Archive for the ‘Army’ Category

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html?cid=95886692

Edit: By now my regular readers have all looked at this.  First of all, I’m sorry for the lack of warning.  I tried to write a some form of introduction for this and it just didn’t work.

I couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t just feel hollow against what Andy Olmstead wrote.  Plus I felt anything I said would just take away from it.  I’m still not sure that I feel qualified to comment on it at all other than to say that I think everyone who has anything resembling an opinion on this war should read it.

The military needs more leaders like him, and I’m sorry for what it took to bring his writing to my attention.

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It’s Wednesday, prostate and I’ve decided to update on Wednesdays from now on, site whether I want to or not.

And since it is the also the day after Christmas, and I have no other ideas running around in my head, I’m going to relate the story that I have taken to calling “Worst Christmas Ever”.

For a while I worked with a soldier, who I will refer to as PFC Kringle.  He was always a little “off” (And yes I realize that means something different when I say it.)  Shortly before the holidays one year he told me the following story from his childhood.

His step-father was a ranger. The kind that works in a national park.  Not the kind that stormed the beaches of Normandy.  One of the tasks his step-father had to take care of was road kill.

Well one morning, a few days before Christmas Eve, when PFC Kringle was a little boy, his step-father came across a small deer that had been run over by a car.  Instead of doing, well, whatever the heck it is that park rangers normally do with a dead deer, he came up with a clever idea.

(Side note: What the heck do they do with dead deer? Is there a road kill graveyard somewhere?  Do they use the meat to feed the homeless or something?  Perhaps there is a special deer furnace for burning them?  The furnace seems the most likely, but it does seem like a bizarre and somewhat creepy career choice.)

So he brought the deer home, and made an improvised harness for it out of some leather straps.

Then he spent all Christmas Eve yelling about how much he hated Santa Claus.  “That red-suited bastard had better not show his face around here this year!  If he does, I’ll kill him and all those darn reindeer.”

Eventually PFC Kringle and his little brother were sent to bed.  And that’s when daddy-dearest hauled the deer up onto the roof, and attached one end of his new dead deer harness to the chimney.  He then pushed the deer off of the roof.  There was now a dead deer in a harness, swinging past his children’s window.

Next he went down to the yard, and fired a shotgun into the ground several times, while yelling, “I got him! I got him!”

The kids, of course, open the curtains just in time to see Rudolf go sailing past.

So at this point the unit decided that a little off or not he was remarkably well-adjusted, all things considered.

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Soldiers typically have things showing on their uniform. Their names, their ranks, their unit, and sometimes even their country of origin. This is done so that you can instantly tell vital information about the other people around you such as who’s in charge, who possesses specialized skills, and who can be safely turned into a scapegoat for anything that happens to go wrong.

In the US Army, rank goes on the collar. And only the lowest of the lower enlisted, the buck private, has no rank symbol to display. Buck privates are generally considered to be slightly less valuable than dirt, receive absolutely no respect, and basically spend their time hoping that no one notices them long enough to make them go and clean something.

Please remember this, because it is important later.

So one evening right after we got to Bosnia a bunch of soldiers were drinking in the barracks. Because this was during a multinational task force we had several different uniforms present. And as it usually goes when you have a bunch of soldiers, alcohol, and no serious adult supervision there is a variety of good-natured smack-talking going around. Generally along the lines of who beat up whom in a previous war, or which countries military could get France to surrender the quickest, that sort of thing. It was fun and I got to meet foreign soldiers for the first time. But then out of nowhere we had that guy.

If you’ve ever been at a place with young men and alcohol, chances are you’ve met that guy. Too loud, too aggressive, and probably too drunk. Instead of good-natured ribbing he’s offering personal insults. He’s yelling and generally making a tremendous ass out of himself. Normally when someone behaves this way he gets shouted down, or one of his friends takes him away to go sleep it off. But in the case of this one particular British soldier no one did anything. Everybody just let him keep on acting like an ass and ruining our night.

So I looked a little closer at him and noticed that he didn’t have any rank on his collar. (Note: Where I went looking for it was important.) This guy is a buck private and everybody is taking crap from him. This makes absolutely no sense; the world has gone crazy. So I did what any PFC whose judgment was seriously impaired by alcohol would do when a guy twice his size was acting up.

“Hey asshole! Why don’t you shut the hell up?!” I was, as always, a master of witty banter.

All conversation halted. Several soldiers near me began to edge way slowly.

“What did you say, Yank?”, he asked me in a very incredulous tone of voice.

“I’m sorry do I need to put that into British for you? I said: “Be quiet you bloody wanker”.”

He stood up and asked very quietly, “Do you want to go outside and talk about this?”
I glanced up to see one of my Sergeants standing behind him clearly signaling through hand gestures: “You can take him and I’ve got your back.” Which to sober people might have actually appeared to be: “Are you insane? This guy is going to murder you!”. But I had consumed enough alcohol to know what he really meant.

So I looked this guy square in the general direction of his head, weaved a little, and boldly announced, “I sure would. Let’s go.”

He looks stunned for a few seconds, and then just starts laughing. Crisis averted, he decided that I was his friend now. He shared some strange licorice tasting booze with me and acted decently for the rest of the evening.

The next morning my sergeant sat down with me in the chow hall.

“What on earth made you think you should start a fight with that guy last night?”

“You saw his collar Sergeant, he was a buck private, and I’m not gonna let a private talk to us like that.”

“British uniforms are different than ours. He’s not a private. He’s an NCO and he’s in the SAS. You’re only alive because he thought you were funny.”

“Oh.”

And if you’ve read the list, you can pretty much guess what the next two instructions were.

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One of the few things that was neat about the living in the barracks was the whole communal movie experience. Basically you had a bunch of poor young people cramped together, search and one of them rents a movie. Rather than pay to entertain themselves, impotent everyone just piles into the renters room and watches with them.

Well one evening my roommate came home with a copy of the animated Anastasia movie. And being responsible and mature young adults, symptoms | we proceeded to get drunk and watch cartoons.

One of the things that we noticed, is that when the Princess is leaving the orphanage, she is wearing a dark green trench coat, and what appears to be the hat from a set of dress blues.

As it happens, I owned a dark green trench coat, and was in possession of the hat from a set of dress blues.

My roommate points out to the people in the room, that I am in fact, in possession of a Princess Anastasia costume. The movie is paused, and I am made to go and put the outfit on.

I threw the clothes on, and weaved my way up to the television. For effect, I adopted the same pose that the cartoon princess was in.

Well right about then, my roommates supervisor barges in. Everybody freezes. And the NCO looks at me. Then he looks at the cartoon. Then he looks at me.

“I’m Princess Anastasia?” I suggested helpfully.

“Right. Does anyone else have an explanation for this?”

“He’s the lost heir to the Russian throne…and he’s got a talking bat but we haven’t seen that yet,” offered my roommate.

“Uh-huh….I’ll just try again tomorrow when you’re sober.”

By the next morning, my supervisor had heard the story. And if you’re reading this then you can probably guess how that part turned out.

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So I promised that I would write about something funny this weekend. I really tried to, unfortunately I also got sick this weekend. This means that between the general “can’t think ’cause my head is stuffed up” and the effects of “non-drowsy” cold medication my writing quickly became the wrong kind of funny. Instead of funny “ha ha” we got funny “stoned guy with access to a blog”.

So here’s the story I promised.

One day, shortly after I returned to the states from Bosnia, my unit got a brand new barracks. This was a big deal because our previous barracks could be politely described as “a cesspool”. Soldiers had doors that couldn’t be shut or locked. Rooms had exposed wiring. One room had a hole into the next room. Some of the common areas had missing windows.

So we get these shiny new barracks. My Battalion moves in and lives happily ever after, right?

Of course not.

In the Army, much like in the regular world, if you get something new, people you work with will stop by to look at it. In the regular world this is called “looking at the new stuff”. In the Army this is called “inspection”.

Anyone who has been in the military is familiar with this particular unpleasantness. For everyone else, imagine this:

After a long week at work, your boss announces that Friday will be a half day. Everybody starts to cheer. Then your boss announces that to go along with this half day, he and his friends are going to come to your house. Then they are going to check to see how clean and organized it is. Your shoes need to be lined up under your bed, and places like the top of your refrigerator and curtains need to be dusted. If you fail to keep any portion of your living space less than perfectly clean and tidy, instead of a half day off you get to work unpaid overtime.

So naturally enough, inspection is not a popular event with people that live in the barracks.

Well, because we had new barracks, pretty much every step in our chain of command felt the need to have their own inspection, starting with our 1st Sergeant and going all the way up to Group Commander. For nearly two months, we had weekly inspections.

As I have stated before, this was shortly after returning from Bosnia. Coming home from a deployment is an interesting time for a young soldier, economically speaking. Due to your location, and the various restrictions placed on your behavior, you typically have much more limited access to money spending opportunities than normal. Even if you were able to go out on the town, things were dirt cheap, this being Eastern Europe.

Long story short, when young, single soldiers come home from a deployment, they frequently have a large reserve of unspent cash.

This means that you soon have a bunch of young men, with more money than common sense, released into the local economy.

Which just naturally enough leads to my roommate and me, standing in a novelty shop, discovering that there is such a thing as an Inflatable Sheep.

And we thought about the upcoming inspection.

And we looked at the display of inflatable sheep.

So of course we purchased a small pile of these.

That Friday we had another inspection. Our Sgt Major entered the room, looked at our new flock, muttered a quiet “Oh hell no” did an about face, and walked out. Inspection over.

We pulled this routine over several inspections, eventually adding costume pieces to several. I had a Catholic Priest sheep, and my roommate was on his way to getting a full set of Village People Sheep. We’d arrange them differently for each inspection.

The strange thing was that for most of this time our chain of command refused to acknowledge that they were there. They’d spend the entire inspection trying to ignore them and keep a straight face, give us whatever comments our room needed, and then leave.

It turns out that in military circles, having a room full of inflatable sheep is practically a superpower.

Eventually one officer broke down halfway through the inspection and asked, “Why do you have so many inflatable sheep in your room?”. I love this question because it implies that the strange part is the amount of rubber sheep.

My roommate, at the position of attention, and with a perfectly straight face, responded, “Sir, it is my understanding that you are no longer allowed to ask me questions of this nature”.

The officer considered this for a second, said, “Right”, walked out, and started laughing as soon as he hit the hallway. Inspection passed.

PS:
And before anyone mentions it, yes I know that my roommate quoted from that “SGT BILKO” movie. It was still funny.

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Have you ever had the wind knocked out of your brain? You know probably know the sensation but just didn’t have a name for it. It’s what happens when someone says something so stupid, generic with total deadpan conviction, that your brain just chokes trying to process what they just said. It’s like taking a shot in the solar plexus, except in your head. I’ve always thought that one of the reasons that stupid people think that they are smart is because this phenomenon allows them to think that they have just won a rational debate.

“You can’t say anything because you know I’m right.” Meanwhile your brain is bubbling over like a robot in a 50’s sci-fi program confronted with a logic puzzle.

One day while I was still I the Army, I was sent out on Rigger Detail. Basically my job was to carry stuff for the parachute riggers, and clean up after them. It was standard detail fair; long, boring, and for the most part not particularly noteworthy.

The interesting part was the discussion we had during my first week. Several of the riggers were discussing how America got its name.

“Amerigo Vespucci”, I piped up.

“What are you talking about?”, asked the rigger SGT.

“The continent was named after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer.”

“Noooooo, the Italian Explorer was Columbus”, in that “I’ll speak slowly because you’re stupid” tone of voice.

“SGT there was more than one Italian Explorer. It was named after Amerigo.”

“You’re just making things up because you don’t know. America got its name from the people that were here before the Europeans.”

At this point I am trying to figure out why he thinks that, and am racking my brain trying to come up with any tribe that sounds even close to the word America.

“What tribe are you talking about Sergeant?”

“I’m talking about the Native Americans.”
Pow! Right in the brainpan.
“You can’t say anything because you know I’m right.”

And of course, the other riggers believed that his version made more sense than mine.

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From the comments section of Cephalopod Surprise

“Someone send me this and stated that it was a must read, therapy “it kept me rolling”. Guess what, troche personally I saw nothing funny about this. Waht I saw was what appeared to be a lazy PFC (E3) that somehow joined or was drafted, pharmacy if he is that old, and fought the system the whole time he was there. He forgot that some of those “unemployable wives of military officers”, and by the way they also had the NCO and Enlisted wives clubs, served a very good purpose, and it seem that understood the “spirit of corps” that these functions whould bring, plus funds to help those in need.
Yes, I was a Private but did make a career of it and retired as an Officer, but through the struggles that military life always seem to bring, with the long separations plus two tours in Vietnam, I am gratefull that those wives did take the time to do thigs like this, as it help relaxed and at times help financialy. I know, we were one of those families that sought and were help.
As the old saying goes, the military is what you make of it, and takes special families to adopt. I am proud that I was able to served my country without complaining.”

I normally let comments like this go, but I am feeling crotchety today.

Tony, I pity any soldier that had the misfortune of serving under you. Your comment paints a picture of the very worst sort of Army leader.

To your credit, I re-read my post. And it does look like I am speaking about ALL family support groups, as opposed to the ones I have served with. I cannot accurately comment on every FSG in the service as I was only ever around PSYOP from 1996-2002. But I never once saw an enlisted family member involved. And it was a rare day that I even saw one treat enlisted as human beings. Most of the wives seemed to think that they possessed the same rank as their spouse, and that enlisted were there to serve them. As far as service to the families of soldiers, I never saw that as well. I always suspected that FSG was like the Army Emergency Relief. In theory it was an organization designed to take care of all the Army personnel. In reality it was just there for the officers.

In my post, I described mandatory fun activities, and mandatory volunteering. Since you mainly described me as the culprit I can only assume you endorse these practices.

Mandatory fun is an insult to the men and women who volunteer to protect this country. In this country children do not enlist. Adults do. As an adult I am quite capable of determining how I want to enjoy my free time without being led around to planned activities like an infant with a play date. I’m not saying that group activities don’t serve a purpose. I’m not even saying that all group activities need to be training related. I’m saying that if you have to order people to show up to it, at least have the decency to not pretend that it is for their enjoyment.

Next issue: the whole mandatory volunteering. Let’s just call it what it is: blackmailing soldiers into following orders that their chain of command cannot legally give. You talk about me bucking the system, yet how should this act be interpreted?

If my NCOIC was legally allowed to order me to purchase a pie why didn’t he just order me to acquire one? Because I wasn’t issued any damn pie, because we weren’t assigned to the 235^th Combat Pastry Division.

This is, in my opinion, bullying of the worst sort: taking deliberate advantage of those that you have a solemn duty to protect.

And it doesn’t say much about you as a human being or a military leader that you find such behavior acceptable.

Next the issue of “Lazy PFC … fought the system the whole time he was there.”

You’re reading an awful lot into this one army story. And you know what assuming does right? Just because I made my own fun on occasion, in no way means I didn’t do my job, to a high degree of professionalism. I’m proud of the fact that I served, what I did when I was there, and the people that I served with. I received no punishment more severe than a counseling statement the whole time I was in, and have been commended many times on taking care of the soldiers I worked with.

That’s not to say that I never fought the system. Sometimes the system is wrong and needs to be fought. Sometimes questionable leaders do questionable things to the troops, and thus they need to be questioned. But this isn’t even really about one of those times.

In this instant I was issued a questionable order, and I followed it. I just followed it in a way that brought me and my fellow soldiers more joy than the chain of command intended.

Most soldiers have a sense of humor. Hell, remember the LTC who took a squid to the face? He laughed his ass off once he got over the shock. Little pranks such as this, are part of what made the occasional insanity of military service tolerable. There is most assuredly a time and a place for such things, and in my opinion, they do more for the mental health and welfare of the troops than any number of “scheduled pre-planned enjoyment sessions” that the leadership can think up.

And lastly, as far as the claim that you were proud to serve without complaining. I’m going to have to call bull on that. You expect me to believe that you went through twenty years of service, during a war, and never had a reason to complain once? I’m sorry anyone who says that is either a very bad liar, dangerously insane, or was a trooper in the elite 397th Ice Cream Social & Hooker Regiment.

In summery, I’m glad I served. And I’m grateful that you served. But I think you might not have as much cause to be overbearingly proud as you seem to be.

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This story is specifically why people I know thought I should keep writing stuff. It never made it to my list, seek because I never received any orders governing it.

Early on in my military career, way back when I was a PFC, my Battalion would occasionally have “Fun Runs”. A Fun Run is just like running for several miles. Except that it’s fun. Because people that outrank you say so.

This is pretty much the Army equivalent to declaring “Our office is so much fun! On Friday we get to wear Hawaiian shirts!” It’s awesome if you happen to love Hawaiian shirts, but just kinda sucks if you have taste.

One of the features of the Fun Run was that afterward the Battalion would gather together and hold a pie auction. The point of the pie auction was that if you bought a pie, you could pick any soldier who was present, and hit them with the pie. So as you can imagine, an awful lot of repressed rage got transferred into pie kinetics after these runs. The important thing to know here is that by tradition, the first pie always got thrown at the Battalion Commander.

This whole exercise was to raise money for the Battalion Family Support Group. In theory, this was an organization that would help the families of deployed soldiers manage during the long separations that military life often inflicts. But in reality, FSG was more like a cross between the homeowners association from a sit-com, and a social club for unemployable wives of military officers. And when I say social club, imagine the kind that gets taken down a peg by a scrappy band of misfits in an 80’s comedy movie.

To sum this up: the Family Support Group was not very popular with most of the soldiers.

The night before one of these delightful Fun Runs, I received special instructions.

“Bring in a pie for the auction.”

I’m not sure how much the pay has gone up, but back in those days if a Private First Class had a child he automatically qualified for food stamps. So I didn’t have much money. And most of what I did have was generally earmarked for important things, like strippers and alcohol, and more strippers. Purchase Levitra on the recommendation at http://howmed.net/order-levitra-vardenafil/ and forget about erectile dysfunction.

A pie doesn’t cost that much I guess. But it was the principle that bothered me. The Army has billions of dollars and I have barely any. And now they want me to buy stuff for them.

Now technically, it wasn’t an order. It would be against regulations for my supervisor to *order* me to spend my own money on the Family Support Group. It was just, technically, a suggestion. And it’s just peachy to make suggestions. And if soldiers choose not to follow the suggestions, well, someone has to be assigned to that toilet cleaning detail.

So that night, I went out and I bought a premade pie crust. And a tub of Cool Whip. And then I stopped by a Korean grocery store and purchased a whole, frozen squid. And sprinkles.

I got back to the barracks, and started the preparations for the morning. Which pretty much just means I started thawing the squid in a shower stall. My roommate was a bit surprised when he got back.

“Is that a squid in our shower?”
“Yep.”
“What’s it doing in there.”
“Thawing.”
“Goodnight.”

The next morning I packed it all in a cooler, and set out for the Fun Run. After about three miles of fun the Battalion gathered for the auction. I quickly assembled the secret weapon, and added it to the pie table. I then notified the auctioneer about my special pie. Of course she selected my pie for the first auction.

The bidding started fairly briskly, as many people wanted to hit our Commander with a pie. But soon enough bidding started to peter out, and that’s when the auctioneer let everyone in on the secret.
“This is a special pie.”
“What’s so special about it?” called someone in the crowd.
“It’s a squid pie.”
“I beg your pardon?” said the Commander
“I said it’s a squid pie sir.”
“There’s no such thing.”

So she reached in, pulled out a tentacle, and waved at the Commander with it.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” asked the Commander with, all things considered, a reasonable tone of voice.
“It’s a tentacle sir.”
“PIE DOESN’T HAVE TENTACLES!”
“Normally you’d be correct. But this is a squid pie sir.”

And the bidding immediately picked up again. My pie raised close to five hundred dollars, which was a new record for the pie auction. I didn’t get into any trouble because nobody wanted to look like a bad sport. And I got to watch my CO take a high velocity mollusk to the kisser, which is a good morning no matter what branch of the military you are in.

3-12-08 Update: T-shirts are now available.

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