'He had sunken down to his waist in mud': Sergeant gets swamped when he fails to listen to local recruit who knows the lay of the land

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    Shoe - "He had sunken down to his waist in mud"
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    Font - Posted by u/wkstrm2424 hours ago muddy drill sargent LOC First of all, I got mad respect for the uniform and all servicemen, past and present. Except for one. Here's my story... When I was 19 I did my military service as was custom for young men in my country. See, I am not American. Anyhow, I did enjoy my time in the defence force quite a lot. Made some new friends, learned a lot of new stuff and I also bought me one year of thinking of what to do with my life. I had some plans to contin
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    Font - First of all I did my military service 15 min drive from home, which meant I knew all the area around the base pretty well since I had grown up in there. I am also that kind of person that will ask questions to learn more and who will always try to put in my best effort in everything I do. And also, to learn the rules.
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    Font - As a new recruit there is a ton of things to learn. How to dress, how many buttons to button and so on. Shaving of the hair is encouraged but not mandatory. Same goes for facial hair. Personally, I enjoy having a bit of hair on top but shaved on the sides. And here my antagonist enters the story. One of the 3 "drill sergants" that was set to teach us the "basics of soldiering". I was quick to learn the ropes, maybe not the most fit of the recruits but certainly not the sloppiest either. E
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    Font - happend me I would always smile and say "yes sir" and go and correct it, knowing there was nothing to correct, it was just a way to "drill us". Now, one of the sargents, lets call him Sgt B. Sgt B always found something to complain about on everyone and I think it anoyed him that I always smiled.
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    Font - Sgt B was shorter than average and somewhat "rounded", not fat, just a bit chunkier than average as well. Instead of talking loud like the others he prefered screaming, specially in the face of people, I guess he had seen to many war movies with bad drill instructors in them.
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    Font - That did not go down well with us conscripts really. We quickly lost respect for him as a person but we did respect him for being our superior officer, or his uniform if that makes sense? Anyhow, he did not seem to like me at all and would always mess with me, and one day I got my "revenge".
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    Font - It was in the fall. We were ouside the base training for a bigger excercise coming up. They had divided us into groups of 8 and our mission was to relocate from one location to another. We had all our personal equipment like backpack, weapon and so on, plus the group tent, stove and heavy machine gun. So we were quite heavy, equipment wise. And I was assigned group leader this event.
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    Font - Good thing, we were in an area I knew well so navigating wad easy since I knew all paths in the forest and so on. And Sgt B was tagging along (not knowing I knew the area, but my team knew). The path we took ended up at a small swamp and would split so you could walk around the swamp on either side. I decided we should take a 5 min rest since we were ahead of scheadule anyway. Sgt B did not like that even though I think honestly he was the one who needed it the most since he was the one h
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    Font - I asked my team which side around the swamp they wanted to go and told them the pros and cons of each way. I don't remember which way we choose, but I remember I picked up the machine gun, 12.4 kg, so quite heavy. Now Sgt B intervened and demanded I checked the map, but I said we already decided to go round the swamp. For some reason Sgt B wanted us to cross the swamp, it looked dry enough to cross but I declined and said we'd go round. This is where he pulled rank and demanded we cross,
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    Font - I asked him if he would take command of the group and lead us across to which he replied: I'll take command! Group, follow me! So I stood down and let him past me. I think he managed to take about one and a halv step into the swamp before he had sunken down to his waist in mud. We decided not to follow him and instead we all just looked at him. After a while one of the others asked him: Any new orders sir?
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    Font - We pulled him out of the swamp, he was furious but didn't say a word. He walked back the way we came in his wet muddy uniform, the rest of us continued around the swamp. We did not see him back in camp that day. After that incident he did not bother me any more for the rest of my conscription time. No tl:dr here. Sorry for that. :)
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    Font - Lylac_Krazy +2-3 hr. ago Sgt. Swampass leads the way! ↑ Vote Reply Share
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    Font - YardFudge Kudos. +1.4 hr. ago Succinct, dirty MC with consequences. Bonus points for military and non-US ✩ Vote Reply Share
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    Font - Marc123123 +1.2 hr. ago "any new orders, sir?" killed me Vote Reply Share
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    Font - CoderJoe1 +3.3 hr. ago Did you nickname him, Muddy Waters, after that? Vote Reply Share MidLifeEducation 3 hr. ago Swamp Thing ↑ Vote +2. Reply Share
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    Font - grauenwolf +3.1 hr. ago tl;dr; Sargent demonstrates what quicksand looks like in real life and why it is important to recruit a local pathfinder when maneuvering around swamps. ✩ Vote Reply Share

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