Sea Stories with Evil Uncle Coffee....

[_Mr. Coffee]

Ok, I decided, after a suggestion from my PSTD group "councilor" and from the urgings of a couple of the cooler humans on this site (if you have to ask if you as one, then you're probably not), to write about some of my experiences in the Corps. Names of certain people are changed to protect the guilty, certain dates and exact places names changed because of classification status, certain tactics changed to protect the guys that might still be applying tradecraft against Bad Guys(TM), and certain items just plain changed because the bulk of this crap happened many, many, many moons ago...

If you served, feel free to share your own stories, anecdotes, or whatnot. If you haven't served, kindly limit your imput to the stories posted by those that have served as I honestly don't care what your father's cousin's next-door neighbor's accountant's son did. In both cases, if you have something that is just plain motivational or patriotically cool to share (pictures, links to news or video, ect) then post away.

Warning: I sometimes tend to use a lot of four-letter words when recalling stories from when I was in. If such language offends, either keep it to yourself or don't read. I don't really give a damn if my language offends. These are my stories (or the stories of people that earned the right to cuss when ever they damned well please). If you can't deal with that then I invite you to click the back button now...


Still here? Good. I'm gonna start this off with a funny story...


Iceland is Cold: Or, why I loved to Travel Around Drunk...

When your Gunny tells you that if the Corps wanted you to have a wife they'd issue you one, he wasn't bullshitting. Don't get me wrong, I did love my ex when we were married, and even to this day I still have a very friendly relationship with her. After all, she did give me two sons, and she put up with a lot of crap out of me. She just wasn't really cut out to be the wife of a Marine.

She didn't seem to understand that while I loved her, sometimes I wanted to hang out with my brothers in arms rather than be around her.

She was the daughter of a pair of bonafide hippies.

Her dad, Rich, was a real live Vietnam draft dodger. I got my nose broken for the third time when my parents met her parents for the first time and somehow the subject of the Vietnam War was brought up. My Pop served three tours in Vietnam as a USAF PJ (That's Pararescue Jumper for you civilians). Next thing I know, me and my two brothers are trying to pull our Pop off of my future fath-in-law. In the ensuing fracas, Pop managed to land a vicious right hook square on my snout (Yeah, he was trying to hit Rich, but my head got in the way).

For some reason, despite his pacifistic, hippy asshole ways, me and Rich always got along good. He didn't like what I did, but he didn't try to judge me for it. And he was greatful for me not letting my pop kill him...

Her mom, Betty, was the biggest feminist I'mn ever met...

How many Feminists does it take to change a lightbulb? None, feminism never fixes anything.

Anyways, Betty was a bitch, plain and simple. She was the kind of woman that expected her "male" to be there to attend to her ever want and whim. She looked down on me for my service, she disrespected my uniform and my Corps, and she even tried to tell my sons that their daddy was a "evil baby killer" once.

I hate that woman with more passion that I've felt for most anyone I've ever met... If Mom had gone after her like Pop had gone after Rich, I wouldn't have stood in the way. Hell, I'd have probably handed Mom a gun...

Anyways, so thanks to that upbringing, my Ex had this notion that "her man" should be there to do what she wanted, whenever she wanted. WRONG!

After a while it got to the point where I'd basically harrass, beg, whone, bitch, and generally make my CO's life miserable with requests to deploy.

Well, one day I went in to his office to do just that and I noticed the look in his eyes that said "You might think I'm granting your prayer, dumbass, but I'm about to make fuckee-fuckee with you big time, in a big way..." Little did he know I would have waded through a swimming pool of crap to get the “F” away from my wife...

"Son, you'rew going to Iceland," he said...

GLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

So I went to Keflavik, Iceland in November for a six month TAD(TRemporary Duty Assignment, or "Traveling Around Drunk").

Now for those not in the know, there isn't anything between Iceland and the North pole but Santa's fat ass and afew stry iceburgs. In the winter it is dick shrivlingly cold and the sun comes up for maybe an hour a day. It's a darkly cold and hellish landscape that to this day I still have very fond memories of...

Anyways (yes I had a damned point people, bear with me)...

So there I was, sitting in this shack with piss-poor heating in the middle of January in Iceland. Myself and my buddy PFC Iverson were manning post on a frost covered and snow buried gate out back of Keflavik Airfielf in the back ass end of snowy nowhere. We were so cold that we spent half our shift huddled under a blanket "spooning" to stay warm.

Yeah, I was the big spoon, you dumb idiot... Harr harr harr...


Anyways, about midway through the watch out Corporal of the Watch rolls by in his heated High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (That's a "Hummer" you no-loads in the civilian world). Corporal Peters got out. Peters had just made corporal about month previous, and holyshit, did he let it go to his pointy little head...

We all hated that prick.

He comes in and we fall out from under our blanket and kill the potable TV we had to report our post. He grunts at us and signs off on our watch card before going outside to check the gate we were guarding.

Oh, did I mention that it was -40F outside not including the damned windchill? Or that Corporal peters had exited his vehicle without putting on his gloves while holding a hot cup of coffee?

Yeah, so a few seconds go by and me and Iverson hear this muffled screaming from outside our shack. Once again, we come out from under our blanket and go to see what the noise was.

There was Corporal Peters, clutching the chain and padlock that secured the fenced, yanking it up and down sceaming "GET ME THE “F” OFF THIS FENCE!"

Ever seen "A Christmas Story"? Remmber the scene where that dumbass licked a flagpole on a dare and got stuck fast?

Same concept. See, holding that coffee cup make Peter's hands nice and sweety. dumbass was stuck to the fence.

That's when Iverson, being a good and depoendable, if stupider than a box of rocks, Idaho farmboy said "Well, Corporal, I can get you off the fence, but I don't think you're gonna like it..."

I knew what Iverson was about to do and gave him the "“F” yes, I am in" nod.

"I don't give a rusty “F” what you assholes do, get me the “F” off of this goddamned fence! That's an order," Peterson screamed at us.

So being good Marines who followed a lawfully given order, me and Iverson unbottoned our trousers and unlimbered our cocks and we pissed all over Peters' hands. We even managed to splash his coat and his pants with piss.

Peters' hand became unstuck. He brushed his hands through a snow drift to get the piss off (I told you this guy was a nasty “F”), muttered "thanks" at us before telling us to mention this incident to noone.

We were oin the horn with the Commander of the Guard in less time than it took for Peters to get back in his ride.

From that day hence, he was no longer "Corporal peters"... He was "Pisshands Peters".


And that's how I got to piss all over a senior rank and not only did I not get a Captains Mast over it, the idiot was greatful.

[_larryfulkerson]

I remember this one time just after basic training when I was awaiting my entrence to advanced training to be a weapons mechanic when I pulled "Ammo Guard" duty. I was to stand outside the barracks at 23:00 hours and await my ride. So I got up at just before the appointed time, got dressed ( this was in Denver, CO. in december of '69 ) and stood out there. Pretty soon there was this USAF three striper, a SGT., who pulled up in a jeep and he ordered me to get in the jeep. We motored out of the base and got on the highway and he drove about 45 minutes up into the mountains somewhere. We came to this gate in the fence just off the road and he stopped. Some guy appeared out of nowhere and opened the gate for us. The Sgt drove just inside the gate and he motioned me to get out. The guy got into the jeep and backed out and drove off down the road. The Sgt closed the gate and he and I walked off the path to a shack that was about as big as a bedroom with two windows, a coal-fired stove in the middle and a chair and nothing else but a phone on the floor by the door.

This Sgt said to me: "wake me up when our ride get's here." And he curled up around the stove and went to sleep. Then nothing happened for about 8 hours except me looking out the window.

I found out later, much much later, that we were "guarding" an ICBM missle silo in the mountains above Denver. I wouldn't have known what to do if the bad guys attacked that night, but luckily they didn't. So much for "Ammo Guard" detail.

[_larryfulkerson]

There was this one time in 1969 or 1970, sometime around there, when our F-4 escort went bingo on gas and he didn't want to carry his 2,000 pound bomb back to Udorn and he asked our AC-130 to sparkle a target for him. What happens when you sparkle a target is point the lazer target designator at something and turn it on. The fire control officer couldn't find any targets nearby ( it's about 02:00 in the middle of LAOS after all ) so he designated an elephant on the Ho Chi Mihn trail.

The F-4 left a crater the size of a house before he RTB'd. ( RTB = return to base ).

[_Mr. Coffee]

I found out later, much much later, that we were "guarding" an ICBM missle silo in the mountains above Denver. I wouldn't have known what to do if the bad guys attacked that night, but luckily they didn't. So much for "Ammo Guard" detail.

I grew up as an Air Force brat (I was hatched out from under a rock at Sheppard AFB, Texas. USAF Personnel do not give live birth according to scuttlebutt). I remember well the sort of extreme paranoia associated with nuclear weapons. Honestly, if a bad guy had attacked your position it wouldn't have done them much good. There's a reinforced squad of MPs down in the silo command area, there's probably a company strength or better rapid response team with in five minutes helo flight to the silo, and the silo door is a giant 100ton steel reinforced concrete slab...

Nope, I don't think that missile was gonna go anywhere unless NCA gives the codes and the two guys in the silo turn keys.


Edit: Speaking of nuclear weapons...


When I was ten my Mom and Pop were stationed at Minot AFB, home of a signifigant portion of our strategic nuclear deterent force. One day the commander of the Eighth Air Force decided he wanted to know just how secure his nuclear weapons were. Long chain of memos, rockets, and "Screw you very much, strong message follows" later, my Pop gets called into his COs office. His unit got picked to be the one to try and "steal" a nuke during the upcoming exercise and the CO knew that my Pop was just the sort of evil-minded, no-goodnik prick to pull off grand-theft thermonuclear device.

According to Pop, as he and his hand picked team of rotten bastards sat around the livingroom of our home drinking massive ammounts of Coors (at the time Coors was the unofficially official beer of the Fifth Bomber Wing), planning their op, there are only really three places you can get close to a nuke.

There's the above mentioned silo, which was a no-go as it was to well defended and to hard a target.

There's also the convoys that bring the devices from assembly plants like Pentex Corps of Amarillo, Texas. But those convoys are 1. hard to spot, 2. constantly under watch, and 3. have a Company or more of heavy aircav waiting to give a would be robber a very bad day.

So those to options were quickly discarded.

What's that you say? "But Evil Uncle Coffee, that's only two places to find nukes. You said there was three!"

Very observqant of you. Yes, there are three.

The third place you can find nukes is at the post armory/weapons depot where they store everything from handgrenades for the base security forces to B61-11 thermonuclear gravity bombs. Since these depots are in the middle of the goddamned base, they tend not to be anywhere near as heavilly or vigilantly defended as places where the weapons are either deployed or mobile.

Oh, yeah, my Pop and his crew all worked in the radio shop, so they pretty much had run of the entire base, as everyone had radios, from walkie-talkies clear on up to the massive ELF arrays they use to talk to submerged submarines on the otherside of the planet (Yeah, those ELF radios can transmit THROUGH the planet). So getting in wasn't a problem. The problem was getting in with weapons to subdue the guards. After all, if those guys see a quartet of armed assholes walk in, they will raise the alarm, as was brought up by one of Pop's crew.

That's when Pop takes a sip of his beer and ponders for a moment how best to screw with USAF security personnel (It was a hobby of his. You'd think a USAF security dweeb bit him when he was a kid with how much joy Pop got out of damned with them).

"Son, you're off school tomorrow, right," Pop says, looking at me.

"Yes, sir. Teachers are having meettings of something," I replied.

"Good. How would you like to come to work with me and see what your Pop does for a living," he asked.

Now, I was a 10 year old boy at the time, and the though of getting to see bombs and missiles and watch my Pop at work instantly made me go "GLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

So next morning, I got dressed, grabbed my bookbag and headed to work with my Pop and his crew. We stopped at the post Micky D's for some breakfast, and I was happy as could be, eating chow with a bunch of military guys and listening to them talk in the patiose of acronyms, abbreviations, grunts, clicks, and whistles that Military personnel are know to "communicate" in.

We rolled up on the special weapons depot and pop gets out, tells the rest of the crew to stay put till he singals them and tells me to follow. We go inside and pop starts bullshitting with this sergeant,, telling him some song and dance about how my Mom had duty today and they couldn't find a baby sitter to explain my presence. The sergeant lets me and pop right on in to the security room under the pretense that Pop was there to fix there radio.

That's when pop reaches into my bookbag and pulls out a gun and says to the security guys "Bang bang bnag, you're all damned dead. This is an exercise. Go sit in the corner, dumbasses."

Pop sent me back out to the truck to get the rest of his crew. They rapidly set about finding, securing, and loading there objective, a dummy B61, into the back of the truck while I sit there and laugh at the "dead" security guards. After we get loaded up, pop made a call to the base commander's office, gives the security gusy the finger and we roll off to the base HQ to show our ill-gotten gains off to the Commander of the Eighth Air Force (GEN), the base commander(LTGEN), the Commander of the Fifth Bomber Wing(MAJGEN), and the commander of post security(COL).

If looks could kill, the glares of disgust that the three Generals gave that poor dumb pog of a colonel should have obliterated the poor man. Pop got a commendation, his CO got a commendation, Pop's crew got free beer, and I got a toy model of a B-52 from the commanding general of the USAF Eighth Air Force.

Oh, and the colonel? Last I heard he got transfered to McMurdo Station to "secure" pengiun crap.


And that's how I got to "steal" a nuke when I was a kid.

[_Mr. Coffee]

Today is a special day to me. Today, five years ago, my father passed away. Before anyone gets all teary eyed and offers condolences, please don’t. I’ve come to grips with Pop’s passing a while back. Instead, remember the service men and women that you’ve known personally.

Today is just the day I have marked out for my brothers and myself to hoist a few beers and remember the man the shaped our admittedly warped world view.


Many, many moons ago…

Today I also remember December 6th, 1988. The day I turned 18. My Pop had taken me out of school for the week and we went to Washington D.C. together, just the two of us. We saw the Smithsonian, we saw Capitol Hill. We ate lunch sitting at the feet of President Lincoln gazing out on the reflection of the obelisk on those still black waters.

But we also went across the river to Arlington National Cemetery. My 18th birthday was mostly spent at a graveyard for our Nations Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines. We stood in respectful silence for the changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers before we sat on a hilltop watching over rows upon rows of perfectly covered and aligned graves, standing in eternal formation as if still waiting for their country to call them to duty.

We finished our lunch and we went to a specific grave.

I looked down at the name on that marked and it was my Grandfathers. Pop upended a bottle of whisky over the grave and told me about his Pop, who fought the Nazis in WWII and died fighting the North Koreans and their Chinese backers in the opening months of the Korean War.

My Pop told me then about the things his father had tried to instill in him when he was a young boy, before Grandfather died. He spoke of sacrifice, and duty, and honor. He told me that Grandfather Joe and those solders he stood eternal guard with all served because they felt a call. Sure, some of them had been drafted, but even under a draft they had the choice to serve or not. He spoke to me of civic duty, of the rights as an American citizen than I had previously took for granted.

And he spoke of obligation. Not just to the country that by fortunate birth I was a citizen of and therefore enjoyed it’s rights and freedoms. He spoke of obligations owed to a county that had taken in our family in bad times and treated us well. Grandfather and Grandmother had immigrated here shortly before the start of Hitler’s war to expend Germany and to make Europe “Judenfrei”. To Grandfather our family owed the deepest of debts to the United States of America, for without it, we’d all have died in the labor camps or in the gas chambers. Pop spoke of the obligation that he owed and had tried his best to pay back through his service in the United States Airforce.

I stood there, looking at the grave of my Father’s Father. I didn’t know what to say or what to really think. But that was probably the single most pivotal moment of my life. It was that talk, standing in that field of those that had gone before us both, that solidified what I would do with my life, even though I didn’t know it at the time.

Then, a few months later, my Pop and I had The Talk.

“Son,” he started, “you’re a man now. It’s time for you to make a choice about what you want to do with your life. Way I see it, you can either go to college, your grandmother already has a trust set aside for it, or you can get a job, or you can join the military. Either way though, come September, I want you out of my house. Time for you to stand on your own two feet.”

I was a little taken aback by this.

I had never really put much thought into what I wanted to do with me life until then, but seeing as it was early June, I had less than three months to figure my crap out before the rug was pulled out from under me.

Looking back on it though, with all of the talk of service and duty and honor my Pop had drilled into my head from the time I could first talk, there really wasn’t any choice. Especially after Arlington. There was no choice. I was going to join the military.

But, being the rebellious dumbass I was at the time, I wasn’t going to join the Air Force like my Pop had decades before. I went to a United States Marine Corps recruiter and I got suckered in by all the OooRAH, Semper Fi, Kill Kill Kill talk. So I signed up, went to MEPS under cover of staying at a friends for the night, and signed my ass away for four years.

When I told Pop I had signed up for the Marines, his first words were, “Did I drop you on your goddamned head, boy”.

Two weeks later I was at MCRD Parris Island, SC.

I remember well the bus trip there. There were your typical gung-ho idiots bragging about how badass they were and how much they were going to kick ass at Boot. There were your aphrensive types that were scared about what they would face when they got there. There were also the quiet ones that had a look of fierce determination about them.

I’d like to say that I was one of the third group, but I was one of the first.

The bus pulled past the main gate and suddenly the bus got quiet. To our right was miles of alligator infested swamp. To our left was a causeway over a tidal bay filed with alligators and sharks leading to Beaufort. When we crossed that gate it was as if we’d entered an entirely different world. One that few of us were truly prepared for.

We got our first taste of what we could expect from a Marine Corps Drill Instructor when we pulled up in front of receiving. Off to my right I could see four ranks of these yellow footprints panted on the road while our bus driver got off and spook to this man in cammies wearing a “Smokey the Bear” hat.

A few minutes later we’d started talking quietly again.

That was when we heard the voice of God herself speak onto us lowly “Recruits”.

“SHUT THE “F” UP!”

It was a voice that you could have heard across a parade deck, upwind during a category five hurricane. And this voice was coming from a five foot nothing latina DI. Woman weighed maybe a buck ten soaking wet, but every last one of us was instantly intimidated by her.

“Welcome to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island,” she spoke in a voice that wasn’t a yell, just loud enough that EVERYONE (Including the guys across the post) could hear.
“Now, you will all get off of this bus in an orderly fashion and form up on the yellow footprints to the starboard of this vehicle, understood?”

I guess she was hard of hearing, because after we’d all affirmed that we understood she bellowed, “THAT MEANS GET THE “F” OFF OF MY BUS, ASSHOLES! MOOOOOOOOOVE!”

We were all crawling assholes over elbows to get off of that bus and on a pair of yellow footprints. From there we were frog marched inside to get our hair cut. I still had my long hair, tied back into a ponytail. The man that cut it off hoisted it into the air and let out a ululating scream of triumph, as if he’d scalped me. Which he did. These guys weren’t trying to shave our heads so much as shave our brains.

Paper work, paper work, paperwork…. The Military runs on dead trees from the amount of paperwork we filled out.

Three days later we were lead to our squad bays and introduced to our training DI’s. From there began a trail of myself as a man. I learned that I could do more than I thought I could. I learned I could take more punishment then I previously thought possible. There I learned that the only limits I had were those that I placed on myself.

There, I truly became a man.

That was were I learned the difference between being “hurt” and being “injured”. I learned that pain was something that was both my friend and my indicator of how much father I could go. I went in a long haired, pot smoking dumbass and came out the other side a man who stood tall.

Early September came graduation. We all wore our class Alphas, marching in perfect formations in front of the reviewing stand filled with the family and friends of those that had earned the title of United States Marine. In those stands were my Mothers, my two younger brothers, and my Pop.

After the graduation ceremony we met with our families, or those that didn’t have family there got to met the families of there new Brothers. I introduced my bunkmate, Clark, the guy who’d been at my side since the start of that ordeal called Marine Recruit Training, to my Parents. He was greeted by Mom as if he was one of her own sons. Pop even shoke his hands and told him if ever he came to his town that Clark had a bed to sleep in, food to eat, beer to drink, and a cute girl to talk to if Pop could arrange it.

Clark died in 1996, his patrol had left there FOB and his vehicle was the one that found the mine field that wasn’t on the map. We all attended his funeral and to this day I still keep contact with Clark’s son. Good boy, wants to be a Marine someday.

Anyways, there I stood, a Marine. My Pop and I locked eyes and something passed between us. An understanding that while I was still his son, I was now a Brother warrior. He shook my hand as he would another man he respected before he gave me a hug.

To this day that was one of four times I can remember that Pop cried. He tried to hide it behind coughing, but I could see those tears of pride in his eyes. I’d done something to make him proud, and as much as I’d like to say I was a stoic badass, I had the same tears in my eyes and coughed the same as he.

A year later I attended my brother Jason’s graduation from Air Force basic at Lackland AFB, and a year after that my brother Steve’s from MCRD San Diego. Both times, pop cried again. Each time, he took us out for beers, never mind that we were under age, Pop would BS, lie, or flat-out intimidate anyone that asked for ID. Most of the time, people bought us drinks as we were in uniform.

So, today I remember the man that led me to serve my country and earn the Title.

He’s to you, Pop. Semper Fi to you and those that have gone before. Thank you for your service and for helping to make me who I am.

[_Dr. Shades]

Today I also remember December 6th, 1988. The day I turned 18.

Interesting. On that exact day I was in First Phase of Marine Boot Camp in MCRD, San Diego.

[_Mr. Coffee]

Today I also remember December 6th, 1988. The day I turned 18.

Interesting. On that exact day I was in First Phase of Marine Boot Camp in MCRD, San Diego.

Then it was you and myself both.

[_Dr. Shades]

Today I also remember December 6th, 1988. The day I turned 18.

Interesting. On that exact day I was in First Phase of Marine Boot Camp in MCRD, San Diego.

Then it was you and myself both.

??? I thought you said you were still a senior in High School on that day and that your dad took you out of school, etc.

[_Pumplehoober]

Today I also remember December 6th, 1988. The day I turned 18.

Interesting. On that exact day I was in First Phase of Marine Boot Camp in MCRD, San Diego.

Then it was you and myself both.

??? I thought you said you were still a senior in High School on that day and that your dad took you out of school, etc.

Haven't you realized “Mr. Coffee” has been lying to you for months? On one website his kids are 14 and 12 in 2006, here his son was about to join the Marine Corps in a week or so. He claims to have watched the Rwandan genocide, but there were not Marines in Rwanda. He claims to have called down a nuclear strike. In one post he is a gunner on a Marine helicopter, in another infantry. Seriously, do you think anyone would take their son on a pseudo “steal a nuclear warhead” mission, and more to the point do you think a few guards are placed on a nuclear weapon?

Do you think this…

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/B61.html

could be loaded on the back of a truck and no one would say anything.

I suspect he is a 15 year old or so who thinks this tough guy pose is funny. He's been playing you for months, which is kind of funny I suppose.

[_Pumplehoober]

So I went to Keflavik, Iceland in November for a six month TAD(TRemporary Duty Assignment, or "Traveling Around Drunk").

Now for those not in the know, there isn't anything between Iceland and the North pole but Santa's fat ass and afew stry iceburgs. In the winter it is dick shrivlingly cold and the sun comes up for maybe an hour a day. It's a darkly cold and hellish landscape that to this day I still have very fond memories of...

When I was in Fifth grade, we were being taught about Leif Ericson, Eric the Red and the discovery of Iceland and Greenland. Oddly enough I vividly remember the discussion about the irony of the different names for the newly discovered lands. While Greenland distinctly gives the impression of a greed land, and an icy paradise in Iceland, the reverse is actually true.

Iceland is surprisingly temperate. Likewise Greenland is frigid.

So let's examine the statement above…

“It's a darkly cold and hellish landscape” and “In the winter it is dick shrivlingly cold.”

While I am sure genitalia shrivels at different temperatures with different people, what is the actual average temperature in Iceland in January?

“Considering the northerly location of Iceland, its climate is much milder than might be expected, especially in winter. The mean annual temperature for Reykjavík is 5 C, the average January temperature being -0.4 C and July 11.2 C. The annual rainfall on the south coast is about 3000 mm, whereas in the highlands north of Vatnajökull it drops to 400 mm or less”

http://www.southtravels.com/europe/iceland/weather.html

For those of you who are not used to Celsius, -.4 is roughly 31 degrees Fahrenheit. According to Coffee, “it was -40F outside not including the damned windchill”. How terribly odd that the temperature was 71 degrees below the average. This should merit some comment, don't you think, especially considering the rather dramatic departure from the average. According to Wikipedia, the record is around -40 Fahrenheit, but if it was actually that cold there should be some record of it, and someone who lived through the ordeal would probably mention the bizarre weather, and not consider it normal.

Likewise the claim has been made that the sun comes up for maybe an hour, when the reality is three to four hours. Someone who was actually there would know this.

Now I think stories about grown men urinating on others to be childish and immature, but my tastes are not universally accepted. Lying about urinating on someone though? Is that really funny?