Never been to the Deid, but I assume at this point this thread has morphed enough to include a few more Bagram stories - I'll keep them short, otherwise I'm just going to get pissed off again.
Off the top of my head:
- During inprocessing, we got 7 separate iterations - I counted - on proper wear of the reflective belt/PT uniform before hearing word one about airfield security. We never were told where the bunkers were. During the PERSCO inbrief, right off the C-17 from Manas, one SMSgt talked for 5 minutes about how to ensure we received the correct decorations for the deployment.
- During the Right Start Brief, the base commander had everyone in the room stand and recite the Airman's creed out loud.
- The wing staff had the brilliant idea to emulate the Army's greeting tradition ("Stands alone, sir!") by introducing one of their own warrior greetings: "Start right!" "Finish Strong!" When I left there was still a banner with that shit on it hanging from the old tower cab on Cunningham.
- I was there when the FUBAR patch incident went down. I was on the commanders' email distro list, and some very senior air force officers lost their ######ing minds over this to a degree that went beyond embarrassing to frankly disturbing. I saved the email somwehere, I'll have to see if I can find it.
- The previously mentioned A-10 moustache groundings and the O-5 with the OIF hat in the gym. I don't think this part was mentioned -- the O-5 got sent home over that incident because he made a smart-ass remark to the E-whatever who told him to take it off.
- Useless ######s attempting to stop crewmembers during MEDEVAC scramble launches for not having a reflective belt on.
Now obviously, if the Wing can afford to focus this much on the nitnoid shit, the Ops shit must be wired tight...right?
- Between our two rotations, spent six (6) months trying to put together one (1) local area RESCORT trainer with the hog guys. This is not exactly a tactical stretch for us, but it had to go the deputy CFACC for approval. Disapproved.
- Same thing for Apache RESCORT. Required 2 star approval, disapproved. I lost my shit over that one - "Let me get this straight - a dry 3 ship local rehearshal with no boots on the ground requires deputy CFACC approval, but tomorrow night when we have to do it for real in the middle of a live-fire 8 ship with dudes on the ground, that's flight lead approval? Roger."
- Same 2-star turned off a pre-coordinated support mission during low illum 2 hours prior to kickoff, couldn't get it turned back on in time, left our Army bros hanging all ######ing night. Luckily no contacts, no one wounded or killed. Got it turned back on the next day, no valid reason given for the knock it off.
- Wing CC publicly compromised OPSEC on a "don't talk about fight club" type op in order to berate a mouth-open-in-amazement alert flight lead for not having patches on his flight suit.
Before coming to the guard, our DO was one of the most experienced special ops helo pilots in the air force. His quote toward the end of the deployment: "I have never been more professionally embarrassed in 18 years of doing this job." We're the same age, and I'm inclined to agree. My personal estimate is that about 40% of the people at Bagram don't need to be there. It's probably closer to 50%.
I have a lot more of these, but now I need a beer.
P.S. Almost forgot - while the OG was busy grounding guys for moustaches and morale patches, he also had several copies of the June issue of Air Force Magazine:
proudly displayed on the table outside his office. I commented on the irony, but I'm pretty sure he didn't think it was nearly as humorous as I did.
