Thursday, December 15, 2022

Ah, Lieutenants ...

US Air Force Photo (PD)
So yesterday the topic of goofball second lieutenants came up. Not all lieutenants are idiots, just as all who wander are not lost ...
(Source)
Okay, so a lot of lieutenants seem pretty clueless to an old crusty noncom. At least those who haven't been raised right. That is, there are lieutenants who have good sergeants, and listen to them, and there are lieutenants who have bad sergeants or perhaps don't listen to their sergeants. I'm not saying that sergeants are the backbone of the service ...

Well, yes, actually I am.

(And for you nautical types, substitute ensign for lieutenant and petty officer for sergeant.)

So what does all that have to do with the opening photo? Glad you asked.

Back in the (mostly) forgotten past, I was a young airman on Okinawa. Wet behind the ears and still pissed off that the Big Blue Machine sent me to Okinawa and not Germany. (Yes, I learned later that that fate was serendipitous. I met and married The Missus Herself during that Asian odyssey.) I marveled at some of the younger officers, I would say (for juvat's sake) the non-flying younger officers, but I did meet a few flying lieutenants who were every bit as goofy as their non-rated counterparts. (One young 1Lt WSO, upon seeing the radar package in the nose of F-4D Phantom for the first time, remarked at how complicated it looked. His pilot, a fairly senior captain, apologized for his back-seater's ignorance. We thought it great fun.)

So, there I was ...*

We were having an exercise at Kadena Air Base on the sunny island of Okinawa, now a part of Japan, once an independent kingdom. We had been rousted from our barracks at some ungodly hour of the morning by screaming sirens. Said sirens telling one and all, "throw your uniform on and get thee hither to your place of duty." My place of duty was the avionics shop of the 18th Avionics Maintenance Squadron (AMS - for such was it known at the time, the Air Force likes to rename things every few years, just to keep the generals employed at something other than making uniform changes, yeah McPeak, I'm looking at you).

In the great divvying up of shifts, I had had the great misfortune to be stuck on day shift, 0700 to 1900, for during exercises we went to 12-hour shifts, no days off. Misfortune because the sirens had gone off at 0400, so I was looking at a rather long day. Most of my mates had gotten tagged to work nights, so they were sent back to barracks where they could return to their slumbers.

Lucky me.

Anyhoo, I was standing outside the chief's office (that's an E-9 to you other services, we only have one chief in the Air Force, Chief Master Sergeant that is) awaiting something to do, rather awaiting to be told what to do. For so I had learned, "never volunteer." I had also learned that good hiding places are good to have, whilst trying to scurry off to find a place to relax, the chief had spotted me. "Airman, I need you to wait in the hallway outside of my office and relay my orders to the people I need orders relayed to," or something of like nature.

So I awaited the chief's pleasure. As I manned my lonely post, our lieutenant walked in, followed in trail by one of my mates, a rather hirsute young fellow, badly in need of a haircut. How he allowed himself to be out in the daylight, among all the big shots, is something I never figured out. But alas, there he was.

As he passed by, the chief bellowed out, "Goodrich, go get the lieutenant for me!"

So I did, "Sir, Chief wants you."

"What for?"

"Uh, I didn't ask, he's the chief." I said this as I glanced down at my two lonely stripes, chiefs, it should be noted, have eight stripes.

"Well, tell the chief ..."

"Goddamnit Goodrich! Where is the goddamned lieutenant?" We both heard the enraged bull roar of the angry chief from some ten yards away.

"Never mind airman, I'll ask him myself."

I followed the lieutenant back to my post, outside the chief's office, as the lieutenant entered said office. Before the lieutenant could say a word, the chief roared ...

"Lieutenant, did you see Airman Smith's hair?"

"No, what about ..."

"Goddamnit Sir, the man looks like a hippie and you didn't notice his goddamned hair?"

"Uh, well ...."

"Go get Smith and tell him to get his ass into my office! Sir."

"I can tell him that he need's a ..."

"NOW LIEUTENANT! SIR!"

The lieutenant collected Airman Smith and got to watch a masterful performance by the chief as he explained the need to maintain a well-groomed appearance at all times to Airman Smith. The lieutenant also learned not to let the chief notice something wrong before the lieutenant himself could do something about it.

At lunch time I went and got a haircut, because, well, ya know, I wanted to appear well-groomed.

And not piss off the chief.

Aber natürlich.




* SJC

42 comments:

  1. As time passes that hair thing solves itself as to length and even how much there is growing. You learned early to avoid the line of fire when a chief was around and displeased, Sarge.

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  2. Hair length in the military back in the 70's... been a LONG time since I thought of that...

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    1. Same here! Though I still keep it short, orders ya know, I doubt I could grow it long if I wanted to.

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    2. Aah! Days gone by. Brings back memories of similar events.

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    3. I can grow my ear-hairs long. Does that count? And about 50-60 other assorted hairs on my head.

      Then there's that one eyebrow hair...

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    4. But can ya sprout nose hairs thick enough to double as a mustache? Huh, huh, can ya? 😎

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  3. Speaking of hair...I had my first mustache in the USAF and was determined to keep it, as per AFR35-10. The hair could not grow beyond the lip line, which I presumed to be a horizontal line. But, nooooo. My 1st Sgt stated it was the imagined two vertical lines on each side of the lips. I was so pissed I shaved my 'stache into a Charlie Chaplain (some would say Hitler) so it would comply. I almost lost one of my two stripes at the time over that one. Needless to say, it was nothing compared to what our kids in uniform are having to contend with today.

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    1. Yeah, I had the Hitler, er Chaplin, mustache for a while, until one of my sergeants asked me, "So how's it going, mein Führer?"

      Shaved it off that night.

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    2. So I was one of those 2LTs but insulated from some of the stuff because I was a pilot. I grew a mustache in college and even got a waiver from the ROTC detachment for a beard for Engineering Week until I was a Senior. I kept the mustache trimmed per 35-10. But, I had one jerk of a Squadron CO or Ops Officer in the 1970s tell me to keep it trimmed so that 1/8 inch of skin showed above my top lip. I complied. It was a horrible looking mustache but I didn't shave the whole thing off to his consternation as he didn't like mustaches. I am glad he didn't like for us to only have crew cuts.

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    3. Pilots are indeed "special." (Oh, did I put that in quotes? Why yes, yes I did. Sorry BillB, juvat, Tuttle, Big Time, et al.)

      Ah yes, the guys who had their own, far stricter, interpretation of 35-10. Loved them. (Not!)

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  4. Crusty Old TV Tech here. Yah, in the Confusion Command, we had senior NCO's too. Never wanted to cross the Shirt, especially as a Margarine Bar (LOOTENANT! SIR! YOU'RE A MARGARINE BAR, NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO BE THE HIGH-PRICED SPREAD!). Good NCO's loved to play educational pranks on unsuspecting 2Lt's. Sarge A sends young Margarine Bar to the Tool Crib for a Cable Stretcher. Yeah, there is no tool in the AFCC Catalog known by that name. So, Sarge B in the Tool Crib bellows "LOOTENANT! Sir! Did that (insert NCO-grade expletives here) tell you WHAT (more expletives) SIZE CABLE STRETCHER?". Well, being a 2Lt, and not questioning the obvious non-sequitur that a Cable Stretcher is, I went back and got the answer. A 2-inch cable stretcher. Sarge B broke down in laughter at the answer and the manner in which I delivered it, and told me "OK, you passed the test Sir. Now, take this cable puller back to Sarge A, and tell him Sarge B told him to place it (you can imagine where)!" A cable puller, for those not familiar with Outside Plant Wire tools, looks like those "Chinese Fingers", except with only one end. Sarge A had another good laugh, and a new 2Lt passed the first of many tests. Good NCO's are the BACKBONE of the USAF.

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    1. Sounds like you got schooled properly! Concur with your last!

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  5. Uniform changes, ah, well, I doubt if the Zoomies have anything over the Squids for the last dozen or so years.

    I remember a story about one Navy four-striper who grabbed up a sailor at the Norfolk Naval Air Station and dragged the sailor to the squadron commander's office. The captain began chewing out the CO about the failure to meet grooming standards of his sailors and what kind of squadron was he running. And so on.

    The CO looked the sailor up and down. The sailor's hair was toughing the ears, but not not badly. Then the CO looked down and noticed that the sailor's shoes had a seam in the front from the sole up to the vamp (yes, I had to look that up). The CO asked the Captain if he could talk to him out in the passageway, where the CO told the captain: "Sir, that sailor is female."

    The captain said: "Goddamnit!" and stormed off. Which left the CO with the task of trying to explain to that young sailor that the captain thought that she was a guy. When the CO later told the story, he remarked "Thank God I noticed her shoes."

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    1. Oh yeah, you're absolutely right, the Navy's uniform changes have been awe-inspiring to those who can't believe that things could get any dumber. As to misidentifying the young sailor, yeah, that must have been embarrassing.

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    2. Big Army has gone through 2 uniform changes also. One in the BDUs because the camo pattern wasn't bad enough, and now they have pinks and greens for semi dress. Which is slowly being phased in. So hArmy units look peculiarly un-uniform.

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    3. I do think they missed the point of what the word "uniform" actually means.

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    4. 1966 I caught myself just in time asking why his SP-4 insignia was half the size of mine. Only the longer hair stopped me. We didn't see many WACs in those days.

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    5. They were still semi-rare in 1975.

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  6. Sarge,
    Liked the Hair Story. The good news is Hair grows back (Well...until you're in your late Thirties, then it doesn't grow back where you want it, but will still grow back where it'll get you in trouble.) An interesting aspect of your E-8 analogy, Good one's authority tends to cover all services and bad one's don't even cover their own. Had a great AF E-8 assigned to me on my team in Hawaii. Even the Marines on my staff listened to him. Since, members of the team were not assigned to me, but were sent to fill a requirement from on high, some of them were sent to "disappear".
    Initially during establishment of the team and procedures, space was tight. I had and office and an outside anteroom for the other two folks on my staff, The E-8 and an E.4. When one of the "volunteered" augmentees required a counseling session on the status of the universe, the Chief would need to my borrow my office to explain the error of their ways and conduct training on understanding of the order of the universe. Since the HQ was the old WWII hospital building at Camp Smith HI, the walls were paper thin. The counseling session could be heard quite easily. This did two extra things. It served to provide training for anyone within earshot of the need to stay on the straight and narrow. It also taught me to let the Chief handle problems. He was better at it than I and I didn't have to worry about discipline, I could fly top cover.
    On my first meeting with my boss's boss's boss (He wore 3 pointed objects and a Marine uniform), he asked me if I needed anything. I mentioned the Chief XXX was great, but a separate office for him to discuss issues with his enlisted would be very efficient. Since we had to maintain a capability to deploy anywhere in the Pacific in a very short time, efficiency was important, the General made it happen. The Chief was happy, I was happy, most of my team was happy, and those that weren't quickly became happy. That quickly became a great assignment, almost as good as flying an F-15, but, one must pay their dues.
    So, yeah, I'm a fan of NCO's.

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    1. I tell my barber that when my hair grows thin on top, I'll just use my ear hair as a "comb-over."

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    2. Sounds like you had one of the best.

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    3. That comment rather screams "this is juvat." But thanks for clarifying. 😁

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    4. Ah matism, you're a realist, you said "when" and not "if." I'm there man, I'm there.

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  7. I had an Army E-8 come over to me on the range one day with a rather glum look on his face. He had done an outstanding job on his deployment in Iraq . To "reward" him they decide to send him to become an officer and gentleman. A 35 year old butterball. He ended up pulling some strings and favors and became a warrant instead.

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    1. Warrant is a better reward for an E-8. Way better!

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  8. Hair... Well, yeah. Am currently at the stage where a #2 guard on the trimmer is the easiest way to deal with it. And there's less and less every month. Good thing I'm not vain, well, except about ear hairs and that one eyebrow hair and the occasional nair hair, all of which have to go.

    I do currently sport a semi-Selleck mustache. Trimmed to the edge of the mouth and off the upper lip. Got married with a mustache also, but it was so thin soon-to-be-wife put eyeliner on it. Why a mustache? I've got horribly sensitive skin and the area between nose and mouth just would get in-grown hairs and pimples galore if I shaved. Easier to let it grow out and keep trimmed. I know, TMI...

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    1. Sporting a semi-Selleck are ye?

      Nice, but yeah, TMI. (Though entertaining in a weird sort of way.)

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  9. I am working on a "Sam Elliot" mustache right now. I have been through all sorts of facial hair. After I passed 60 and was fully retired from the AF, I grew a full beard with handlebar mustache. Mrs BillB decided she didn't like it, so after a few years I moved down to a goatee with the handlebar. Then that became unacceptable so I clipped it back to about AF standard. Then she complained about that for a few months, so I shaved the whole thing off. She decided I needed at least a little facial hair as she didn't like the bare face look.

    After 12 years of AD I went to the AF Reserves. I was there for the Navalized AF Class A's. Somehow, I missed out on having to purchase them. I guess the top Generals need a distraction.

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    1. Oh yes, the new Class As we got. One of my captains in NATO rushed right out and got the new suit, one of our Dutch guys asked him which airline he worked for. A very ugly uniform (we called it a poorly cut business suit with insignia).

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  10. When I was but a sprout pending being drafted, dear old Navy Dad took me aside and told me: "If you go in the Navy, you LISTEN to your Chiefs! If you go in the Air Force, you LISTEN to your Sergeants! The more stripes they have, they more you LISTEN to them!".

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    1. So what happened?
      They ended the draft before getting to #51 during my year. I later went in the CG...

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    2. Rob - I don't remember my draft number exactly, but it was in the 200s. They didn't even get close in '72.

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    3. Sorry to come so late to these parties. My draft number was low 50's too. I think they only took through the mid-30's. Academic for me since I enlisted rather than take the chance.
      One more ref haircuts ; in those days a high-and-tight was only seen in third-phase of Boot Camp and was otherwise considered and "eccentric" haircut. Don't know when it became not only acceptable but de riguer.
      Boat Guy

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    4. Back in the day the only way you could shave your head was for medical reasons. Now half the tech sergeants in the USAF look like Russian conscripts!

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    5. As I recall the last draft number picked was 28.

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  11. 1) Never volunteer.
    2) Never call attention to yourself.
    3) Never publicly argue with a senior person.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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