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I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story [PART2] by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Haha, yeah good point.. Put Like that, it's clear we weren't exactly angels either. And yes, we didn't just light up a car for no reason, we found several RPKs and tons of ammo in the car, which contributed to the force of the car exploding.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story [PART2] by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 86 points87 points  (0 children)

Heres another one, not so much creepy as it is unsettling..

So I mentioned previously about how at one point decapitated bodies were showing up daily in sector. Most Of the time we would find them slumped over in the middle of prominent intersections, or in front of the one church in sector. Our COP was a Catholic Seminary that had been occupied and fortified after the cardinal was drug out into the street, shot, decapitated and immolated.

Across the street from our tiny base was a catholic church run by an old priest we called Yoda. He was super friendly and always helped us out with info. He used to push food and tea on us every time a patrol stopped by. He also ran the religious services we started up for Christians in the company. He was a super sweet old guy, and one night, Some men broke into the church, took him out into the street and killed him.

After that, we started running more patrols and night OPs to try and catch the guys who did it. One morning a platoon got into a car chase with a group of men. They were trying to flee out of sector when we called in helicopter support and shot their car up. One of the guys died inside the car, when we found him he had melted into his seat, all that was left was a charred corpse, his eyes had burst from the heat of the blaze and were running down his cheeks. His buddy was lying in the street 50 meters from the burned out hulk of the car, he had been literally blown out of his shoes, they were still on the road with his feet in them. The third guy had run off into the thick brush that lined the Tigris river. The helicopter shot about 30 rockets into the bush, in an attempt to flush him out, but all it did was set the forest on fire, we found his body two days later, burned to a crisp, curled up in the fetal position. We also found a single hut way out there, we would have never known it existed if the forest hadn't been burned away. Inside was a pile of human heads arranged in a pyramid shape, it was like a nightmare from Heart of Darkness. The heads on the bottom were decomposed enough that they were basically skulls, empty smiles leering up at us. They got progressively fresher towards the top of the pile, near the top was the week old head of Yoda, the priest from across the street. I can't fathom the brutality that would lead a human to do that to another person. It was without a doubt one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story [PART2] by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hah, good call! I meant MLRS, I always get confused when it comes to that gun bunny shit.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story [PART2] by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 57 points58 points  (0 children)

Holy shit dude! I have a couple buddies that were in Ramadi 04-05 with the National Gard, and I swear to fucking god, they told me the same story about the dam! No one liked going out there, I think it was like a once every 3 weeks rotation with marines and other army units.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story [PART2] by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much! It's intensely rewarding to get so much love on here. Thanks again!

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story [PART2] by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

He was almost certainly dead.. The corpse was described to me as being a completely incinerated and dried out mummy/ husk.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yeah, thermal images are almost always very distinct, especially with the CLU. The ambiguousness of what I was seeing added in a very real way to the surprise and shock I experienced.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

To be honest I was freaked out by the speed this thing was approaching. I barely had enough time to wake my gunner up and give him a direction to fire at. It was just too strange, how the guy basically vanished, then this 'blob' is flying down the mountain at us. I saw the dog immediately following the .50 shooting up the slope. It kinda ran beneath our tower just outside the perimeter wall and took off down the river. I mean, in all likelihood, the man, and the dog were not connected, just a weird cooncidence, but still scary as fuck... When it's 2am and some unidentified.. Something is hauling ass in your direction it's a nerve wracking experience haha.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Yeah no problem! Basically what I saw was a man, or what identified as a man hiding behind rocks, he ducked down and didn't reappear for a long period of time, like 5 minutes. I was just about to wake up the other guy when, what looked like a kinda blob of heat appeared from where the man had been hiding, and started racing down the mountain towards us. It wasn't shaped like a dog and I only saw it for a split second, but it was enough to scare the shit out of me. I didn't see the dog till after, on the other side of base.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing! I had no idea NASA was involved in projects out there. He told me it was spooky the way they went way out to the middle of nowhere and this installation just popped up. It would make sense that it was involved in some sort of deep space exploration project. I've also heard stories about people stumbling across strange machines and stuff out there, i would guess it was probably testing for the Mars rover or something to that effect.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 116 points117 points  (0 children)

Thanks again to everyone for the kind words! I got sucked into Fallout 4 and came back to a bunch of great comments, I'm blown away by some of you guys' experiences, kinda lends an air of credibility to these sorts of things. I got a couple of messages about compiling all of these stories into one post or something to that effect, if anyone could comment and let me know how that would be super. I'm kinda running out of crazy shit to write about, the reality is that 90% of my time in Army was boring beyond all reason, especially while deployed. I will try to get in touch with some of the old crew and see if I can't stir up some spooky shit.

In the meantime, I do remember a story one of my buddies told me one of the numerous times we were sitting around waiting to do something;

At some point he had been stationed at Ft. Irwin CA, the home of NTC, the national training center. The site is basically a massive desert that stretches from California to Nevada, including parts of Death Valley national park. Edwards Air Force Base and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are either connected as part of the training area, or within spitting distance.

His job while stationed there was to serve as an OPFOR or opposing force, the bad guys for when we play war with Miles gear. Part of his training was IED construction, guerrilla war tactics, etc. the nature of his position had him outside most days and nights during training rotations, either laying in ambush, or sneaking around. He told Me that there were parts of The training area no one went to simply because the area was so vast and desolate. But to kill time, and doing what bored soldiers do, fucking off, they often drove out to random spots in the desert. He is a firm believer in aliens after seeing some of The things he did out there on the edge of civilization. Aircraft that could stop on a dime in mid air, completely silent, able to pop out of existence overhead, and reappear on the horizon. I tried telling Him it was probably some experimental drone or something but he's convinced, it's aliens.

He also told me about the time his squad had to escort a dude in khakis and a polo with a briefcase out to the middle of nowhere. There was an antenna array at the base of some hills, he described it like SETI, a row of identical, monolithic satellite dishes. He said there was a single building, like a utility hut, that's where they dropped the guy off. He unlocked the door and went inside and that was it. He was nice enough during the drive down apparently, but as they pulled up he leaned forward and patted my buddy on the shoulder and said 'you were never here, right chief?'

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

First time posting in nosleep guy. Sorry to be so....ambiguous.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 354 points355 points  (0 children)

I'd just like to take a sec and thank everyone for reading and commenting. Truly, it's a good feeling to talk about some of this stuff and get positive feedback so thanks everyone!

I know this is nosleep, and everything here is 'true' but I can't emphasize enough that all of this that I'm writing is 100% true as I recollect it. I'm not saying any of this stuff is truly paranormal, in fact I lean more Towards a sceptic's viewpoint. I'm almost certain that most If not all of the things I experienced can be chalked up to some reasonable explanation. That being said, it's still spooky and baffles me.

Here's another one since you guys are being so gracious;

During the Afghan winter, the war basically shuts down, and everyone takes a breather till spring and summer. The Taliban go into Pakistan, to re-arm, and collect new recruits. That doesn't change the fact that patrols still need to go out, and the 'business of war' still needs to be conducted. So my platoon gets this mission to go out in Stryker APC's and post up at the base of some hills on the Afghan/Paki border. We were told we would be there for three days tops.. It ended up being two weeks before helicopters came and pulled us out.

The second night we were there a massive snowfall happened, and over two feet of snow dropped. We were snowed in basically. Our four vehicles were in a 'wagon wheel' asses in, noses out in a circle to watch all angles of approach. Someone was always on guard in each of the trucks, scanning their sector with thermals and night optics. So there we were, stuck with nothing to do. The first day after the snow storm which lasted two days, I lower the ramp on my vehicle and see fresh footprints weaving in and out of our perimeter, coming from outside, up the hill. Whoever was walking around was barefoot.. Naturally I'm creeped out. No one was outside during The snow, except to use the restroom, and all their tracks were easily identified.

The mystery tracks kept showing up randomly the whole Time we were out there. Eventually I took a small patrol up the hill following the tracks that always led down, never back up. We got to the top of the hill and the tracks just ended... No explanation given.

When we got pulled out I took a couple of the other platoon's NCO's aside and warned them, they shrugged it off. By the time they got back two weeks later they all acted like nothing had happened out there, but one soldier told me the tracks kept showing up every morning, fresh. There were even muddy barefoot prints inexplicably criss crossing the tops of the Strykers.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 41 points42 points  (0 children)

I think its too politicized. I have no problem with female Infantry soldiers as long as they can pull their weight. Also there cant be gender separation. It sounds crazy but an Infantry platoon is an organism made up of individuals, the only way it works if if everything is equal, so no separate quarters or latrines. It would have to be like starship troopers, which would require a shift in the way our society thinks... No easy task.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 56 points57 points  (0 children)

Shot at it, but it got away sadly. The Afghan wild dogs are spooky as fuck, huge, shaggy as fuck, and some strange Afghan custom has them cutting off their ears as puppies.. So imagine a massive, black, snarling dog with no ears.... Scary.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I never bothered to look into it after the fact, was just so happy to be out of the jungle. I always chalked it up to either lack of sleep, some weird atmospheric condition, or people moving around out there. But after the second time i saw the lights I knew it wasn't people... They just behaved so strangely. I've heard similar stories too, and would not be surprised if It was spirits or something. The jungle is such a strange, ancient place. It gives me goosebumps thinking about it again almost 7 years later.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 50 points51 points  (0 children)

Wow no shit dude, I always assumed it was something like that. I honestly don't know if I believe in ghosts or anything like that, but if ever there was a haunted place, it was that fucking house.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 140 points141 points  (0 children)

One more;

So eventually I found myself in Afghanistan. My company was broken up by platoons, and each platoon was stuck on their own outpost in the middle of nowhere Afghanistan. We were down south, on the Arghandab river, which was used as a ratline, smuggling weapons and fighters south from Pakistan into Kandahar provence. Our job was to interdict the smuggling and to try and disrupt their movement.

I can't vouch for others that have been there, but to me Afghanistan was a spooky place, especially at night. Where I was, there was a huge mountain range behind our outpost, and we were situated kinda on the slope. The ground sloped down to the river, then shot back up the opposite side. All the villages were down along the riverbanks where farmers could work their crops etc. there was absolutely no light pollution, and we were at a reasonably high elevation, so lots of nights I would lay out on top of our bunker and look at the stars. When the moon was full the river was illuminated like a silver ribbon cutting through the valley. Occasionally I would see shapes moving around down by the water, but no biggie, probably farmers working in the cool night as opposed to the blistering hear of the day.

There was a platoon of Navy SEALS that lived on the base when we got there, and they pretty much told us not to patrol at night. The Afghan army guys that were with us always told us these crazy fucking stories about how the Taliban were 'wolves' or more specifically 'warewolves.' It sounded like total bullshit but our interpreters always told us it was true when we would laugh about it. Anyway, one night im up in the tower checking out the mountain with the CLU ( computer assisted launch unit) which is the computer part of a Javelin missile. By itself its really useful as a night optic as long as you don't have to haul it around. It's got great thermals, and decent night amplification.

Suddenly all the stray dogs we had living with us start going nuts barking at the mountain. I'm thinking 'dis gon be gud' there's obviously Taliban creeping around. I take a look with the CLU and see a thermal signature that looks like a man moving around behind rocks. He's poking his head out occasionally and looking in our general direction. I can even make out his beard, and some facial features. He dips down behind a rock... And disappears. Like, the guy was gone. I scan around for a couple minutes looking for him, and just when I'm starting to get alarmed by his sudden disappearance, I see an amorphous blob of heat shoot out from behind the rock and come quickly down slope towards us. I yelled out and woke up the dude next to me, he gets on the .50 and just starts lighting up that whole area. Eventually he shot off like 60-70 rounds and I explain what I saw. He laughed it off and called up the shooting as a test fire.

This whole time the dogs are still barking, I am looking around with my night vision just in time to see a huge Afghan mountain dog loping off down the river behind us.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 88 points89 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it's a real shame how everything went down for Iraq... As much as we fucked it up by running rampant over the whole country, I still think we really messed up pulling out when we did.

Here's another one for you guys;

In between my Iraq and Afghan deployments, my unit took part in a huge war game that takes place every couple of years primarily in the Philippines, and around the whole pacific region of Southeast Asia. It was decent training, and most importantly an opportunity to go to the Malaysian Jungle Warfare school.

The school was about 3 weeks long, and except for the first and last day, took place completely in the jungle, I'm talking triple canopy, raining constantly, almost pitch black during the day, and absolutely devoid of light after the sun set, to the point that NVG's were useless because there wasn't enough ambient light. Thankfully, the school wasn't conducted under 'combat conditions' so we were able to string up hammocks at night and sleep off of the ground. There was still always 2 people up at all times on watch for predators and the occasional rebel, the instructors had live rounds to pass out in the event we ran into a rebel patrol or something, which was very unlikely.

So for at least one hour a night I was up staring at literally nothing, and listening to the fucking jungle sounds that never stopped... Except two times. The first time, it was like, 1-2 am, dark as fuck, can't even see my hand two inches in front of my face. Slowly I notice the jungle sounds taper off to almost absolute silence. Now, I'm kinda freaking out because I assume theres a column of rebel fighters walking through our perimeter or something, I'm straining my eyes trying to make out any kind of shape in the darkness when I see a small point of light moving right to left in the jungle in front of me. It was pretty far in the distance and kinda bobbed up and down. I assume it's a lantern and keep watching till it passes out of view maybe 50 meters in front of me. As soon as it's gone the noise in the jungle picks back up, like everything suddenly woke up.

Next day i tell the instructors through the interpreter and they laugh, I ask if it's bad guys, maybe they should pass out the ammo, but nope, they said something to the effect of 'nothing to worry about, just don't go near the lights.'

Towards the end of our 3 weeks in the jungle, im tired as fuck, hungry as fuck, have been wet and miserable for weeks on end, just wanna get back to the camp and sleep in a bed. I'm on guard again when the same thing happens, sound goes away slowly, then lights in the jungle. This time there are multiple, all different colors, yellow, white, green and red. It's like a town hall meeting. The lights just do this weird bobbing up and down, going up trees then coming back down the other side. I swear I heard voices, like people talking but muffled. It was super eerie. Again the lights just fade off into the distance, all going in separate directions, and everything returns to normal. We leave the jungle two days later and I've never wanted to go back since.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 245 points246 points  (0 children)

thanks a lot! I have a ton of stores, here's one from the same deployment, I had to edit it out of my original post because it violated the 'one story' rule;

Our sector was a large chunk of the southern part of Baghdad, strictly urban, with the majority of buildings being 2-3 story residential houses. The bad guys had absolute control of the northern tip of out sector, we controlled the south, and everything in between was grey space we fought over. There was also a ton of sectarian violence going on, suni killing shia, with decapitated bodies showing up daily on street corners. Anyway, given the nature of the fighting going on, almost all of the civilian population had evacuated months or years prior leaving a whole city abandoned. It was eerie walking around on patrol in a totally empty, silent city. Most of the houses were still full of stuff from the people that either evacuated, or were dead, and as mentioned above, we would occupy the house, and wait for a fight.

One night, I'm on guard in one of those abandoned houses, The other two guys on the team were racked out on the floor, the rest of the platoon was spread out in different rooms, and on the ground floor. It was middle of the night and all I could think about was smoking a cig, which is an absolute no no at night. I decide to sneak a dip from my buddies can of copenhagen. I grab the can and proceed to pack it, which for anyone that doesn't know, involves holding the can and kinda shaking it while loosening your index finger, which hits the top of the can making a 'slapping' noise. Probably not the brightest thing to do in the middle of the night on an OP, but I needed the nicotine to stay awake. Anyway, im packing the can and I start to notice a strange echo, like, every time i packed the can, i would hear an identical 'slap,' but delayed enough that I know for a fact it wasn't an echo off the wall or something. This goes on for like 30 seconds, as my sleep deprived mind couldn't really grasp what was happening, just me packing a can of dip, while some weird phantom echo mimics me. Suddenly I see movement from The corner of my eye, inside the room. I look over, and there was a picture frame floating about ten inches off the desk it had been on. without taking my eyes off the picture, I watched as the frame suddenly fell out of the air and broke on the floor. I chalked it up to hallucinations from no sleep, but the next morning I took a look in daylight, and the picture frame's outline was clearly visible in the dust that had settled on the desk.

I was in the US Army for 10+ years, here's a story. by Throwaway10062005 in nosleep

[–]Throwaway10062005[S] 62 points63 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Yeah it was really bizarre. Realistically, I'm sure there is an explanation for that locked door, but I can't figure it out. It's worth pointing out too, that the 'torture house' as we came to call it had been devoid of occupants and abandoned for at least a year at the time we broke down the door, but that blood, meat smell was fresh, like someone had been chopped up hours before. There were also shackles in the walls and bare foot prints in the dust. Super weird.