Back in college a couple of my friends and I decided to start up our own special collegiate organization dedicated to the standards and ideals that we cherished most.  Since we didn't wish to be associated with typical boring glee clubs or borderline homo-erotic fraternities we decided instead to form a fake military force and give ourselves special benefits and privileges consummate with the lofty positions we had just arbitrarily created for ourselves.  We made up some flexible rules, inducted ourselves as founding members and then excluded people from doing cool stuff because they "weren't in our frat".  The organization we came up with was the 529th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and it mostly revolved around a healthy consumption of massive quantities of alcohol and an affinity for all things dorky and/or potentially dangerous.  Now that the records of our operations have finally been declassified by the Regimental Intelligence Committee, I'd like to share our story with you.  It is a story of sacrifice, of determination and of retardation.

Unit Information

I want to first start off with some basic information regarding our unit, the organization and equipment that went into it's inception.

The Officer Staff

• Major Tommy J. "Major Tom" Super Fun Guy (Fungi): 

  Major Tom was sort of an anomaly for our unit.  He didn't drink, he didn't wear the uniform, and he didn't do pretty much any of the shit required to be in our frat.  However, we made him the commanding officer, so it would stand to reason that he didn't need to do any of that to begin with.  Plus, he was awesome at multiplayer Half-Life.

• Captain Morloc "Get Pissed" Darkfucker: 

  Morloc was the head of Company A, and an expert in military tactics.  He was bitchin' at Avalon Hill games and Warcraft II, came up with many of our battle plans and initiation rites, and was a true master at the art of stringing together several unrelated (and sometimes non-existent) German words in an effort to explain the simplest of human emotions.

• Captain "Amazing" Ben "Osama Ben Laden" Thompson: 

  I was the head of Company B and pretty much excelled at four things in our fake frat - drinking, Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast, being a danger to myself and others, and getting stoned in my room while watching the Aqua Teens and Sealab 2021 on my computer.

Uniform and Equipment

The uniform for the 529th consisted of the following gear, to be purchased by the hopeful initiate:

1. An all-black set of BDUs, consisting of a military jacket, pants, hat and boots from the Army-Navy store.


2. An entire tube of black face paint, to be used on night missions.


3. A twenty-five foot coil of black rope.


4. The letter "B" written on the back of the right hand, and the letter "O" written on the back of the right hand in such a way that if you made two fists and put them together anybody that looked at your hands could see that you were "balls out".  These must be written in PERMANENT marker because when you're balls-out, you're balls-out for a LONG TIME.


5. Note the Super Tommy Fungi did not wear any of this shit.  He instead wore a red beret and a tweed professor-style jacket with elbow pads and chomped on a big cigar like Murdoch from the A-Team.  He also preferred to write "OB" on his hands instead of the traditional "BO".  This is presumably for the purposes of masquerading as an obstetrician.


6. Two patches to be worn on the sleeve of the BDU jacket.  One was the "ATC Patch", a green patch with a black cat on it that looked a lot like our neighbor's pet, Alex The Cat.  The other was a black and red "Airborne" patch, which could only be earned once the team member passed "Jump School" (see below).

Training and Preparation

Upon acceptance into our fraternity/military organization you first had to learn to memorize the three regimental mottos.  The first one, "Five Twenty-Nine Get Pissed!", was mostly used to indicate that it was time to flip out like a ninja and start busting shit up for no reason.  This was generally invoked once drunkenness levels had reaches their maximum levels and often involved several team members tackling an unsuspecting drunk.  The second motto, "Besonderes!", was used to indicate agreement, confirmation or consent.  The final unit slogan, "This Is Fucking Gay, I'm Outta Here!", was generally reserved for farewells and general disagreements that did not end amicably.

In addition to learning the military jargon associated with the unit, initiates were required to purchase all the necessary gear (as listed above) as well as no fewer than TWO of those crazy "make your own bombs", "proper maintenance of an AK-47" or "how to disarm booby traps" manuals that the Army-Navy store sells.  You know the ones I'm talking about - there the ones that are like, "here's how the Japs turned trumpets into nuclear weapons back on Iwo Jima", and certainly the sort of thing that can easily creep a hot babe out the first time she checks out your bookcase.

Jump Training

Jump school is where it all started in the 529th.  It's where initiates either make or break their entrance in the unit, and effectively separates the "totally balls out" from the "more-or-less balls in".

The first phase of jump school involved getting into full gear and jumping off the roof of our townhouse's laundry room.  The way our place was set-up, you could climb out one of the bedroom windows onto a roof overlooking the back yard, so all new members were required to jump off this roof to earn their stripes.  Once this was successful, they were then required to move on to stage two - advanced jump training.  This involved opening up one of the second-story windows and leaping out onto the grass below.  Despite what you may believe, all jumps were to be made completely sober, since it's much more difficult to get people to do ridiculous dangerous shit when their minds are completely lucid.  Beers were not opened until it was time to celebrate "how fucking rad it was when we jumped off the roof just now".

The third and final phase of jump school involved two "simulated combat jumps".  The first simulation required the initiate to get into their bathing suits, jump into a freezing cold swimming pool in the dead of winter and swim a lap or two.  The second combat jump consisted of once again getting into full gear, but this time hopping into an early-90s model Chrysler Minivan with the middle seats pulled out, having someone drive NO LESS than twenty miles per hour down a residential street, opening the side door and leaping out of the moving vehicle onto somebody's lawn.  Once this mission was completed by a new team member, they would receive their "Airborne" patch.

Then only one phase of initiation remained after Jump School:  the new member was required to sew the patches on his jacket and wear it around to all his classes for an entire week.  This can get tricky when your university has an ROTC though, because those guys don't take it lightly when you're wearing Army shit around and pretending like you're the real deal.  But that's the risk you take by joining the 529th.

Simulated Combat Situations

Training is a critical aspect of keeping your skills and abilities perfectly honed.  As such, the members of the 529th were on a strict regimen of combat training and simulated field exercises.  A major part of that was linking up all the computers in our townhouse and playing drunken Half-Life multiplayer deathmatches for several hours a day, occasionally switching over to Warcraft II when we felt we needed to brush up on our simulated hand-to-hand combat and small-unit tactics.  Morloc and I also tirelessly occupied ourselves in several dozen heated battles of Avalon Hill wargames, fighting everything from the battle of El Alamein to the Normandy Invasion to Gettysburg.  There was one other aspect of combat training that we rigorously worked to hone at any and all opportunities, but I'd really rather not get into that on this webspace because it's too nerdy, even for me.  Here's a hint:

Optimization

A critical aspect of post-Jump School training involved complete and total bodily optimization, and what better way to do that then with Spaten Optimator beer.  Optimator, a 7.2% alcohol Doppelbock beer from Munich, was the preferred beverage of the 529th, and "getting optimated" was one of our most frequently-partaken of hobbies.  All combat training and night operations involved a healthy compliment of Optimator, as everything seemed to run better when we were optimated (or as Morloc liked to call it, "fully besonderized").

Special Parties and Events

The 529th sponsored a couple of events throughout the course of the year.  Our most popular were the "blood and booze" parties, where we would all go to the blood donation center, race to see who could donate a pint of blood the fastest, then go home and drink booze, because (as the slogan went), "there are only two ways to increase your blood alcohol level:  increase the alcohol or decrease the blood".  Tom didn't drink alcohol, but he would go "soda-for-beer" with us, and since he never drank caffeine he would get pretty buzzed as well.  Ah, gemütlichkeit kopfschmerzen.

The only other thing that's really coming to mind right now is the 529th booth at the annual "Armageddon Block Party", where every townhouse on our block bought a keg, brought it out back and threw a gigantor party.  I remember that we bought a keg of Killian's and the 529th was incredibly popular for about a week and a half until we ran out of booze and people we'd never met before stopped coming over unannounced.

Combat History

Operation Bill's Gay Land

We decided that since we were starting up our fake Army frat we were going to need to find some way to incorporate ourselves into campus Greek life, but we didn't really want to do anything stupid like try to enroll a team in the Fraternity Handball League or have someone run for Greek Council President or whatever other such gayness.  Since all we really had to go on regarding frats was stuff like "Animal House" we decided that the best way to bring ourselves into the fold would be to start a rivalry with one of the actual frat houses on campus.

So we formulated a plan to fuck with the frat boys.  One of the houses near our apartment had a couple of guys we knew to be total dickmunchers, so we came up with the idea that we would get a hugeass twenty foot-long banner, write something obscene and juvenile like "Homeless Men: Please Stop in for Gay Sex" or "Pi Krappa Alpha Guys Fuck Donkeys" on it, climb up onto the roof of their house in the middle of the night and hang the banner from one of their balconies.  It would be a perfect opportunity for us to utilize our excellent camouflage skills and the ropes that we bought, and if we got a picture of it that would be awesome.

Here was the plan:

Phase One: Infiltration  Chrysler Minivan to deploy two-man tactical infiltration team half a block away from the back of the frat house.  Team will move towards the house and use ropes to gain roof access.

Phase Two: Execution  Minivan to circle around the front of the frat house and keep an eye out for hostile sentries.  Tactical infiltration team will move towards the front of the roof and secure banner to balcony by any available means.

Phase Three: Extraction  Once banner is secured, tactical infiltration team will rapidly unfurl it before proceeding with haste across the roof towards the back of the house.  Minivan team will take a picture of the now-vandalized frat house before circling back around to the insertion point.  Tactical team to rapidly leap from the roof of the frat house and make haste to the designated extraction point, jumping into the open Minivan side door and speeding back to base.  Any resistance encountered upon egress to be either avoided or eliminated by tactical infiltration team.

The Mission

Morloc and I were to serve as the two-man tactical infiltration team.  We got decked out in full gear, covered our faces completely in black face paint, loaded into the Minivan and headed out on our ultra-patriotic mission of awesomeness.

When we reached the insertion point (heh heh), Morloc and I jumped out of the minivan like ninjas and started moving towards the house at a rapid pace.

Sort of like this, only it was a minivan instead of a helicopter.

We got within about 100 yards of the house when we noticed something that we hadn't accounted for - despite the fact that it was like midnight on a Wednesday, the entire frat house was hopping.  Apparently there was some huge party, and the entire area was crawling with drunken frat boys and their potential date-rape targets.  Obviously it was going to be virtually impossible for a couple of jackasses dressed out like commandos to climb up on the roof undetected, so dejectedly we decided to circle back and head home.

Then it happened.

The subtle crack of a stick underneath a foot caused Morloc and I to freeze dead in our tracks.  Here we were, dressed like morons, wearing black face paint and crouch-walking suspiciously through the woods behind a frat house.  If we were spotted there was certainly a good chance that we were going to conjure up images of Ted Bundy or Columbine or some other such shit.  Nobody would believe we were just some random "secret frat" and not insane-o sociopaths who completely snapped off their rockers.

Morloc and I each dove for cover.  I crouched down behind a parked car and Morloc ducked slightly deeper into the woods.  Neither of us moved.  I don't even think I breathed.  The sounds got louder and louder, and we realized that we were being approached by not just one random student but a small group of frat party-goers.  For what seemed like hours we sat motionless as they drew nearer and nearer.  We could hear their conversations.  We could smell the foul mixture of domestic booze and Rohypnol they were carrying.  Suddenly I saw feet come from behind the car, so close that I could have reached my hand out and touched them.  The group walked within a foot of each of us, and didn't even so much as pause before continuing down the street.  Morloc and I breathed a sigh of relief as we realized our black uniforms had blended in so well with the darkness that we were undetectable to a group of five to seven men who passed within spitting distance of us.

We were like, totally camouflaged just as well as this guy.
Maybe better.

We waited another couple minutes before retreating back to the minivan and heading home to get fully optimated.  While we never attempted the mission again, Morloc and I to this day still swell with pride when thinking about our Marine sniper-quality camouflage job, and sing the praises of the brave men of the 529th Parachute Infantry Division.