"Tom Kunich" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...
Quoted message said:
When were you in the service Howard and what service was it?
By the way, Howard, that isn't an attack. I'm trying to find out if
you've been in the service and so whether you actually have had
experience with the way it works.
Those who chose not to offer their service to the country are allowed
that option in this country. Those who do find that service life isn't
much like the real world out there at all.
In the days of the draft those who couldn't be trained for anything
else ended up as clerks and cooks and military police. Some turned out
to be good at their jobs but most didn't want to be there and were a
continuous pain in the butt.
Things like paperwork that COULD be avoided often was and so it isn't
unusual to see gaps in records. And remember, these same guys would
join the Guard after they got out because they generally could pick up
a load of rank as experienced servicemen, make a little pay, get the
government to pay for education and only have to serve a couple of
weeks a year and some weekends.
The flip side of this coin is that becoming a fighter pilot in the Air
Force was DAMNED HARD. There was all hell and gone a ton of
competition and regardless of Bush's abilities it's unlikely that he
could have made it. In the ANG he stood a whole lot better chance and
indeed the ratings demonstrate that he took that position seriously.
His fellow officers and his commanding officers thought well of him.
You would think from the SeeBS follow-up report that missing a
physical was the same thing as going AWOL despite the fact that 1/3rd
of the pilots missed a physical at some time in their service lives.
Fact is that it was no big deal and you came off flight duty, had to
do all of the scut office duty, and had to wait for the next cycle of
physicals. In other words - it was worse for the guy who missed his
physical than the service.
The real problem here isn't with Bush's service which while perhaps
not exemplary was a hell of a lot better than mine. I was put up on
charges for doing my job TOO GOOD!
One of the other airmen and myself got in a competition to see who
could do a Terrain Avoidance Radar Alignment the fastest. Originally
the alighment took about 12 hours. And the computer's expected
lifespan was 11 hours between shop alighnments. Doesn't work out does
it?
Slowly the field alignment came down to 8 hours as we memorized the
procedures and didn't have to read each step out loud. Then we started
putting working teams together - one guy to sit at the radar target to
set the echo return knobs. Another to sit there and read each step out
of the procedure (required by regulation) and the third to actually do
the alignment.
I did a 7 hour alignment and John did a 6. I did a 5 hour alignment
and John did a 4. Finally I was on a shift that didn't get any
alignments for awhile and John got in a lot of practice and pull off a
3 hour alighment. Our NCOIC of the shop put him in for a commendation
and he got it.
So I went out on a TA with the expectations of setting the record to
where John couldn't beat it. I took the two best guys for the job (who
also happened to be the only two guys on the shift besides me) and we
did an alignment in 1 hour and 45 minutes. As I dropped out of that
overheated oven I was pretty happy-go-lucky and there was a Colonel
standing below the hatchway that I almost stepped on.
"What's up Airman," he asked? Like some smartass I said, "Well sir, we
just pencil whipped a TA out in record time." (Pencil whipped was a
term of derision usually meaning that instead of fixing something you
just wrote it up as being repaired - this was because some flight
officers would invent malfunctions to "keep the troops busy."😉
When I got back to the shop it was shift change and everyone was
unusually quiet. The two super-sargeants were going out the door
without so much as saying boo and they took my truck with the TA gear
on it. The NCOIC asked me to stay and clean up the shop. This wasn't
really unusual but it wasn't normal.
After two hours the super-sargeants came back in smiling and handed
over the terrain avoidance plots which were the best I've ever seen.
Perfectly flat with only two small dips in the clearance plane. The
NCOIC got on the phone and called someone and talked for a couple of
minutes and then got off and the story came out.
That Colonel was the assistant wing commander and Sgt Scott, our NCOIC
of the shop, had made such a big deal about how difficult the TA
alignment was and what an unusually good technician John was, that the
1:45 I told the Colonel made him think that I was serious about
"pencil whipping" a TA.
Terrain Avoidance radar was an EXTREME safety-of-flight item. A
failure of that made it even chances that a crew on a TA mission would
end up dead. It happened several times when I was in so I know this
wasn't a joke.
The assistant wing commander didn't take well to my joviality and
actually filed charges immediately. He retracted them when the backup
paperwork showed a nearly perfect alignment.
But instead of getting a commendation (which was what I was going for
- anythnig to put on in John's eye) I barely avoided court martial.
THAT'S the way the service works Howard.
