Stupidity in the service.

[oldtanker]

El Toro's post had me setting here looking back on my days in the Army. I started remembering some of the stupid things I saw.

The first thing I saw that I can honestly say was amazingly stupid was at Ft Riley in 75. They had renovated our barracks. When it was completed they had a ceremony with us troops in formation listening to boring speeches. When it was the contractors turn he got up there and started telling us (the troops) how much better our life was going to be. He told us that they had installed Armstrong no wax tiles and that if we waxed them it voided the warranty. So we moved into the buildings. 2 weeks later we were told that the commanding general was going to inspect us in our newly renovated building and out came the buffers and wax!

Rick

 

[Gene Davis (Ga.)]

That is also followed by the old Army motto of,
"hurry up and wait:!

 

[oldtanker]

(quoted from post at 18:30:43 01/07/15) That is also followed by the old Army motto of,
"hurry up and wait:!

Gene in the mid 80's us NCO's started a new one.


This is the US Army. Simple problems REQUIRE complex solutions. Simple solutions WILL NOT be tolerated!


Rick

 

[Wheatfarmer]

I left Ft Riley in June of 65 for Vietnam. Sure glad you had it better later. Haha.

 

[Ivan in Mich]

When I was in Germany in 1970 I was in stationed
at the largest Army Engineer Depot in Europe. Our
shop waas appox 1/2 mile long and an 1/8 mile
wide. Gen Westmoreland came thru our shop.A month
before he got there all work stopped and the paint
came out. Instead of painting new lines on the
floor they used aluminum painted yellow tape for
the strips on the floor. Well we rebuilt heavy
equitment and you can guess what happened when
tracked equit ran over it. The gen came thru and
he got down by use with all the brass around him.
He stopped and his face got red.He turned to the
Head officer of the depot and said what the h kind
of shop do you run here. I expect to see one that
people work in. Then he turned and headed toward
us. We all knew that an a## chewing was comming
but one of the Captins came over to our LT and
shook his hand. LT said hi Dad we almost fell
over. The Capt was his FIL. I ran into this Lt
years later at FT Hood and he was a Lt Col. He
still remember me. His nickname was Hockey puck
when I knew him in Germany

 

[old]

Well you know what they say. There is the right way. The wrong way. Then the government way. And which one is the last one said behind the wrong way so you know the government way is by far far less the right

 

[D Slater]

Reported to a new to me army company in Germany January 69. When the company would fall out every morning the platoon leader would usually be asked to send a man or two for detail duty. New guys in the company usually got picked. So I spent some of my first winter there painting stone walls along the base road. Even in rain or snow and with traffic splashing the wet road onto the walls. Turned out not to be a bad place to put my time in after the first winter.
Inspections there wasn't bad except maybe once a year.

 

[SDE]

At the end of the fiscal year, you were told to order anything you might need, but any earlier in the year and they would turn you down for anything they thought was not required.

 

[BushogPapa]

Ofcourse, to old saying: SNAFU...

Pretty well sums it all up..

Ron.

 

[dbNga]

I was stationed at Warner Robins AFB in Warner Robins, Ga 72-74. Pres. Nixon visited the base and a painting campaign was instituted. Just the sides of buildings they thought he would see were painted.
Also the 6 day war broke out while I was there. One day I am called to the office and told to go to the barracks and get to sleep and report to building so and so at 2300. After I do that duty and report to my regular duty the next day all the civilians I worked with asked me what material did I process for the war? What war nobody said anything about a war to us...they just said to process this material for shipment. So much for secrecy.

 

[JMS/.MN]

Before your time, but....mid 60s, Army needed warm bodies, so they dropped the entry requirements....got the dodo platoons. Dumber than rocks. We got some....I was working in the motor pool one day, Motor Sgt told me to call "Fash", fellow from Detroit, in for noon chow. Sgt said he was out by a jeep, all morning, installing a battery cap, had already broken a couple, trying to screw them in. I was a bit shy of incredulous...how can you do that? I asked Fash, you know anything about vehicles? Oh, yeah, I used to mess with them all the time.

 

[sammydwm]

While stationed on a floating drydock in Scotland, the SECNAV was in country for some meeting. There was an off chance his plane would fly over the base so while we were on watch below decks we had to wear inspection ready dungarees and if we went topside we had to wear our dress blues.

 

[MarkB_MI]

I saw unused 20 mm cannon barrels sawed up and scrapped because they had a little surface corrosion.

 

[olddog]

One thing will stick in my mind the rest of my born days.
This poor farm boy,(we didn't know we were poor), went to basic @FT Dix, NJ.
The first KP duty I pulled, the sgt ordered me to put three 30 gallon cans,
each half full of MEATBALLS, in the dumpster!

 

[Pitch]

I worked at an Army supply depot for many years. We got an emergency requisition for ONE screwdriver, the small ones with the pocket clip.
apparently some bombers flight crew was missing one and the plane couldn't fly with out it. We paid slightly more than $80.00 to overnite that screwdriver to Belgium.
At this Depot a command was normally 2 to 3 years,a full bird with a promotion to 1 star and the bowels of the Pentagon.
Every new commander had to put his mark on the base and rearrange the furniture so to speak.
One Colonel discovered that the traffic control signs did not have DOT compliant break away posts.It was ordered that all signs be upgraded,this included no parking signs bolted to loading docks and buildings. They were removed and mounted on short but compliant posts tight up against the docks

 

[HenryO]

I reported to Cleveland to catch a train to Sampson AFB in 1952 on 2 July. Put us on a couple of day cars for the trip. Got to Buffalo next day and stayed there 2 days during the Holiday, got to Sampson AFB and no one knew we were coming. We stayed in our civies for more than a week(no extra clothes) wore out all of all shoes because no one had ordered uniforms for us. By that time I had a very high opinion of the AF. Things got better later

 

[Pete in MD]

Wasn't the "6 day war" in June '67?

 

[Royse]

When buying things outside the normal supply chain, I remember
the requirement to buy from local small businesses. Had to get
three quotes and none of them could be chain stores.
We bought many items from a "small business" that belonged
to a retired NCO. He bought them at K-Mart and doubled the price.

I also remember watching a team of Navy SeaBees roof a building.
From the peak down.

 

[Trygve]

In the Marines on Okinawa in '61 we were to be
deployed at the ready landing battalion with the
7th fleet and we couldn't get replacement parts
for our M-1s. Supply Sargent visited the
neighboring Army base and found them melting down
new M-1s.

 

[oldtanker]

(quoted from post at 08:18:22 01/08/15) Wasn't the "6 day war" in June '67?

Correct:

Six-Day War (June 1967) - Fought between Israel and Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The nations of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, and others also contributed troops and arms to the Arab forces. Following the war, the territory held by Israel expanded significantly ("The Purple Line") : The West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, Golan Heights from Syria, Sinai and Gaza from Egypt.
War of Attrition (1967–1970) - A limited war fought between the Israeli military and forces of the Egyptian Republic, the USSR, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1967 to 1970. It was initiated by the Egyptians as a way of recapturing the Sinai from the Israelis, who had been in control of the territory since the mid-1967 Six-Day War. The hostilities ended with a ceasefire signed between the countries in 1970 with frontiers remaining in the same place as when the war began.
Yom Kippur War (October 1973) - Fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973 by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel as a way of recapturing part of the territories which they lost to the Israelis back in the Six-Day War. The war began with a surprise joint attack by Egypt and Syria on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Egypt and Syria crossed the cease-fire lines in the Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively. Eventually Arab forces were defeated by Israel and there were no significant territorial changes.

All during this time the US supplied Israel with arms and ammo. The Air Force flew in cargo planes around the clock during some of the action. Through sheer determination and outside supplies Israel was able to hold after the 67 6 day war.

Rick

 

[NCWayne]

In the Navy, I remember watching a pump that never gave any problems being torn down for an inspection, so the inspector could see what good shape our equipment was in. The bad thing is that the pump right beside it was constantly giving problems and actually needed to be repaired.

To make matters worse, this whole fiasco turned into 4 pump rebuilds. The guys rebuilding the pump torn down for inspection screwed up and broke a line off the casing, and didn't know it until it was back together and I was sent to inspect it, so they had to do it all over. Then they started on the problematic pump, and did the same thing going back together with it. All in all both pumps got torn down, and rebuilt twice, all over people being STUPID and/or not paying attention.

And don't even get me started on how they'd buy new coveralls for everybody so we'd all look nice for an inspection team. Bad thins is there were guys walking around with their boots duck taped together and couldn't get new ones because we didn't have the funds....................And don't forget all those overpriced parts, or tools that weren't available, or weren't in the budget, but that we had to have to get underway. My Chief and I once spent our personal money to buy bearings for the lube oil pump that supplied one of the bearings on the main shaft because the parts weren't in the supply chain. The bad thing was we couldn't get underway with that pump not in operation, so in essence $120 worth of bearings would have kept an aircraft carrier pier side.

 

[Mike (WA)]

Joined the National Guard in Pullman, WA in '69. Had to report to basic training at Ft. Lewis, WA in July, which was about 40 miles from my home. Couldn't go directly there, had to depart from my unit. So a 6 1/2 hour drive from Chehalis to Pullman, then bussed 2 hours to Spokane, onto a plane for flight to Seattle, then bussed south to Ft. Lewis. Took the better part of 2 days to go 40 miles.

But it was handy to have my car in Pullman, because it wasn't far to my girlfriend's place. When I got out of basic, they got me back to Pullman. I picked up my car and drove to her place, where she promptly broke up with me.

 

[MarkB_MI]

The aircraft was probably grounded because a technician lost it while working on the bird. You can't fly a plane until all the tools used to work on it have been accounted for. You don't want a loose tool rattling around in an aircraft where it can jam a control or short-circuit something. Thanks to DHL they were able to "find" the missing tool. The missing screwdriver may still be somewhere in that plane.

 

[Old Magnet]

Ones I remember was the dim wits that couldn't work the military parts ordering system and there was/is no way to return wrong ordered parts. Many midnight deposits to "Davy Jones Locker" for wrong valves, whole steam turbine wheels, pump parts etc. Stupidity at its finest.

 

[oldtanker]

(quoted from post at 11:15:49 01/08/15) Ones I remember was the dim wits that couldn't work the military parts ordering system and there was/is no way to return wrong ordered parts. Many midnight deposits to "Davy Jones Locker" for wrong valves, whole steam turbine wheels, pump parts etc. Stupidity at its finest.

I'd forgotten about that kinda thing. Someone at Ft Carson made an error with a NSN on a parts order and the got a Navy ship anchor. 2nd SQD 2nd ACR on the same kind of deal got a landing gear nose wheel assembly. The Air Force did pick that up. I heard the anchor went to a naval reserve place in CO.

Back in the day most of us spent a few bucks here and there for stuff for the tanks. Mostly hardware.

I was in Germany for what became known as the great toilet paper shortage. Someone in USAEUR G4 forgot to order toilet paper for the troop barracks and staff buildings for all of US forces in Europe. It was so bad that soldiers caught with white toilet paper in their wall lockers got busted. There was toilet paper available for purchase in the PX and commissary but you better buy something with a print and not plain white! OH and don't forget to keep the receipt!

Rick

 

[El Toro]

When I was in basic training our company commander decided to put salt in our canteens. Some of those soldiers almost died. They had no radios or telephones. I dumped my water, I told the barracks SGT I needed a bathroom break and I filled it with fresh water. I think that Jap captain should've been court martial. Hal

 

[T in NE]

Neighbor who went into the navy was on the Missouri when she was decommissioned. Said truckloads of new never-opened tools, were tossed over board. Unless no one was looking, they got dropped on the dock, and grew legs.

 

[T in NE]

Guy who worked for my dad was a Navy aircraft electrician. Someone left a wrench loose and fried a couple alternators/generators/magnetos (can't remember what he called them) before he could tell the pilots not to flip the switch and fry the fourth.

Model he worked on was a P-something. Think he graduated high school in 89.

His favorite was the $200 glorified flashlight with the circuit board that turned the light on if the plane crashed. It had a button that pushed a couple contacts together to test it, and they weren't exactly too robust. Every crewman just had to push the button every time they walked by. Worst part was that it took hours to tear the inner panel out of the plane to get to the connectors to change it. More than once he tweaked the contacts enough to make it work, then taped a box over it til they were airborne. Admirals didn't like to hear their plane was grounded because of a flashlight.

 

[T in NE]

A cousin was in the army in tanks. CO came out when they were on maneuvers and started telling them where to move.

Back that tank up
But sir your..
BACK IT UP!!!!

Kicked the driver in the head and told him to back it up, right over the CO's jeep.

 

[oldtanker]

(quoted from post at 21:15:48 01/08/15) Neighbor who went into the navy was on the Missouri when she was decommissioned. Said truckloads of new never-opened tools, were tossed over board. Unless no one was looking, they got dropped on the dock, and grew legs.

In the 80's 2nd level mechanics were authorized issue of very nice Snap On roll away's. They were an unaccountable disposable item. I guy who lived next to me in quarters commander ordered a double batch for their company. When a soldier left the unit he told em to keep their tool box.

My BIL was in the Navy when they got rid of his rating. They tossed all the tools associated with his job.

The military can waste a lot of money. It really isn't funny.

Rick

 

[oldtanker]

(quoted from post at 21:15:48 01/08/15) Neighbor who went into the navy was on the Missouri when she was decommissioned. Said truckloads of new never-opened tools, were tossed over board. Unless no one was looking, they got dropped on the dock, and grew legs.

In the 80's 2nd level mechanics were authorized issue of very nice Snap On roll away's. They were an unaccountable disposable item. I guy who lived next to me in quarters commander ordered a double batch for their company. When a soldier left the unit he told em to keep their tool box.

My BIL was in the Navy when they got rid of his rating. They tossed all the tools associated with his job.

The military can waste a lot of money. It really isn't funny.

Rick