If we handed you the mic for a Field Ethos story night, what’s your opener?

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My wife and I were on a self supported week long bike trip in Sonoma Valley California. We camped vs staying in hotels. It was a practice trip for our month long trip from Seattle to San Diego. We found a location next the Russian river to pitch our tent We are sound asleep when I hear a car pull up across the river from us. Someone gets out and pops off a full mag of a pistol. I assume just into the river, but we didn't know for sure. My wife wakes up too, and starts to stand up, and I had to essentially tackle her to stay down. With an empty gun, the person got back into their car and drove off. I never heard about a death in the area, so I assume he was just having some fun.
 
My opener:
"... After a long and exhausting training exercise, my team of Marines and I got a 72 hour Liberty pass in Hatyai, Thailand.. despite being worn out, I felt my creative juices flowing and after several beers got up the nerve to walk in this house that smelt like the shit house door on a tuna cannery, and approached the Mama San... "
 
battlerattle24 said:
My opener:
"... After a long and exhausting training exercise, my team of Marines and I got a 72 hour Liberty pass in Hatyai, Thailand.. despite being worn out, I felt my creative juices flowing and after several beers got up the nerve to walk in this house that smelt like the shit house door on a tuna cannery, and approached the Mama San... "
Click to expand...
Whenever I talk about Thailand and tell this story the perv's in the audience automatically assume it's going to be another boring tale about getting some tail in Thai Whorehouse located on Phet Kasem Rd in downtown Hat Yai... the reality is, it's one of the best fish houses on the strip. The flies and the stench (at least back then) could gag a possum off a gut wagon. It took courage and commitment to enter that place, but oh my they had the best canned mackerel! I kept cans in my Alice pack and used my John Wayne can opener in the field to open them. Spread over a saltine cracker and washed down with some Singha beer it was delicious! Of course, Thailand has some of the best tuna, clams and savory snapper too, but their canned mackerel was incredible!
 
Beyond that, there's the "gay midget porn" story, or the "I'm not going to formation today, becuase it's John Wayne Gacey's birthday" story....
 
Or... the "silence of the lambs" on Spencer Glacier.

Sweet Vishnu in a wifebeater. Don't get me started.....
 
Mine would have to be something along these lines:

If you’re trying to make your honeymoon memorable, there are better ways to do it than leaving your wife on the beach while you’re windsurfing and a firefight breaks out in the hills behind her…

It was many years before we shared even half of the truth from that story with anyone in the family
 
One time in the mountains of Wyoming, deer hunting with my good friend who went by "Guthrie" (RIP). I shot a coyote on the far side of a small river. It was dusk, and getting dark fast, and not warm. I really wanted a coyote skull for my collection, so I made the decision to swim the river and retrieve the coyote. Hiking back to camp in wet clothes, so I disrobed, took a section of 550 cord and my Glock 29 and made the swim. (I knew hit the coyote, but I was not certain that it was dead) I retrieved and tethered the dead coyote and swam back across the river. The bank was steep enough, and it was dark enough that Guthrie, who had heard the shot and come to see if I needed help, did not see me getting back to the bank and had not found my things on the bank. I made a little extra ruckus coming out of the water and scared the wits out of him. He was exceptionally good natured and quite animated in general, but his reaction to "the damn Swamp Thing coming to get him" made for a great story every time he told it, he was from Georgia and had a thick southern drawl, which only made the story (and all the others) that much better.
 
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