Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Smells that trigger your military service

I'm pretty sure these would be part of my late father's answer. He spent a lot of time in and around PBM's during WWII.

Most of the above, but most especially jet exhaust.

And the cold, sharp smell of pure oxygen in a freshly cleaned oxygen mask. I don't get to smell that one these days, but it's right there in my memory almost 50 years later.

The memory is so strong that I still know we cleaned our masks with benzalkonium chloride, and its faint odor combined with the rubber of the mask and the supposedly odorless oxygen made a very heady combination unavailable anywhere else but a cockpit.

JP-4 burning
The smell inside a 34 after a night med evac
The wet smell after a hard rain
And yeah that unforgettable odor of Nuoc mam,

hot MILL23699 oil and JP5 - It seemed to permeate the jet. Military jets smell like no other airplane.

The smell of a rubber in my O2 mask and those little alcohol wipes we used to clean them out but it never got rid of the rubber smell.

Hot steam on the ship. It powered everything.

I can related to several of these.

In Asia in the '50s it was the smell of benjo ditches. The troops used to say you weren't really a man until you'd gotten drunk and fallen in a benjo ditch.

We also said that if smog was a combination of smoke and fog, the prevailing atmosphere in Taipei was smit. A far cry from what modern Asian cities are today.

Paul

Cmon

Somebody say Aqua Velva or Butchwax

Can't believe someone didn't cite the obvious...

Army helicopters had their own smells too.

All Hueys pretty much smelled alike, which was a different smell from a Blackhawk.

Of course, Medevac 'Hawks in Iraq, had a smell of their own, and it wasnt pleasant.

Many of them. Probably too many to list.

Most of the above, no doubt.

Add hot reciprocating aircraft engine oil.

Vietnam had a smell all it's own, when you get off the airliner at Tan Son Nhut it hits you like a hammer.

The building on the bases over there were all built with a cheap grade of mahogany, it had a peculiar smell.

JetA burning on the tarmac of the airport brings back pleasant memories.

Smell memory is exactly why I opened "Baggy Zero Four" like this...

"It was as if the world had farted in his face. The air that came in through the jetliner’s door hit him like garbage gelatin: smothering hot, with overtones of sewage, dead fish, diesel smoke and jet exhaust. It was Cam Rahn Bay, Republic of Vietnam, and First Lieutenant “Rusty” Naille knew his nose would never forget that first olfactory assault as long as he lived. How long that might be was up for grabs."

Nobody who went there can read that without reacting -- strongly.

diesel fuel and spent shell casings...

The submarine definitely had a smell, wasn't offensive at all, just noticeable. I always assumed it was vaporized diesel fuel that came inboard through the tank vent, but could have been a combination of things. I still have a cruise bag that retains some of that smell, if I need to feel nostalgic I can just put it over my head.

The sea
The smell of the stack when underway
The smell of line (rope to civilians) and of course grease on the wires.
Oh yeah, primer and paint.

I was an unrep sailor

Although I have not tried it, I'm pretty sure if you put a splash of JP-5 in a glass of water and I took a drink from it, it would take me right back to good old CV-61.

That, and Nevr-Dull.