Leaderboard

I used to be an airman and now I'm a field-grader with 25 years nearing retirement. I can say without hesitation that none of the above would have happened in the mid-80's when I was an airman, when BTW the drinking age on base and off base (in some states) was 18. The reason why? Leadership and accountability from the junior NCO corps, specifically E-5s. Let's pretend for a minute it's 1985... That airman puking in the hallway? I'm certain that night you describe there was an E-5 or even a senior E-4 in the area. Did he/she just leave that airman behind puking up his guts in the hallway? I'm sure of it. That E-5 should have grabbed two of that airman's boozehound buddies, had them take the puker to a bathroom stall to purge what was left of his intestines, then have them mop up the mess and put their buddy to bed. The puker gets his ass chewed by said NCO the next morning and the two unfortunate puke moppers are now owed a big time favor the next time the boys decide to tie one on. No LOCs, no LORs, no A15s, no officers or first shirts involved and no $7/hr maid having to clean up some asshat's puke. The junior NCOs take care of their own airman with the authority granted them by the UCMJ. Can't handle the responsibility of telling a drunk 19 year-old to shut up and go to bed? Kill yourself. Same deal for the second floor rail puker, the loud lobby fighters and certainly the jackass who uttered the 'N' word. Be a ######ing NCO and take care of business. I'm curious, GasMan, surely you are an NCO or even an officer? Why didn't YOU take care of it? Not my job? I'm not their supervisor? Bullshit. As an NCO, you're every airman's supervisor. But see, today's junior NCO force wants to be their airman's buddy, not their superior. They cower behind a closed dorm room door while airman puke, break shit, fight and disturb folks in crew rest and then complain the next day about "today's airmen." I truly believe drinking and having fun are part of the process of airmen maturing and that's where the junior NCO force comes in; to allow them to have fun but to step in when it gets out of line and protect your airmen from themselves. The worst ass chewing I ever saw given was from a E-8 I've know for 22 years. We were loading the jet at big AMC base in Germany when there was a problem with the load. The two APS airmen out at the jet ran our SRA loadmaster some lip about some obviously jacked up cargo while my SMSgt buddy watched (he was giving the SRA a checkride). The SMSgt stepped in and asked for the duty officer. An APS E-5 shows up (apparently he was the DO) and asks what the problem was. As the E-8 loadmaster explains that the load was jacked up and the two APS airmen refused to fix it, the exasperated E-5 looks at the E-8 and says, "I have no control over these guys." No shit. Commence mentoring session. Airmen (and junior officers for that matter) reflect their supervision. Attitude reflects leadership. IOW, shitty NCOs, shitty airmen. The next time a SSgt complains about "today's airmen", remind him whose airmen they really are. Edited to reflect that a SMSgt is an E-8, not an E-7. I'm retarded.

Found this one while surfing jobs at US.gov - if you still have your clearance, give it a look. Pay looks great, with definite fringe benefits.

Your deployed base sounds way better than my deployed base.

I've got pics that I'll post later if/when I get a chance. Warning- this is a very long story. While deployed to "a remote island destination in the Indian Ocean", my crew was assigned spare aircraft preflight duties, which entailed preflighting the spare up to taxi. A young, enthusiastic, and gloriously naive EW was working the flightline as the duty dog (i.e., errand boy). The uberghey radio callsign of the duty dog was "ROLLING THUNDER." He decided to come over to our jet to see if we needed any help. He plugged into the interphone and said, "Hey guys, this is ROLLING THUNDER. Do you fellas need anything?" I replied "Yeah, my airspeed indicator requires an ops check, and I need someone to blow my pitot tube." I said this fully expecting him to tell me to fornicate with myself. Instead he answered, in the same chipper voice, "Well, am I authorized to perform that kind of maintenance?" Evidently I had found the only person in the Air Force unfamiliar with this particular prank... My response was "Yes! Since aircrew fly these jets, every time an airspeed indicator is changed out an aircrew validation is REQUIRED. We're busy running checklists, so if you can help us out that would rock!" When he said "OK I'll need a ladder," the crew chief chimed in "I'll get you one sir!" before this EW had even finished his sentence. As the crew chief fetched a ladder, I shouted off interphone to one of my Navs, and when he popped his head upstairs to see what I wanted, I tossed him my camera. As the EW was mounting the ladder, the Nav stepped outside and slipped the camera to the second crew chief. "Confirm the pitot heat is off?" The EW asked. "It's off!!" ...and then it happened. 220 knots indicated! With tears streaming down my face I advised the EW to keep blowing. About that time the Ops Sup rolled up in his truck to see what was going on. I gave him a big thumbs up through the window. He shook his head in confusion, and then realized what the EW was doing. He threw his head back in laughter and gave me a big thumbs up back. He then called me on 311.0 and said "Uh, when you're done with ROLLING THUNDER, could you send him my way? I need to talk to him." I assumed he was going to talk to this young EW about not being so naive... The EW soon ran out of breath and asked me if that was sufficient. I assured him it was and told him the Ops Sup wanted to see him. After a few minutes of discussion, my crew came to the consensus that this would have been even funnier if we had talked the EW into signing an ops check off in the forms. Just for grins, I called the Ops Sup on 311.0 and asked if ROLLING THUNDER was aware of the "nature" of the ops check he had just performed. Fortunately the Ops Sup came back with "Negative. I needed to talk to him about something else." I answered "Roger that. Could you send him back to our aircraft please?" The Ops Sup agreed, and one of our crew entered a bogus write up in the forms that said "Airspeed Indicator requires aircrew ops check IAW T.O. 1B-52-1." A few minutes later, ROLLING THUNDER was back. Still as upbeat and enthusiastic as ever, he asked "What can I do for you guys?" "Well," I answered, "It turns out that since you're the one who performed the ops check, you're the only one who can sign off the forms. I need you sign off the 'corrected by' block so we can call it good.” His answer was "NO!" I figured he was finally on to us, but he continued, "I used to be enlisted as a crew chief. I need to sign off the INSPECTED BY block" He then dutifully signed off the forms. Shortly thereafter, the primary aircraft took off and we shut the spare down. When we got back to the squadron I made a phone call. As I was finishing the call, the young EW walked into the relatively crowded room. I hung up and told him, "That was maintenance. I have bad news. When you performed the ops check you blew too hard. The airspeed got all the way up to 220 knots." The EW's eyes grew wide and he asked "Did I damage anything?" "I don't know, but technically the flaps are limited to 190 knots, and the -1 doesn't specify that airspeed limitations only apply in flight. Maintenance needs to have you fill out some paperwork and answer some questions regarding the flap overspeed you caused." The EW's shoulders slumped and he sighed and turned to leave. At that point I finally lost my composure and started laughing my ass off. Everyone else in the room started cracking up as well, and FINALLY the light came on. "NO!!!" He shouted in disbelief. "NOOO!!" He then stormed out of the room. By close of business that day, printouts of the photos along with copies of the writeup he had signed off were posted EVERYWHERE in the Ops and MX squadrons. That poor kid wouldn't even LOOK at me for a good 2 weeks...