Back at Paris Island, the summer 1982, we had several "Black Flag" days during boot camp (when it's extremely hot, and the DIs weren't allowed to train us outside). During those times, we usually were in the squad bays, doing activities that had very little exertion on our part. After about the the 3rd day in a row of this, you could tell the DIs were getting antsy, and running out of things for us to do. Our Jr. DI got so frustrated at one point, he found an "excuse" to yell at us, and left us with the instructions, "Ya'll just STFU, and SIT there and VEGETATE! NO NOISE! If you make ANY noises, it had better be VEGETABLE NOISES!" At which point, he went into the DI Hut, and slammed the door to his air-conditioned office!
Which left us to wonder; WHAT noises do vegetables MAKE?
After about 15 minutes of total silence, an enterprising recruit (who shall remain nameless!) pursed his lips, sucked in on them, and made a chirping/tweeting sound. The recruit next to him started the same thing, and within a minute, the entire platoon was sitting in the dark, on the ground of the squad bay, making the these strange, tweeting noises. At this point, the bay door opens, and the Sr. DI walks in, and stops dead in his tracks with the strangest look on his face! "GUIDE! WTF are you MORONS DOING!?!?!" The Guide gets up, comes to attention, and smartly answers, "Sir, DI Sgt. So and So told us not to make any noise except for vegetable noises, SIR! We've never heard a vegetable SAY anything, so the recruits improvised, SIR"
The look on the Sr. Di's face never changed; he just answered, "Carry on!", and walked smartly through the bay, and entered the DI hut. Seconds later, we heard 2 DI's laughing from the hut! Semper Fi!