Better than Being a Dumb Ass
As a PFC fresh out of AIT I had a long and easy summer. In July 1979 I arrived at Ft. Hood, herbal Texas about the time that my unit, asthma the 142nd Signal BN of the 2nd Armored Division went off to train at the National Training Center (NTC). As part of the rear detachment I would do very little work in the morning and have the afternoon off. I had a lot of three and four day weekends too.
I had fallen into some bad habits, anesthetist one of which was speaking my mind without actually engaging the brain cells. The three sergeants that I dealt with on a daily basis the entire summer must have thought that it was okay as no one ever corrected me. They were all Vietnam vets and would laugh when my mouth would engage without the guidance of my brain cells.
In September this came to a screeching halt when my unit returned back to Hood.
During one of these episodes my section sergeant called me a smart ass. My mouth engaged of its own volition and said, “That’s better than being a dumb ass.”
I quickly tap danced around and explained to my sergeant that what I really meant was that it could be much worse if I was a dumb ass rather than a smart ass. He didn’t buy it for even a second.
I did KP every time we went to the field until I PCSed to Turkey 18 months later. We went to the field every month for at least ten days plus those three months in Germany for the Reforger/Autumn Forge war game. The Germany trip works out to at least 45 days washing metal trays, pots and pans for our entire battalion, plus a maintenance battalion.
On the good side, I can wash dishes quickly and correctly even today. My mouth still runs off of its own volition from time to time, but now I just get a counseling statement suitable for framing. One day I’m gonna put them all in a notebook.
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December 2nd, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Just saying that proved that you were a dumb ass.
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Speed reply on December 3rd, 2008 7:43 am:
Yeah. Perhaps “Young, dumb, full of cum,” would be more correct, but dumbass sufficed at the time.
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December 3rd, 2008 at 12:58 am
Tap-dancing never works.
Maybe you should have tried a soft-shoe.
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December 3rd, 2008 at 5:14 am
We have a guy like that in out section. Of course he is a dumbass. It’s gotten to the point that whenever something stupid is aked or said we refer to it as a “Burke.”
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December 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 am
You should compile the best of the statements and send ’em to Skippy.
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Speed reply on December 4th, 2008 7:50 am:
Check out “Its a Big One” list from a few weeks back. I’ve also explained the M-O-U-S-E and dropping the F-bomb on my captain, all parts of the list. I’ll keep doing so as long as Skippy allows me to.
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December 3rd, 2008 at 8:53 am
I have always been both happy and slightly regretful that I did not ask for a red pen and circle the many spelling and grammar errors on the counceling statement I got from my Lt once when in AIT. And that I didn’t ask the question “I thought officers had to have a college degree, or at least a High School GED to be commissioned”.
Sure thought hard about it for a few minutes before signing the dang thing though…
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December 4th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
The ever infamous words – I said them once to one SFC in my company. You can bet I was on detail for the next month. Though I have a tendency to say that to my commander nowadays and she laughs it off. I guess she remembers the days when she was enlisted and the humor we get out of saying smart remarks that go over so many people’s heads?
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December 4th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
As a Brit friend would say, “Thicker than two short planks”.
Captcha – KELSO Crop = The next herd for a goofy TV show from Wisconsin?
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December 10th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Rather than tap-dance, pretending to faint or have some kind of seizure (sudden onset of Tourette’s Syndrome?) might have worked better.
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Speed reply on December 10th, 2008 2:05 pm:
I was rather naive back then. We had a guy we called “Lumpy” who actually did the faint-seizure bit in formation. The sarge just nudged his squirming leg with his boot and said, “Get up stupid.” And he got away with it too. Of course, I’ve gotten away with much worse since, heh.
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April 27th, 2009 at 7:58 am
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