Zombies could have eaten our brains and we didn't care....

First of all, I’d like to finally congratulate the Marine who used to be “America’s First Sergeant” and is now “America’s First Sergeant Major.”  I know from my correspondences with him, that he will be the new standard for what all E-9’s should be like. 

I’m pulling up a post I did back in 2010.  This was about one of our Sergeant Majors from my old Battalion.  He IS NOT what other E-9’s should attempt to be like.  He was and is a retard.  I’m really glad that when we got to Kuwait for prep before going into Iraq, a bunch of us were given to a Regular Army unit and didn’t have to be under this retard.  (God I’m glad I’m retired and can say what I really feel now.)     

From the Soldier side: There are some things in any organization that those who pay attention start to wonder out loud: “Why do we have that? It’s a waste of money.”

The larger an organization, the greater chance this item is not an item but a human. In the United States Army, there are many such persons. They may be in a position of authority, leadership or some private who just can’t seem to get anything done. With privates, a good NCO figures that there is always hope. That hope may come from the thought that: “We’ll get him/ her to understand how to do this and become a good soldiers” or “We think he/she is just too retarded, so we need to kick them out of the Army.”

In the case of a new private, I figure that there is some hope. Some chance. Some glimmer of something to make things all better…since we can no longer do “Wall to Wall Counseling.”

But, as a soldier stays in the Army, they are expected to move up in rank. As they move up, they take on more supervisor and leadership duties--- in most cases. There are some soldiers, who have obtained a certain rank where they seem to be totally useless….and not only useless, but actually make others waste time, and do many things to make the job or mission actually harder to do.

Take the case of a certain Army Sergeant Major…one in who keeps coming to mind…and after this last weekend National Guard training, (this was originally posted in 2010)  I heard even more sad stories of him when he was in Iraq . He was one person, who if we had not taken him along, the entire deployment would have been much safer and less stressful… maybe even “fun.” I have to say I was amazed to hear all the stupid stories of stupid things he did….(you see, a bunch of us who were “organic” to that battalion, were attached to a “real” army battalion just before we landed in Iraq—so I didn’t get to witness the stupid stuff this stupid ass did in Iraq.) He was the dumbass who decided that on a few convoys, he would man the .50 caliber Machine Gun--- even though he was not really trained on it.

(Note: In the US Army, a Sergeant Major can be put into a unit where he is not qualified to do the main jobs of that unit…because he is supposed to be some sort of super leader. However, in our case, his lack of even the basic understanding of what we were supposed to do in Iraq, really made things difficult. He was too low of an IQ to even qualify for our MOS—and that is no shit.)

And he had multiple NEGLIGENT DISCHARGES because he is so pampas, arrogant, stupid and un-trainable-- he wouldn’t ask anybody how the weapon worked… and we're talking about the M2 .50 Caliber Machine gun that he was having problems with--- almost hitting US Army Soldiers with the rounds he cranked off. 

Oh and how he loved the new Army Beret. When were going through all the useless silly training at Fort Lewis, he wouldn’t let us put on our issued Desert Combat Uniform (DCUs) until we had “passed” all of our training. He decided to allow us to wear the DCUs like it was a friggen honor or something…like passing some school and getting an award. WTF was he thinking…we were going to have to wear that friggen uniform everyday for the year we were in Iraq.

But to top off all the stupid things I’d ever heard of…when we finally had the “honor” of getting to put on the DCUs, we still had to wear the stupid black army beret—which I hate and think was some Public Relations idea to make everybody in the Army feel elite or something--- like the special units who were the only ones allowed to wear a beret before. (like the Rangers, Special Forces and Airborne).

When we returned to the States after Iraq , he continued to muddle through being our battalion sergeant major. About a year after we’d been back, we went back to good old FT Lewis for our two weeks of annual training (AT). We would go to training all day long and come back to our barracks with stuff to study and work on for the next day---while the Sergeant Major sat on his ass all day and had nothing to do.

Then, one night he decided that all the Non Commissioned Officers (NCO- aka “Sergeants”) needed to be trained by his royal dumbass on how to properly fill out a NCO ER (Non Commissioned Officer Evaluation Report)…which was a topic that would normally take a person with half a brain about an hour to do…

Nope. It took over 3 hours. The one thing…actually the only thing I remember after this torture was the Sergeant Major said over 20 times the phrase: “With That Said….”

He would try to explain something while using a Power Point slide showing the form for NCOERs. He went over each box…even explaining how to fill in the NAME, DATE and shit like that like we were children. Then, after explaining what he thought we’d know, he’d say: “With That Said…. Let me go over that again…”

At that point I understood why soldiers who are not in a combat zone are not given loaded weapons. Then…after this friggen retard went on for over 3 friggen hours, the Battalion Commander got up and said: “With That Said…”

We never knew what “THAT” was because all of our brains had gone numb. If the Zombies had invaded at that point, we all would have just sat there and let them eat our brains.

To this day, whenever I hear anybody use the words: "With that said" I become ill. 

Now, With That Said, let me tell you about…….

HUA shooting

From the Gun side:  I don't usually post stuff like this, but for my readers who live in a place where they can actuall go shooting firearms, here's something a dumbass did on the range the other day at work.  

Non-shooting types might not be able to figure this one out.  The case on the left is a "normal" .40 cal case after it's been fired.  The case and the bullet on the far right is a "normal" .45 ACP case and a bullet. 

The items in the middle...some dumbass was able to chamber a .40 cal round in his .45.  He pulled the trigger and hit the primer...which lit off the round and blew the case out.  I guess the round bounced down the barrel towards the target....but I'm sure it wasn't very accurate. 

The sad thing is, the guy was dumb enough the bring us the case and tell us what he did.  If I did something that dumb, I would have not said a word. 

uhhhhh, First Sergeant, I was joking....

From the Soldier side: (I’ll write some more GSW stories later, but with Easter, I had to write an Easter story.) 

Somebody asked me the other day what I did on my Iraq Deployment.  Well, for those who haven’t read some of my old post, I was in the 525 MKR BG.  That’s a Mess Kit Repair Brigade.  For about the first four months I took a team to several places in Iraq and we fixed damaged Mess Kits.  Our first mission was to Fallujah (right at the end of the 2^nd battle), then Mosoul, Telafar and other places. 

After one of our jobs in April 2005, we were back at our base in Baghdad in time for Easter.  Since we were on one of the big REMF camps, we had a great mess hall with really good chow!  Easter they had a big brunch.  My team and I were off duty that day, so I slept in late (until about 0700hrs) then cleaned my weapons and gear....normal stuff.   

Later, we walked over to the mess hall (about ¾ of a mile away) and we saw our company First Sergeant walking along. She was Regular Army and not a very bright person…but, she tried to do a good job.  As we were walking, I said: “Hey Top, we should go invite some of the local Iraqi kids in to have some ham and stuff.”

She looked at me and smiled and said: “Ci Dude, that’s a nice idea.” 

We walked along a little further and one of my guys said: “Top, I think he was joking.” 

Top just looked at me…with a very confused look.  I found out later somebody explained to her that the locals didn’t any pork. 

At the time I thought it was funny as hell, but I guess you had to have been there to really appreciate the full effect. 

A "Sucking Chest Wound"

From the Cop side:  Somebody at the gun range asked me the other day:”Have you ever seen anybody shot before?” 

What do you think after 32 years?  Sometimes the G.S.W.s (Gun Shot Wounds) was by accident, sometimes an assault (murder, attempted murder etc) and sometimes self inflicted.  Some died, some didn’t.  Most were very sad cases, and one or two it was hard not to laugh.  Some really stuck in my brain and others I’ve sort of forgotten about. 

Way back when I was a rookie copper, I was on swing shift (4PM to Midnight) on a Friday night.  For a rookie copper, that was a great shift because lots of stuff happened….sometimes, in the small city I worked in (which has more than doubled in size since then) we’d just go from call to call and never have time for any self initiated stuff.  Sometimes we’d get preempted form one call to go to something more important…which left me wondering: “how do you tell somebody that you have to leave taking their stolen car report because something more important requires your attention?” 

And as most coppers who’ve worked any period of time can tell you, there are some people you’ll run into during your work that keep “popping up on your radar.”  These are the people who just seem to be unable to stay out of trouble and want to get arrested often.  There were some that I even memorized their date of birth and other required info to check them for warrants without even having to get out of the patrol car---I’d call in the check while driving by them.  “Dispatch, this is L9, can you check Joe Shizdip, DOB 9/1/61 for warrants?”

Since I retired, I’ve forgotten the names of many of those folks, but I’ll never forget how they acted.  Let’s take the case of Jose Juanlung.  He had just been cut loose from prison for multiple felony arrest and convictions.  His arrest record ranged from stealing candy from a baby to attempted murder.  I learned that when somebody got convicted of any “attempted” crime it tended to prove that they were really not even good at being a criminal…just my opinion. 

Anyway, Jose Juanlung had actually been hired by the city I was working for to do labor type work.  You see in those days, the state of California had this brilliant program where they would pay to put former convicts to work.  It was a great idea…but one problem…. Career criminals are that way because they don’t want to work.  So out of the 10 or so that got hired, with in the first week 9 of them were fired for not showing up at work and stuff like that.  Jose Juanlung was one of those who’d been fired.  He was allowed to stay at his parents home until he could either get back on his feet, or get sent back to prison.  I had his parents address memorized because we got called there at least once a day.

The last call I had at that address was for a “GSW, male, laying in the driveway…respond Code 3 and the watch commander is enroute from the station.” 

I was the first to arrive (I often was because I had no common sense yet.)  I found Jose Juanlung lying in the driveway crying.  I went over to where he was and asked what was wrong.  Juanlung said: “I’ve been shot in the chest….get me an ambulance it fucking hurts.”

I looked at him and then ran back to my patrol car and retrieved my first aid box.  I found a small caliber hole in his left side chest and updated dispatch so she could tell the paramedics.  I got out a bunch of bandage stuff, but I saw no blood coming out of the hole…but it was making a funny kind of sucking sound. I remembered the first aid classes I had in the Army and the Police Academy where they taught us about “sucking chest wounds.” And that they were a bitch to treat. 
Well, I put some gauze and stuff over the sucking chest wound as Jose was telling me he was having a hard time breathing.  I told him that might be a problem for the rest of his life since one of his lungs had collapsed.  Then I asked him: “who shot you and where’s the gun?” 

Jose, being a true asshole, said: “I don’t know who shot me.”  Which I knew he was lying.  The medics arrived shortly and started to treat Jose Juanlung as I patted him down for weapons.  (wounded assholes can still hurt you.)  I then went into Jose’s parent’s home to continue my investigation.  The rest of the family was sitting down for a late dinner and acted like somebody getting shot was normal   I asked if anybody had seen or heard Jose getting shot and they all ignored me.  I suspected that one of them had done the deed, but I had nothing to go on, just a gut feeling. 

I went back and checked on Jose and he was telling me now that he’d accidently shot himself in the chest.  I said: “really?  That means you can go back to prison for having a firearm.” 

Jose seemed happy as they loaded him into the ambulance.  After that, we called him Jose One Lung.  I never did find the gun that shot him and nobody seemed to care.  That was over 30 years ago.