found your site some days ago, laughed my hindside off and decided to share some stuff with you. Sadly, I have no confirmed true contender for an award, but if it even just amuses some of your staff it was worth my time. Anyway, kudos to you for setting up and maintaining this wonderful website :)

(Note: if you publish any of this, feel free to correct/improve any weird-sounding stuff I sent to you. I'm generally quite adept at the English language (for a German), but I surely ain't perfect. As long as you don't change the general meaning, you have my express permission to mess with my stuff)

Let's start with some personal accounts from the time I served in the Bundeswehr (that's the Federal German armed forces) during the end of the 80's. I offer one personal account and two (strictly speaking) unconfirmed rumors, though the people supposedly involved were known to me and definitely were of the kind that would do such things. All are close calls to a Darwin award, assuming they are true of course.

(At first I was reluctant to include them, but after seeing those honorable mentions et al I figured that they might be of interest to you anyway)

1. (Personal account) The company twit and gun safety

So the time had come for another combat shooting exercise for our maintenance company. It so happened that the then-twit of our company was in my squad. We waited for the official alarm that would signal the beginning of the exercise, our "G3" assault rifles ready, full magazines at the ready (but not loaded of course, due to safety reasons)... I took a look around behind me...

...first thing I saw... a gun barrel. Pointing right at my stomach.

Second thing. My gaze wandered to the holder of the gun. Sure enough, it was our twit. Someone so totally braindead that no one would have been surprised if he'd ignored all safety procedures.

Third. Gaze wandered back along the rifle. Yup, it was loaded (magazine inserted). I figured that it might well be fully loaded and safety switched off, considering the holder.

Well, the holder was lucky that just in that moment the alarm went off and the exercise began. I never knew that I even had those reflexes, but I found the butt of my assault rifle already moving - at damn great speed - towards the face of the twit.

Some few seconds later, and I don't know what _might_ have happened. I definitely was in the mood to fully load my _own_ G3 and teach him a lesson. Had it happened that way, the twit would have been a contender for a Darwin award for sure - you just don't play with wartime weapons and ammo in a way that makes people uneasy, especially not if they already consider you to be a dangerous moron. If you do anyway, better prepare to pay the ultimate price.

2. The sergeant and the lost magazine

First of the two unconfirmed but (to me) perfectly plausible reports.

During another exercise, a sergeant kept his men busy between shooting times by standard drill stuff. Somehow, one of his men lost a magazine for his G3. No big deal, basically - the mags weren't that expensive, and the lost one was empty. But still, the sergeant wasn't happy with it.

Sometime later that day, he challenged some volunteers to move out with him into the night, back to that shooting range, and find and recover that magazine. So far so good. They rode out and started searching, perfectly undisturbed except for the buzzing and whizzing of some insects in the night, speeding past their heads.

Until they realized that the sounds were a bit... strange for insects in Northern Germany... and it dawned to the sergeant that maybe he should better have asked whether the shooting range would be _in use_ during the night. For it was.

I guess the sergeant, with a bit of strange luck, maybe wouldn't have found the lost magazine... but a Darwin award for sure.

3. The private and the Soviets

Now our maintenance company wasn't stationed anywhere near what would have been the frontier if Ivan had chosen to invade... but still, of course, we couldn't rule out trouble for sure. And our then-company-twit (not the same one as in 1. above though) probably had just such a thing in mind.

The "business entrance" to our barracks was right next to a bridge on which the closest major road was located. From that road bridge you could clearly see the guards' hut and the soldiers on guard. There came the day when our twit stood guard... looked up that road bridge... and noticed a car with somewhat unusual license plates stopping on the bridge, some people in strange uniforms getting out and gazing down on him.

He took another close look... and recognized the SMM (Soviet military mission). These were some Soviet officers with the permission to move freely through most of Germany and watch whatever our forces did currently. But there were some regions there they were not allowed to enter. Like the area around our barracks.

(for a reference to the SMM go to http://www.usmlm.org/home/soviets/soxmis/soxmis032985.htm)

So far so good. This called for consequences.

But surely not for what the twit started doing. His direct superior gazed out of the hut's window... saw him... and ran out just in time to stop him.

He had already drawn and readied his P1 pistol and took aim at the Soviet officers.

Now I don't know whether the SMM members were allowed to carry arms on duty... if so, a nasty firefight may have been just seconds away. A fight that may well have catapulted said twit soldier into the ranks of the Darwin award contenders.

(for some reality checking, the barracks I refer to are the "Ohnacker-Kaserne" in Northern Germany, county of Nethersaxony, between the cities of Hildesheim and Hannover next to the village of Ahrbergen. Today most of the barracks has been converted to business area)

4.

Probably just an urban legend I admit... still, the punchline (in German at least) makes this one too funny to not mention. Let alone that this one, if true, is the only true contender for a Darwin award *grin*

(But at least this one is _not_ told by just about everyone in the business. Of course you know those stories that, if you listen to people, happened to literally everyone's "friend of a friend". So maybe this one is true *grin* )

If it really happened, that must have been sometime before 1995, for that is when I heard the tale from some fellow volunteer medics in the city of Braunschweig (Northern Germany, county of Nethersaxony). It is said that sometime in Germany, emergency medical service, firefighters and police assembled to force their way into an appartment the inhabitant of which supposedly was in trouble (I trust his loved ones didn't hear of him for quite some time or similar). Supposedly, said inhabitant was found lying lifeless on the floor of his living room... stark naked... with an electrical cable leading from a wall outlet right to his body's rear entrance. He was into what I'd like to call, for lack of a better name, "thermal erotics" - inserting a lightbulb (of proper shape) into his anus and switching on the power. Obviously then, there came the day when he clenched his sphincters shut a bit too tightly, glass cracked, and the electified wires pumped both 220V of standard German household power and a Darwin award right into his bowels.

The punchline? There's a German slang term for dying, especially the unexpected violent way, literally "Den Arsch zukneifen" (clenching one's anus shut). How's that for a tombstone inscription? "He clenched his rear end shut. No really!"

Hope you enjoyed these ones, even if you don't publish them :)

Submitted on 01/12/2008

Submitted by: Thurisaz
Reference: (no good ones - more like funny urban legends)

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Thanks for some humorous stories. We do appreciate them.

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Ah, some amusing "army stories" from the Fatherland, and a clincher about a light-bulb suppository! I can certainly relate to the military tales (to every ship, to every squadron, to every regiment, there is a "twit", as you eloquently put it), and did in fact find it all amusing! We'll share it with the readers!

The Darwin Awards Gift Shop

The Darwin Awards Condom Keep yourself out of the gene pool! A condom in a matchbook, useful for emergency contraception, bachelor parties, frat parties, and important rites of passage. LOADED inside and out with funny quotes and stories. Everyone loves this item! Friends don't let friends reproduce! $13 for Pack of 4