{"id":54125,"date":"2014-07-23T12:45:47","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T16:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=54125"},"modified":"2014-07-24T06:27:15","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T10:27:15","slug":"oh-i-guess-maybe-you-are-setting-the-right-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=54125","title":{"rendered":"“Oh. I guess maybe you are setting the right example.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Hardin\u2019s comment here about a LSoS former cook, fake SF, and congressional candidate<\/a> reminded me of one of the funniest things that I ever saw in the military. So I thought I\u2019d relate it here.<\/p>\n

At Fort Bragg years ago, the XVIII Airborne Corps at one time had a formal IG Inspection \u2013 and no, I\u2019m not talking about what later came to be called an \u201cIG assistance visit\u201d. This was a freaking formal, unannounced, full-blown no-notice inspection<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I understand the change to a different form of IG inspection (the IG assistance visit) happened during the early 1980s. However, my unit was one of the ones tagged for the formal hoo-hah before the change occurred. Lucky us. (smile)<\/p>\n

Under the old-style IG inspection procedure, a unit would be called at 0500 and would be notified it was having an IG inspection that day<\/span>. You might hear a rumor that your unit was a \u201cpossible\u201d beforehand, but the date was almost never known.\u00a0 Or you might get completely blindsided.\u00a0 That depended on how good your higher HQ was at working the \u201cBRAGG RUMINT\u201d pipeline.<\/p>\n

After notification, the unit would recall its personnel, get gear and records laid out for inspection.\u00a0 Everything had to be ready for inspection by 0900 that same day.<\/p>\n

The IG Inspection team \u2013 a slew<\/span> of folks \u2013 would then descend on the unit like ravening locusts, looking for whatever they could find wrong. Equipment, personnel, unit area, arms room, operational\/maintenance\/supply\/administrative records \u2013 you name it, the team looked at it.<\/p>\n

Some of it was kinda over the top.\u00a0 One example:\u00a0 the arms room inspector used a damn dental pick<\/em> – the kind a dentist uses to probe for cavities – he’d obtained somewhere when inspecting rifles and pistols in order to find traces of carbon.<\/p>\n

Good times. (smile)<\/p>\n

The formal inspection began with an in-ranks inspection of the unit, in unit formation arranged by MTOE slot number, by the inspection team. Dogtags and ID card out, checked against unit roster \u2013 the whole bit. That formal in-ranks inspection was conducted by the head of the IG team and his NCOIC.<\/p>\n

The IG Team OIC at the time was a Major (remember, this was the XVIII Airborne Corps IG conducting the inspection). The guy wore an eyepatch; as I recall, he was indeed a Ranger \u2013 though not, as I recall, SF.\u00a0 He appeared to have been fairly recently injured (hence the eyepatch and probably the assignment to the IG team). But regardless, he was still a rather imposing, mean looking SOB – especially to a youngster like myself.\u00a0 And from having crossed paths with him elsewhere, I knew he could indeed be a SOB at times.<\/p>\n

At the time, my duty assignment put me fairly close to the unit\u2019s Mess Sergeant in the unit formation \u2013 but not immediately next to him. During the inspection, out of the corner of my eye I could see the IG Inspection Team OIC talking to our Mess Sergeant \u2013 first quietly, then rather angrily. Then suddenly the IG Team OIC stopped talking, went quiet for a second or so, said something quietly to the Mess Sergeant \u2013 and moved on to the next soldier in the ranks.<\/p>\n

The inspection took a few hours, but was done that afternoon. We did well as I recall \u2013 not 100% perfect, but well enough to stay off the Corps (and our Brigade\u2019s) \u201csh!t list\u201d and out of trouble. No serious problems or issues were found.<\/p>\n

After the outbrief, I ran into our Mess Sergeant, SFC Smith (I\u2019ve changed the last name here). He was smoking a cigarette, and chuckling to himself.<\/p>\n

A bit of background: SFC Smith was a damned fine Mess Sergeant. He ran a good mess hall, and could \u2013 within limits \u2013 still do a bit of wheeling and dealing to take care of the troops, food wise (that had become much<\/span> more difficult in the late 1970s and early 1980s than it had been a few years earlier).<\/p>\n

He obviously enjoyed good food, too \u2013 like many mess sergeants of the day, he was a touch heavy. Not sloppy-fat heavy, but maybe 5 to 10 pounds over the screening weight for his height.<\/p>\n

This was also about the time the Army had started to tighten up on height\/weight standards.<\/p>\n

Our conversation went something like this (SFC Smith\u2019s words in italics):<\/p>\n

. . . <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Sergeant Smith \u2013 what\u2019s so funny?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t believe me if I told you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cTry me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember the in-ranks inspection? What happened there still cracks me up every time I think about it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I was wondering about that. It looked like the Major was reaming you a new one. What was that all about?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDamnedest thing I ever saw. He looked at my ID card and asked me my name. I told him. He looked at my uniform.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then he asked me how tall I was. So I told him that, too.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then he asked me, \u2018How much do you weigh, Sergeant Smith?\u2019 So I told him. <\/em><\/p>\n

Then he kinda went off. He told me, \u2018That\u2019s more than Army regs say you should. That’s unacceptable.\u00a0 Sergeant, you\u2019re setting a poor example for your soldiers! Sergeant, what is your job<\/span>?!!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So I told him, \u2018Sir . . . I\u2019m the Mess Sergeant.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Then the major\u2019s face went blank and he was quiet for a little while. Then he told me, \u2018Oh. I guess maybe you are setting the right example.\u2019 And after that, he made a right-face and went to inspect the next guy in line.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

. . . <\/strong><\/p>\n

Personally, IMO the Major had a point.\u00a0 Think about it \u2013 would YOU really want to eat at a mess hall that had a skinny<\/em> Mess Sergeant? (smile)<\/p>\n

And, for what it’s worth:\u00a0 as I recall there was no mention of SFC Smith being over his DA screening weight in the IG Inspection Report.<\/p>\n

No, I’m not making this up – this actually happened.\u00a0 I was there to see it myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Hardin\u2019s comment here about a LSoS former cook, fake SF, and congressional candidate reminded me … “Oh. I guess maybe you are setting the right example.”<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,26,170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-army","category-blather","category-who-knows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}