Five real-life soldiers who make Rambo look like a b*tch

[Scutter01]

Say what you will about cracked.com, but this was funny.

5 Real Life Soldiers Who Make Rambo Look Like a b*tch | Cracked.com

Oh, and notice #5 used a Mosin...

 

[haldir]

Great collection of warriors and heroes.

 

[Panama]

Audie Murphy was one of my personal all time favorite REAL hero's!

If you have never seen the movie "To Hell and Back" you really need to see it.

Here is a review of it and it says it all.

It's a shame that more people haven't seen this movie in recent years. As much as Saving Private Ryan introduced a new generation to horrors and heroism of World War II, "To Hell and Back" introduces you to one of the men who lived through it. It doesn't attempt to glorify the War, it simply relates what happened to America's most decorated soldier based on his own story and actually staring him.
While it's amazing that the baby faced Murphy still looks young enough in 1955 for the story to work 15 years after the fact, the truly amazing thing is that from most accounts, Murphy understates his own role in many of the events described in the movie.
The final war scene for instance shows him holding off an entire German regiment using artilery and the machine gun of a burning tank. The fact is that he held that ground alone for well over an hour before the germans finally gave up. All the while the tank was burning and could have exploded at any time.
Like many great soldiers, however, he had trouble adjusting to life after the war even with a semi-successful acting career aided by James Cagney after the war. Still, it's men like this, who risked and often gave their lives on the fields of Europe and Africa and in the waters and islands of the pacific, that we have to thank for the Freedoms we enjoy in the United States today.

Too often we forget this.

 

[paddling_man]

Good stuff! Linked to that 7 Historical Figures Who Were Absurdly Hard To Kill.

Laughing my way through that one, I found this rendering of Blackbeard. I'm having a really hard time not changing my avatar now!

 

[JByer323]

I freaking love cracked.com!

 

[techres]

Simo Hayha had a fairly boring life in Finland. He served his one mandatory year in the military, and then became a farmer. But when the Soviet Union invaded his homeland in 1939, he decided he wanted to help his country.

Since the majority of fighting took place in the forest, he figured the best way to stop the invasion was to grab his trusty rifle, a couple of cans of food and hide in a tree all day shooting Russians. In six feet of snow. And 20-40 degrees below zero.

-snip-

Over the course of 100 days, Hayha killed 542 people with his rifle. He took out another 150 or so with his SMG, sending his credited kill-count up to 705.

That's what a skilled rifleman can do, even in the cold, even hungry, and even with just a mosin.

 

[abnk]

Willard Parish makes Rambo look like a b!tch as well. At the Battle of Ia Drang, he single-handedly held a key position. When he ran out of machine gun ammo, he stood up and continued to fire with two 1911s. Over 100 dead NVA were found around his foxhole. Ask him if he used the Weaver or Isoceles stance; or if what kind of ammo he used; or what night sights he had mounted prior to deployment; or if he shot till they dropped; or if he shot one of two eyes open; or [insert tedious debate] .

Also, any of these guys Medal of Honor Citations make Rambo look like a b!tch.

 

[jedi]

WOW! The finland farmer with only that rifle. WOW!!!

 

[Scutter01]

"For his gallantry and sheer ballsiness, he was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest military award. Unlike the Medal of Honor, the Param Vir Chakra is only given for "rarest of the rare gallantry which is beyond the call of duty and which in normal life is considered impossible to do." That's right, you actually have to break the laws of reality just to be eligible."

 

[Cwood]

A true Hero and Warrior .......

*GORDON, GARY I.​

Rank and organization: Master Sergeant, U.S. Army. Place and date: 3 October 1993, Mogadishu, Somalia. Entered service at: ----- Born: Lincoln, Maine. Citation: Master Sergeant Gordon, United States Army, distinguished himself by actions above and beyond the call of duty on 3 October 1993, while serving as Sniper Team Leader, United States Army Special Operations Command with Task Force Ranger in Mogadishu, Somalia. Master Sergeant Gordon's sniper team provided precision fires from the lead helicopter during an assault and at two helicopter crash sites, while subjected to intense automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade fires. When Master Sergeant Gordon learned that ground forces were not immediately available to secure the second crash site, he and another sniper unhesitatingly volunteered to be inserted to protect the four critically wounded personnel, despite being well aware of the growing number of enemy personnel closing in on the site. After his third request to be inserted, Master Sergeant Gordon received permission to perform his volunteer mission. When debris and enemy ground fires at the site caused them to abort the first attempt, Master Sergeant Gordon was inserted one hundred meters south of the crash site. Equipped with only his sniper rifle and a pistol, Master Sergeant Gordon and his fellow sniper, while under intense small arms fire from the enemy, fought their way through a dense maze of shanties and shacks to reach the critically injured crew members. Master Sergeant Gordon immediately pulled the pilot and the other crew members from the aircraft, establishing a perimeter which placed him and his fellow sniper in the most vulnerable position. Master Sergeant Gordon used his long range rifle and side arm to kill an undetermined number of attackers until he depleted his ammunition. Master Sergeant Gordon then went back to the wreckage, recovering some of the crew's weapons and ammunition. Despite the fact that he was critically low on ammunition, he provided some of it to the dazed pilot and then radioed for help. Master Sergeant Gordon continued to travel the perimeter, protecting the downed crew. After his team member was fatally wounded and his own rifle ammunition exhausted, Master Sergeant Gordon returned to the wreckage, recovering a rifle with the last five rounds of ammunition and gave it to the pilot with the words, "good luck." Then, armed only with his pistol, Master Sergeant Gordon continued to fight until he was fatally wounded. His actions saved the pilot's life. Master Sergeant Gordon's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest standards of military service and reflect great credit upon him, his unit and the United States Army.​

 

[mospeada]

I'm afraid it's over, cracked.com has won the internet with this image of the Indian Param Vir Chakra medal.

 

[Walter Zoomie]

Cracked is great! I love their style, but those war stories pale in comparison to my Cold War experiences which follow...

I almost got rocketed one night in Saudi. The Iraqis forgot to fire their missiles, though. Damn near spilled my coffee when I heard about it later.

###
​

Another time, we were at Bridgeport California rappelling down a sheer rock face. Down below, our Alice packs and other non-essential gear was staged in neat platoon formation. From the mountain side, we watched as marauding commie ground squirrels overran our lightly guarded perimeter and rat-****ed through our ****...running off with all our pogey bait.

I never felt so helpless in all my life.

Luckily, it wasn't night time, and we weren't all zipped up in our sleeping bags. Otherwise, those rodents might have snuck up and bayoneted us, or something.

Scary times, bros.

Scary times.

Them squirrels was just laughing at us as they tore apart our Snickers bars....mocking us as empty Zagnut wrappers blow across the ground, and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.

I never felt such pain before or since...

###
​

I forgot to tell you about the time I should have been awarded the Purple Heart but the admin pogues lost my paperwork.

See...a bunch of us hard-as-**** reservist comm killers were playing volleyball one day out in the common area of the squadbays at Lejeune. This kind of dangerous training prepared us for all combat eventualities, and we knew that, so we got all ****ed up on beer beforehand.

I was playing close to the net, 'cuz that's what hard-chargin' reservist NCOs are supposed to do...lead from the front. The Marine playing next to me is a motivated ex-Anglico bubba, and he's got the gold jump wings and meat-tag tattoos to prove it.

The ball comes at us from the other team...high and close to the net. Ricky Recon and I both jump up high in order to serve the ball directly into our opponent's face...thereby rendering him defenseless. Well, Ricky the Anglico bubba undercuts me as we go up, and I fall backwards on to the steel truck wheel which supports the net pole....crushing a vertebrae, misaligning my spine, and doing incalculable damage to several discs.

I staggered to the sidelines and passed out from the agonizing pain a short time later. I was then taken to the hospital for tests. No problems were found, and I was given an ample supply of pain pills. I walked it off and continued training.

That's how we rolled back in the day...combat volleyball. Later on, the Commandant removed Combat Volleyball from the training schedule because it was too rough and took an unnecessary toll on USMC assets.

I never received my Purple Heart.

Marines today don't know how easy they have it.

###
​

This one time, I protected Camp Ripley Minnesota from the Communist hordes who were maybe going to come pouring over the Canadian border in a horde-like fashion.

It was cold too.

I served during the winter campaign...on cross-country skis, pulling ahkios and ****.

Once, we almost ran out of mo-gas for the arctic stoves.

Sometimes, the Docs would sneak out to our OPs and bring us hot chicken or beef broth. God bless those Corpsmen!

We had to **** on the bolts of our M16A2s to keep the actions free so the blanks would fire.

It was so cold, we had to keep the engines running on our Hummers and 5-tons, or they wouldn't restart later.

I still have flash-backs of pulling off all that cold weather gear to take a **** in the porta-johns @ 50 below zero...

The battle of Stalingrad paled in comparison.

 

[rodeoclown]

Ithink they forgot one

Before deploying to Vietnam, Hathcock had won many shooting championships.[5] In 1966 Hathcock started his deployment in Vietnam as an MP and later became a sniper after Captain Edward J. Land Jr. pushed the Marines into raising snipers in every platoon. Land later recruited Marines who had set their own records in sharpshooting; he quickly found Hathcock, who had won the Wimbledon Cup, the most prestigious prize for long-range shooting, at Camp Perry in 1965.[5]
During the Vietnam War Hathcock was confirmed for killing 93 North Vietnamese Army and Viet-Cong personnel.[6][5](during the Vietnam War, kills had to be confirmed by an acting third party; this was feasible on a battlefield, but snipers usually worked in pairs (shooter and spotter) and often did not have an acting third party present, which made confirmation difficult). He is ranked fourth, behind U.S. Marine Corps snipers Eric R. England and Chuck Mawhinney and United States Army sniper Adelbert Waldron on the list of most confirmed kills for an American sniper.
The North Vietnamese Army even put a bounty of $30,000 on his life for killing so many of their men. Rewards put on U.S. snipers by the N.V.A. typically amounted to only $8.[7][5] The Viet Cong and N.V.A. called Hathcock Lông Trắng, translated as "White Feather," because of the white feather he kept in a band on his bush hat.[8] After a platoon of trained Vietnamese snipers were sent to hunt down "White Feather," many Marines in the same area donned white feathers to deceive the enemy. These Marines were aware of the impact Hathcock's death would have and took it upon themselves to make themselves targets in order to preserve the life of the true "White Feather."[citation needed]
One of Hathcock's most famous accomplishments was shooting an enemy sniper through his scope, hitting him in the eye and killing him.[2] Hathcock and John Burke, his spotter, were stalking the enemy sniper in the jungle near Hill 55, the firebase Hathcock was operating from. The sniper had already killed several Marines and was believed to have been sent specifically to kill Hathcock. When Hathcock saw a flash of light (light reflecting off the enemy sniper's scope) in the bushes,[2] he fired at it, shooting through the scope and killing the sniper.[5] Surveying the situation, Hathcock concluded that the only feasible way he could have put the bullet straight down the enemy's scope and through his eye would have been if both snipers were zeroing in on each other at the same time, and Hathcock fired first, which gave him only a few seconds to act. Given the flight time of rounds at long ranges, both snipers could easily have killed one another.[citation needed] The enemy rifle was recovered and the incident is documented by a photograph.
Hathcock only once removed the white feather from his bush hat while deployed in Vietnam. During a volunteer mission on his first deployment, he crawled over a thousand meters of field to shoot a commanding NVA general. He wasn't informed of the details of the mission until he was en route to his insertion point aboard a helicopter. This effort took four days and three nights, without sleep, of constant inch-by-inch crawling. In Carlos's words, one enemy soldier (or "hamburger" as Carlos called them), "shortly after sunset", almost stepped on him as he lay camouflaged with grass and vegetation in a meadow.[2] At one point he was nearly bitten by a bamboo viper but had the presence of mind to not move and give up his position.[9] As the general was stretching in the morning, Carlos fired a single shot which struck him in the chest and killed him. He had to crawl back instead of run when soldiers started searching.[2]
After the arduous mission of killing the general, Hathcock returned to the United States in 1967. However, he missed the Marine Corps and returned to Vietnam in 1969, where he took command of a platoon of snipers.
Hathcock generally used the standard sniper rifle: The Winchester Model 70 .30-06 caliber rifle with the standard Unertl scope. On some occasions, however, he used a different weapon: the .50-caliber M2 Browning Machine Gun, on which he mounted the Unertl scope, using a bracket of his own design.[verification needed] This weapon was accurate to 2500 yards when fired one round at a time. At one point, he took careful aim at a courier carrying a load of assault rifles and ammunition on a bicycle. He had second thoughts when he saw a 12-year-old boy in his sights, but after considering the intended use of those weapons, he decided to disable the bicycle, hitting the bike frame. The boy tumbled over the handlebars, grabbed a gun, and immediately began firing back, so Hathcock returned fire, killing him. (Source Marine Sniper, Chapter 1.)
Hathcock's career as a sniper came to a sudden end outside Khe Sanh in 1969, when an amphibious amtrack he was riding on struck an anti-tank mine.[5] Hathcock pulled seven Marines off the flame-engulfed vehicle before jumping to safety. He was told he would be recommended for the Silver Star, but he stated that he had only done what anyone there would have if they were awake, so he rejected any commendation for his bravery. Nearly 30 years later, he was awarded the Silver Star, the third most prestigious award in U.S. military.
Hathcock said in a book written about his career as a sniper: "I like shooting, and I love hunting. But I never did enjoy killing anybody. It's my job. If I don't get those bastards, then they're gonna kill a lot of these kids we got dressed up like Marines. That's just the way I see it.

 

[r3126]

Walter Zoomie, that is the funniest thing I have read in years!

 

[Walter Zoomie]

Thanks, but what makes it most humorous and pathetic is that most of it is true!

 

[r3126]

I know! That is why it is so funny!

R

 

[ryanmercer]

Simo Hayha... WOW!

Yogendra Singh Yadav... INSANE!

Jack Churchill... already knew about him, he's been my hero for a while.

Alvin York... pretty cool, proof that rednecks are dangerous!

Audie Murphy... this guy had his ass kicked in school probably, and instead of killing his classmates like a fool, he kicked some Axis ass.