Great 'Died story told by a Reservist

[Guest Rainman A-10]

Originally posted by RV8-Rush:

I am currently at Al Asad Air Base in Western Iraq.

Sorry about all the DU near your chow hall/tent/ops/shitter...you've already had all the kids you wanted, right?

It reminds me of when they said we were first moving into Al Jaber. We didn't believe them. There was no way they were seriously considering moving us to the same base that was the primary dump target during the war, was there? Wrong.

[Guest TheBurt]

Sorry for the thread revival, but I've been away and was catching up on some reading.

We had just deployed to K2 and had to stand up our tactics shop, as well as, fly, "borrow" items for tents etc. I had been up for 24+ hours and could smell my own ass, so I left tactics in capable hands and went for a shower, flight suit change, hot chow. On the way to the tent I was approached by a rather plump.......no, on second thought she was just plain fat.....Lt. Col Services type, I impressed myself with a sharp salute and a "good morning, ma'am" just like in ROTC, she raised her fat little fingers in kind of a peacock like open-handed half-assed saluting type motion (I also think she forgot to shave) she looked like a total bag of shit, she looked at me indignantly as she passed without saying a word. I was about 6 feet away when I heard, "MAJOR", I could only guess that meant me, oh no, I thought, I was so tired I must have left my **** hanging out after I used the porta-john! I turned around and politely said (as I was checking the flight suit zipper, the one that zips from the bottom) "Yes, ma'am" Her gaze was like two blazing diamonds, her uniform kind of slopping over her hillary sized hips, her DCU's pitifully bloused over her boots, large rolls of fat were visible under her DCU shirt, I hung on her next words, "Flop your hat", "Ma'am?" I asked inquisitively, she repeated, "Your hat does not flop, and you are not wearing proper reflective gear", I squinted from the suns glare, "Ma'am?" she persisted, "your hat should look like mine", she pointed a stubby finger to her hat which she wore like she had just been beached by the USS Minnow, "oh, oh now I see, yes ma'am I will make sure to always flop it properly from now on."

True story

[Mambo]

Excellent story...glad to see you took the high road and recognized what a piece of work she was! Sometimes it's just so much easier to say "Yes ma'am/sir" and be on your way.

[M2]

I got "jacked up" by some US Army pogue at CFC-Afghanistan for having my boonie tied up...he said something along the lines of keeping the sides down "to support our troops!" WTF? But as I was being shown around by an old bud of mine, an Army Warrant who would surely catch shit later on if I argued or told the dumb**** to **** off, I just smiled and let the flaps down. My bud later apologized on behalf of the entire US Army, I just had to laugh...it is amazing what people will zero in on.

Luckily, over in NATOland (ISAF), I could cruise around all day in sunglasses, no hat, and a SF SPEAR fleece pullover, and nobody said a word. NATO deployment locations are usually less comfortable than US ones (they don't have AAFES or HBR), but at least they are less uptight about the bumpf when they are downrange. Hell, the Canadian 3-star in charge of ISAF at the time, LTG Rick Hillier, threw us one helluva huge BBQ, and actually brought me a beer and chatted about Texas (he was the Deputy CG of III Corps at Ft Hood at one time) and golf. He is now the Chief of the Defence Staff (CJCS equivilent), and his official bio states he "runs slowly, plays hockey poorly and golfs not well at all." Could you imagine Myers' bio saying that?

OK, rant over. We are the USAF, we're not suppose to be uptight...that's the Army and the Marines' job!

Cheers! M2

[Guest Remy1492]

Without giving any details to make Deid ATOC look even worse, I had a bad day, was about 120F, medevac mission and ATOC had misconfigured pallets to load.

LM tells me to take a look at the bad pallets on a K-loader.

ATOC person cusses at my LM and says derogitory remarks (not a good idea to my LM) because we are rejecting pallets.

To cover my ass I take some photos of the poorly made pallets that we are rejecting (in case the ATOC guys' story differs from mine when I come back and I have to spend a few hours defending my decision. (always got a camera strapped to my holster, so why not).

(big advice new guys, Digital Camera, evidence, Cover Your Ass. nuff said)

2 minutes later......

Said ATOC person calls SPs to come over and confiscate my camera for "unauthorized flight line photography".

Oh...........Remy turned into an Uncle Vito. I looked at this guy and asked him

"did you just call THIS SP out to arrest me cause I took pictures of your screwed up pallets?"

To which he nodded 'yes.'

I politely told the 19yr old SP to call my Col, who was holding my 'photo pass' along with my nametags and SGLI paperwork. He happily walked away to his Air Conditioned Dodge Ram and actually DID call.

I asked the ATOC guy "so this is how its gonna be?" and from then on........

the Blue tails made his life uneasy.

---------------

I tell ya, some people dont see the forest for the trees. Common sense really HAS given way to reflective belts.

[ 30. August 2005, 01:12: Message edited by: Remy1492 ]

[HerkDerka]

Blue tails...screwing up day to day ops by introducing common sense to the equation.

Remy I still remember fighting with the ATOC guy while I was working stro that day.

HD

[Techsan]

Great stories. Not wearing my disco belt was the one way for me to rebel against "the man". However, the man purse rocks! You can fit quite a bit in it...including: cash, paper coins from AAFES, Beer card, chapstick, id card, etc.

[Techsan]

Originally posted by C21Cowboy:

Great stories. Not wearing my disco belt was the one way for me to rebel against "the man". However, the man purse rocks! You can fit quite a bit in it...including: cash, paper coins from AAFES, Beer card, chapstick, id card, etc.

Kidding, BTW.

[Flare]

Originally posted by C21Cowboy:

Kidding, BTW.

[Wing Sweep]

Great story Remy. You slick guys definitely put up with a whole lot of BS. Keep up the good work! Four fans of freedom winning the war one poorly made pallet at a time!

In ATOC's defense, there are some really good ones out there, but they are the exception. 2T2's think LM's are dumb, but as a prior LM, I can say without hesitation that we are the smartest, most common sense kind of folks around. Well, maybe FE's have us beat, but not by much.