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Firstly - it was rossian and not me who replied to your earlier post. Secondly, it was we "old farts" who were (probably rightly) the recipients of the mickey taking, so we decided to retaliate gently. The events sparked off a lot of banter, not to mention further mild escalation of events (ie, the co-pilot sawing most of the way through the legs legs of the skipper's camp bed) to everybody's amusement. As for the inter crew war of the wailing minaret alarm clocks - that's another story altogether.
These sorts of things kept everybody sane and motivated in potentially difficult circumstances. I now work as a trainer in a civil environment, and I would not dream of doing that sort of thing, because in the airline world people simply would not know how to take it, and would be understandably upset and offended.
In the military, these things happened between colleagues and friends, where "wind ups" and banter were part of the deal. The "victim" in my story is an excellent guy who could give as good as he got. There is a big difference between this sort of thing and bullying the weak and defenceless.