For me it was during the Afghanistan **** show in 2021. Between long days of questionably legal flying to get stuff done to watching families walk onto the plane with just carry on bags to start a new life with.

The most wild moment though was on the ground in Qatar. We had been able to arrange for food for all 400 on board (normally we max out at 200 or so in an emergency everyone is sitting on the floor kind of thing ).

I was walking through the jet trying to not step on people with a paper bag full of foil wrapped sandwiches handing them out to a bunch of people who hadn't eaten in days. After that, went upstairs and flew them to Germany to the next step of their ordeal. Just a wild moment I'll never forget.

Still has to be turning around form being pushed forward to watch the young lady I was walking with have the wheels from the Aggie bus roll right over her. It was like slow motion and the only sound was the scream from a horrified student on the bus.

Thirty one years ago and I still hate those busses. My shock was nothing compared to her pain though.

I've got a ton of disturbing memories I'll never forget. The most surreal may have been getting interviewed by an Associated Press camera crew during the January 2005 elections in Baghdad while standing on a carpet of suicide bomber remains. Literally could not walk to the polling site without stepping on what was left of this guy.

Second most surreal was something I saw almost everyday in Baghdad: shepherds choosing one of their flock of urban sheep to kill, gut, skin, and quarter on a city street, then selling the quarters at an intersection while the rest of the flock just mingled around.

THE_CHOSEN_ONE said:

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I was hunting Cape buffalo in Tanzania and we had been tracking a herd of them for a few hours and followed them into some very thick brush. Visibility was very limited and without realizing it we had gotten within a few yards of them and they realized we were there before we realized they were there. They started stampeding in all directions all around us. Trees were snapping all around us, their hooves were thunderous, it felt like the ground was shaking. All I could do was stand there and pray one didn't run me over. Luckily, got out of there ok.

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Yeah but did your Uncle kill your dad during the stampede and blame you for it?

The most uncomfortable place I've ever been was a dinner for my cousin. She just let everyone know she was pregnant. I was friends with her husband since they started dating. Probably 2 years before this dinner we were talking about family, and I mentioned how excited Anne(not her real name) was about marriage and starting a family. He told me that he could never have kids again because he had a vasectomy. So there we are, almost 2 years later, and she's sharing the news. I admire how calm he was during it, but they got divorced almost immediately. I had no idea that he never told her, and I think I was the only one at the table that knew.

Wow. Just wow.

I turned around in time to see the bus wheels on the back of the bus roll over both of her legs just below the knee and her rolling with it. It was in Oct. 92 so the busses had much more ground clearance than the ones they have now. We had been walking side by side and talking on our way to class. I was on her left and just took a swift shove to the backpack. She was much less fortunate, but still lucky to survive.

When asked what one thing I would go back and change if I could, and that would be it. I never told her how sorry I was about that incident. It wasn't our fault, but I wish I had been on her right side.

Who shoved you, and how were y'all in the path of a bus?

Did someone shove her under the bus?

BaitShack said:

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In Okinawa,I watched a Filipino stripper pole-dance to Willie Nelson's Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.

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In Okinawa I was front row center at the "Banana Show" and she put part of one of the bananas on my head. That was the hottest shower I've ever taken.

I have had lots of odd stuff and surreal stuff happen. This one is Aggie related and I'm sure some here will remember more details than I.

All I can remember is that it was Band alumni day at Kyle Field during the halftime of a game. This had to happen from 90-94. It was good bull, everyone was enjoying seeing the old guys march with the new. They were doing pretty well. One of the old guy's collapsed suddenly (I know collapsing and dying suddenly are WAY more common now than in the 90's). 70,000 people went completely silent and watched EMT's work on trying to save this man's life. Best of my recollection, he lived, but no one knew that at the time.

Kyle Field, completely packed and not a sound to be heard... Yup, that was pretty surreal.

He lived.

I grew up next to his brother. Kept track of that one.

Was rolling up to a stoplight on a 3-lane feeder road. We were in the middle lane. Out of the corner of my eye I notice a garbage truck come flying off the overpass, rollover twice and come to a crashing stop in the left lane about thirty feet in front of us.

My buddy gets out of the car, runs over to the front of the truck and yells: "I see a shoe!" As I'm getting a rather queasy feeling, two guys up on the overpass shout down to us: "Are y'all ok?"

Turns out these knuckleheads were in a pickup towing the truck by a rope. Had I been in the left lane, my TexAgs posting career could've ended before this website even got started.

Was driving on the interstate, fairly congested but everyone moving along at 65mph. I notice that across the 4 foot high barricade separating northbound and southbound, way up ahead, maybe a quarter mile there's an odd-looking black object hovering above the vehicles, descending then ascending over and over. For a second I thought it might be some crazy bird, but I quickly thereafter realized it was a full-sized 18 wheeler tire, rim and all, rolling and bouncing in perfect balance on the opposite side of the freeway and more or less keeping pace with traffic, but angled just enough that I know that it's going to either hit the barricade or bounce over it, vectoring right towards me. All I had time to do (reality unfolding pretty quick) was to prep for impact and I thought 'should I hold onto the wheel, or dive under the dashboard?' I grit my teeth and watched as it landed perfectly between me and the guy 30 feet in front of me, and bounced over. Don't know where it went from there, but I'd like to think that its east-west angle of travel was enough to carry it off the road after that bounce.

I've seen a lot of strange crap in my long life but for whatever reason this one comes to mind.

II was about 40 plus years ago, 10 miles east of Lampassas on HWY 190. It was 3AM and the trooper said I was speeding. No doubt as I was driving my brothers '67 El Camino w/a 396. Just when he began to question me about drinking a pickup crested the hill in front of us, hit his breaks, probably panicked when he saw the flashing red and blues, went sideways, over corrected and went sideways again taking out a row of mail boxes, turned completely around and went into the bar ditch directly across from us.. Driver gets out, hops the fence and runs off. Other than a WTF face the trooper never showed any emotion. I looked up and said "it's going to be a long night isn't it sir?" He handed me my drivers license and told me to go straight home.

I saw Aggie football implode like a homemade submarine. That was crazy.

Burdizzo said:

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I saw Aggie football implode like a homemade submarine. That was crazy.

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I was there.

One time, I came home from work and my wife was mowing the yard.

Spring break 1986, my senior year in HS on SPI. We actually had spring break the following week, but some buddies of mine at NTSU that were older had it the week before so I decided to take some days off and went to stay with them. They had rented a condo at the Inverness up on the north end of the Island and after clubbing on the 2nd night there we ended up back at the condo, which was on the 8th or 9th floor. We were street side and not gulf side.

Kinda of an after party taking place, and this was at the height of the SPI spring break popularity when things were really pretty WFO, and some chicks and a few other folks had come over. There was all kinds of yelling and carousing and such out on the street so a bunch of us were sitting out on the balcony checking things out.

There was a large construction crane, probably 11 or 12 stories tall, the ones that have like a triangle frame with a crane at the top, caddy corner to the complex across the street from us. Well we start noticing a group of people, at the base of it yelling and such and we finally see why, there is a dude climbing up the ladder inside the crane and he is about maybe 6 or 7 stories up, just below us. All along the condo people start watching this and the people at the base are yelling for him to come down. But he keeps climbing.

About 20-30 minutes into this a SPI cop shows up and lights the dude up in a spotlight. Cop sits there for maybe 10 minutes and gets on the speaker and tells the guy he is trespassing and to immediately come down. But that is it for authority involvement. The thing about spring break back then is it was truly wild and outta hand. So after about 10 or so minutes the cop drives off with lights lit up as there were transformers popping and all kinds of stuff going on.

Well we all sit outside a while longer and kinda lose sight of the climbing guy and he is now about even or maybe slightly below us in height. Well all of a sudden the people at the base of the construction crane start screaming and sheer panic we look over the dude is falling inside the crane.

I mean it was wild, and we couldn't see that well, but just enough to discern shape and movement. And we hear "thunk, clang, bang, thunk" and see this guy banging and clanging his way down, he is banging off like cross members and the structure inside the crane . It was sickening. And the people at the bottom and many of those watching are screaming in panic and fright.

Well, the guy falls for what seemed liked minutes but was likely only 7-10 seconds, but it was bad. He falls to a level with a like a grate or some structure and is motionless and hung up. All his friends and people at the base of the crane rush up to him. At this point all of us watching are sobered up and sick, talk about a buzzkill. They reach him and dis-entangle him and carry him down. We can see that there is lots of blood all over him. They get him down and put him into a car and take off hell bent for leather.

We figured he was DOA and done for. It killed the party mood in a big way. We sat around for a while and finally passed out. I woke up about 8am the next morning, packed my stuff and headed home. I was really bummed.

The next day as I was getting ready for school I was watching the local newscast and they show a guy kinda wrapped up like a mummy, but not quite that bad on the newscast and are giving a report. Turns out the guy was on the swim team at TCU, didn't remember the incident and had regained consciousness and had like two broken arms and a broken leg, but was expected to recover fully. I was shocked, it blew me away. After watching and hearing him bang around inside that crane for what was likely a 6-7 story fall I was blown away.