him, like a pill bottle or something. From now on, whenever I want to see Mr. Fluffy you must bring him to me.”
And so, for the rest of basic, every time the sergeant found a piece of fuzz she would yell out, “MR. FLUFFY!” and Bloggins would have to march over to her and present Mr. Fluffy and she would formally hand him the new piece of fuzz to add to Mr. Fluffy. There was hell to pay if he didn’t have Mr. Fluffy with him at all times.
Gadarn
So, I was at Basic in Fort Benning, and we were zero’ing our weapons as a company. Zero’ing a weapon is when you ensure it shoots where you want it to by shooting a paper target repeatedly. Sounds easy enough. Now, I am a terrible shot. I know this. Everyone knows this. However, I get even worse when I’m being screamed at. I spent hours on the line until, finally, there were only four of us cats who hadn’t gotten a “go” in the whole company. We had three more hours of range time, and if we failed to zero, we’d be “recycled.”
“Recycled” entails having to revert to another company earlier along in Basic Training. So, not only do you lose your buddies, but you catch a couple extra weeks of training with a unit that knows you’re a bad soldier of some sort. So, a fate worse than death.
After another unsuccessful grouping, my Drill Sergeant, without a word, picked me up from the prone position and stood me up. He looked at me and said “Go find me a pine cone.” Confused, I took four steps, scooped up a pine cone and took it back to him. I presented him my findings, and he responded “Private, that’s not my pine cone, go find me my freaking pine cone!”
Keep in mind, this is a forest in Georgia, there’s a metric ston of pine cones. So I jog off and work on my “mission.” This entire time, my Drill Sergeant is shooting all my rounds off, genuinely enjoying himself. Every pine cone I bring to him is not his pine cone. This continued for about 15 minutes while the rest of the company, sitting in a clearing eating food, cheered me on.
Finally, I breathlessly run up and hand him another pine cone, about to jog off to grab another. He looks at me, then the pine cone, then me. …. “STEVE!” he yells “You found Steve, private!”
I kid you not, I had never been more relieved in my entire life, until his face scrunched into a grimace.
“Wait, private, where’s his family? … WHO THE HECK TAKES A PINE CONE AWAY FROM HIS FAMILY!?”
So, terrified, I spend around half an hour scavenging for appropriate sized pine cones, while he fires maniacally. Eventually, I hunt down his “wife” and his two “kids.” (At one point I brought “Steve’s estranged son, Dennis”, and I needed to do push-ups for causing Steve “emotional duress.”)
Anyway he lets me fire (after I prop up the family to “cheer me on”), I go prone, and I zero on the first iteration. He picks me up again, cracks the only smile I ever saw from him, and says “It was all in your head. Good job. Now go do push-ups till I’m tired.” He also had me write my congressman later that day to apologize for wasting taxpayer money on bullets.
Fort Benning, never again.
SGTSunscreen
“Smith! I didn’t see you at camouflage practice today!”
“Thank you sir!”
Fittanto
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“Shut up, Privates. The only voices I should be hearing are the ones in my head.”
SuperVegetable
Sergeant to a guy in my section (who had a bad stutter):
“What’s your name?
“G-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-Gasper, Sgt”
“I’ll just call you Gasper for short shall I”.
“There are people in this world who love you but none of them are here”.
redugly
Large Black Navy Chief (E-7) walks into our compartment one day and says he feels like making it rain. Then before I could get ready he’s already dropping people on the deck and making them do intense exercises. He walks up to one recruit and asks him “Does Chief like Hennessy or Hypnotiq?” “Hennessy Chief”. “WRONG, YOU RACIST I LIKE JACK DANIELS” then proceeds to turn up the PT on this individual. The next person, “Is Chief good at basketball or football?” “Basketball” “WRONG, CHIEF IS GOOD AT EVERYTHING”.
socomplex
In the first few days of basic training the Drill Sergeant asked if anyone knew how to drive a stick.
Everyone who raised their hand was then made to get a wooden push broom and drive them all over our common area.
ManWithNoName1964
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“Don’t you open your mouth when you’re talking to me!” I stood awkwardly not saying anything with no idea what to do.
WanderingAnteater
I was working with a Drill-Sergeant in the parade square when he saw one recruit marching by himself. Now when marching in a squad, you have to march at the same step as everybody else to look smart and uniform but when you’re by yourself, you only have your own steps and cadence to follow.
The Drill-Sergeant says to me “Watch this!” and then proceeds to scream “YOUNG MAN YOU ARE OUT OF STEP!” and the recruit just absolutely craps himself at the confusion and just runs away in fear! That had me in stitches for a long time and he told me it was his private ritual he follows with every new intake he gets.
WandererAboveFog
One day were (platoon) all in line for dinner chow and the Drill Sergeant asks us “which one of you likes sugar cookies?”
No one says anything besides the one guy that we all call the “blue falcon”. He says “I love them Drill Sergeant!”
We eat chow and get back to the barracks and Drill Sergeant is screaming at us to all “get into the showers!”. We’re all in the showers (6 man showers with 60 guys) and he makes us turn on cold water so that it’s literally just pouring water all over everyone while we’re literally on top of each other in these showers. When it seems all hell is breaking loose he yells, “EVERYONE GET DOWN TO THE PT FIELD!”
Next thing you know 60 soaking wet ‘like we just got out of a pool’ privates are rolling in the sand pit…..
Drill Sergeant says to us: “Now those are some deeeeeelicious looking sugar cookies”.
Vegasvaca
We were lined up in a platoon formation at parade rest and one of the recruits was staring off in the distance at some seagulls. So the Drill Instructor says, “RECRUIT DO YOU LOVE BIRDS!” Recruit responds, “YES SIR!” Drill Instructor says, “SO BRING ME A SEAGULL!”. While we went back into the squad bay the recruit chased seagulls for about 2 hours. Then something unexpected happened… He freaking caught one! He brought it into the squad bay by the neck flapping all over. The Drill Instructor lost his crap laughing (behind his cover of course). The Drill Instructor comes barreling over and out of habit the recruit snaps to attention and drops the bird. Chaos ensues. One recruit kills the thing with a flashlight as it flies by, at which time we all had to hold a vigil for “our fallen brother”. It was probably the best day in all of bootcamp.
vzdan
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Drill Instructor was away for a bit at dinner chow. Most of the platoon decided to get chocolate milk (big no no). Drill Instructor knows all about it and doesn’t say anything. We get back to the squad bay and he yells at us to get out our 1 quart canteen. Drink it. Go fill it up. Drink it. Fill it up. Drink it. By the time we hit #4 everyone was vomiting on the floor. I have never seen so much puke.
Monstertruck_Gnar
We were all on the line on Parris Island and we had to take out our ink sticks (pens.) One recruit in the entire platoon didn’t move. When the Drill Instructor asked why he didn’t move, the recruit said his ink stick was in his foot locker. The Drill Instructor made the recruit walk over to his foot locker, bring it back to the line, and “shake that crap until an ink sticks falls out.” The foot locker was closed and he was just standing there shaking it for about 8 minutes or so while the Drill Instructor just kept yelling, “FASTER! I WANT A DAMN INK STICK!” The recruit directly across the line from the kid shaking the foot locker takes out an extra ink stick, waits for the Drill Instructor to turn his head, and slid that thing across the deck, between the Drill Instructor’s legs and by the grace of God, it landed perfectly under the footlocker. The Drill Instructor didn’t notice. The next 15 seconds went along the lines of, “FASTER! FASTER DAMMIT! FASTER! FA- well I’ll be damned.” As soon as he saw the ink stick, he walked away.
ImOn4chanToo
So one time in basic we had this kid and boy did he love candy. So he went to the nearby store and bought/hid a bag of skittles. Of course, locker searches for contraband come around and he’s sweating. Somehow, the Drill Sergeants miss the bag and he looks better. Then as another recruit moves out of the way for his Drill Sergeant, he trips and knocks over the guy’s locker. Skittles everywhere! It was a pretty big bag too. They had him dig small holes for every skittle and each morning he had to go outside early to water them in order to grow a rainbow.
AggressionSsb
My Drill Sergeant spotted a hair on my chin and yelled that my face looked like his testicles. And then made the rounds back to me and whispered “that was a compliment, my testicles look fantastic” just loud enough for the guys in formation around me to hear. Nobody broke out in laughter but the dude next to me had tears rolling down his face from keeping it all in.
Masada_
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Last day of basic. “Remember when I flipped all your beds and tore your lockers apart cause I found a nail clipper on the floor? Those were mine.”
Biff_Tannen82
One day me and some other recruits were mopping the squad bay and our Drill Instructor runs in. We were all still in shock to give him the proper greeting of the day and he just comes up to us, looks at the mop bucket water, puts his hand in and drinks some of the water. He then looks at us and says, “needs more soap” and runs off all within like a minute. Still laughing thinking about it lol.
LanceCriminal
“You all remember when I told you to drill like you’ve got someone you care about watching you out there? Well, if you don’t have anybody, do it for that groundhog. He’s got his eye on you.”
There was literally a freaking groundhog taking a crap 10 feet away from the formation. Funniest thing ever.
Timmay55
My flight and I had to go and apologize to trees for wasting the oxygen they “worked hard” to produce because we sucked at drill.
ProudOwner7
A friend of mine was in the Marines. He screwed up his Drill Instructor’s shoes so he had to sit in front of a mirror, point at it and say ‘I’m not stupid you’re stupid’ for 2 hours.
Injustice52