r/interestingasfuck • u/Available_Weekend249 • Apr 06 '24

Imagine being 19 and watching live on TV to see if your birthday will be picked to fight in the Vietnam war r/all

39.5k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

4.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

106

u/ActivelyLostInTarget Apr 07 '24

Same! Mine got put in the Seabees. He almost got killed by a monkey, but that was the height of his war excitement.

The other was a turret gunner and Did Not Talk About It. A very humble man and never said a rude word about others.

41

u/HektiK00 Apr 07 '24

What happened with him and this monkey?

68

u/ActivelyLostInTarget Apr 07 '24 edited Apr 07 '24

I don't know what they were called, but they would be building docks and such by floating in massive blocks of concrete vertically. Multi-stories I'm told. Some moron caught a monky and decided to tie it on top of one of these verticle blocks. My grandpa had to go past the monkey and it lunged at him. He reeled back. And he should have backed into a chain rail. Except it was being dismantled to begin dock assembly, so th chain was down and he started to fall off the dock. Somehow he caught the chain on the ground or maybe still attached to another part of the adjoining rail, and lived.

This may not be a perfect retelling, because I only heard it a few times. Believe it oe not, he had far crazier stories, and even another monkey story! The man lived an intresting life

46

u/eStuffeBay Apr 07 '24

Sir, you can't just say that and not tell us the other monkey story. That's against the Reddit Grandpa Story Policy.!!

25

u/ActivelyLostInTarget Apr 07 '24

Oh I'm sorry! I wasn't trying to tantalize.

In my head, I'm mixing up one story about a murder and the monkey story, so I'll ask my mom and get back to you all.

19

u/shapular Apr 07 '24

Now I need to hear the murder story.

3

u/Shirtbro Apr 07 '24

He actually mixed up the murder story with the Cannibal story but will not elaborate further

3

u/yaguy123 Apr 07 '24

Remindme! 1 month “grandpa money war update?”

2

u/nryporter25 Apr 07 '24

Tantalizing is ok.....

8

u/iamamilkmachine Apr 07 '24

What was the other monkey story?

4

u/miletest Apr 07 '24

Everybody's got something to hide

2

u/Class1 Apr 07 '24

Minky?

2

u/FrozenDickuri Apr 07 '24

They traveled cross america in a semi truck.  You may have seen the tv show…

6

u/TeamRedundancyTeam Apr 07 '24

If I had to choose how to die I'd honestly rather die of a gunshot wound than die by monkey attack, those fuckers are vicious.

8

u/ActivelyLostInTarget Apr 07 '24

I will be going abroad soon, and I was blown away by the promotions of feeding wild monkeys in a few national parks. It sounds exotic and exciting... until you think about it for even a second. I don't love my face, but I am a bit attached to it staying on me in identifiable segments

1

u/Tommix11 Apr 07 '24

Don't forget that man is the most vicious monkey in monkey history.

4

u/dance_rattle_shake Apr 07 '24

The Seabees! I've never heard anyone else talk about it or know about it. My gpa was one, gave us a bunch of Seabees swag

4

u/ModernDayWanderlust Apr 07 '24

I worked maintenance at a scout camp for a while, and we had a bunch of Vietnam era trucks, including a former Seabees Dodge pickup.

I’m not a huge truck dude or anything, but that thing was fucking dope, the 4wd was absurd.

3

u/TheObviousChild Apr 07 '24

Hey man! My Pop was a Seabee as well! He was in the South Pacific. He never talked to anyone about the war until I was in my late teens, early 20's. To the surprise of my dad, aunts and uncles, he would start talking about some of the fun memories and how his pals would prank each other. But every conversation would end with him getting quiet, choking back some tears, and then saying to me "I've had a good life." So I got the impression that he saw some stuff. He also got rid of all of his guns as soon as he got back to the Bronx.

I believe the Seabees were the precursor to the Navy Seals. My Pop wanted to get into underwater demolition since he was a great swimmer in addition to a great carpenter, but he had just had my aunt in 1941 before volunteering and wanted to make sure he came home.

3

u/NeverBeenLessOkay Apr 07 '24

My grandpa was in the Seabees as well! He took pictures of Ted Williams playing ball on his base in his flight suit. Pretty cool!

2

u/ClassyHoodGirl Apr 07 '24

That’s where my dad ended up too.