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Winter Care of Lts


Subdeacon Joe

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You need to ensure they don't look up when it's raining. Many have drowned that way.

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There is a book out that is required reading for all new Army Non-Commissioned Officers: "Care and Feeding of Your New Second Lieutenant". It's in many ways similar to the lessons taught in "Care and Feeding of Your New Hamster", and "Care and Feeding of Your New Goldfish".

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There is a book out that is required reading for all new Army Non-Commissioned Officers: "Care and Feeding of Your New Second Lieutenant". It's in many ways similar to the lessons taught in "Care and Feeding of Your New Hamster", and "Care and Feeding of Your New Goldfish".

Meh! Goldfish are easy. :D

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I was fortunate. 1st Sgt(Msg Sgt) Key told me on my first day that he thought I had potential and he would help me become an officer. He did.

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I was fortunate. 1st Sgt(Msg Sgt) Key told me on my first day that he thought I had potential and he would help me become an officer. He did.

 

 

That is step one in training your Second Lt.

You must have patience. They are usually enthusiastic and eager to learn, but have delusions of grandeur....

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Back in 66-70 when I was a Fireman in the Air Force second Lt's in flight training were trouble. They thought they were God, after all they were officers and picked for flight training. If you were lucky they would have a flight instructor wearing a 100 mission patch (saw a lot of F105 Wild Weasel patches) who would set them straight on how dependent they were on the guys who maintained their aircraft and those that would pull their butt out of a burning one.

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First time I laid eyes on Lt. Murphy, he was a First Lieutenant, so I have no knowledge of his previous performance record. All I know, is that he was/is a first class officer. He was a graduate of the Point.


All of our other officers at company level were not. Some good and some not so good. Most of the good ones improved when they got their silver bar.


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Abusing a Second Lieutenant is the next thing to child abuse.

Except it's not illegal. :)
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No, pretty much the training process is the same all across the board, be they Second Lieutenants, or Ensigns, all require the same patience needed as when potty training toddlers.

Sometimes you have to let them learn the hard way , like the ensign that was warned to stay out of the jet wash

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Abusing a Second Lieutenant is the next thing to child abuse.

Had a Captain tell me that for the first 18 mos of his military career he had to use an electric razor. He was afraid to use a blade because he thought he might see that 2nd Lt in the mirror and cut his throat.

I received my share of abuse and bad assignments. Mess officer being the worst until Sgt Key told me to go to the mess hall in the morning after breakfast was over and sit down at the officers table. When the mess Sgt came out and asked what he could do for me I was to say "No, Sgt. What can I do for you". From then on any trip I made to the mess hall outside of meal times I was given royal treatment. What ever goodie that was baking I got the first piece.

I even had the Mess Sgt stop by my office with a piece of cake because I had been too busy to stop in that morning.

There were ways to play the game.

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Abusing a Second Lieutenant is the next thing to child abuse.

When I was the Company Police Sgt., we had a 2ndLT named Nelson, who literally looked like a child. Six weeks out of OCS. I immediately dubbed him "Baby Face Nelson".

 

Upon returning from his first foray into the wilds of Camp Lejune, he came to me for a bit of help. It seems that he needed some cleaning gear for his 1911. Now me being the helpful Company Police Sgt. that I was, I issued him a kit, bore cleaner and PLS, (gun oil).

 

As he sat in my chair, (me being helpful), I mentioned that he wouldn't be able to get the pistol completely clean unless he stripped it down all the way. When he told me that he didn't know how, I was helpful again. In about thirty seconds, I had the pistol detail stripped.

 

Somewhere during all this, the Company C.O. started holding Office Hours for a few unfortunates who had erred along the way.

 

As Baby Face was dutifully scrubbing his various pistol parts, the Battalion X.O. happened in. Seeing the pistol detail stripped, he turned almost purple, and knowing how helpful I could be, as well as knowing that I was a Gun Guy turned to ME and started chewing ME out. He got even more purple when I Shushed him, pointing out that the C.O. was holding Office Hours. Have you ever had anybody yell at you in a whisper? he managed it, finishing with an admonition to "Get that pistol back together before the C.O. sees it!"

 

This whole time, Lt Nelson kept right cleaning pistol parts, trying NOT to be noticed.

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As a 1stLt on a ship headed East in Feb 2002, I was the RSO as my guys and I were confirming zeros off the aircraft elevator. We finished and were breaking down the 2x4 target frame. I was going across the bottom stringer cutting all the zip ties holding the targets on. I came across a particularly stubborn zip tie. I was bringing my off hand up to apply extra pressure when the knife made it through the zip tie and continued on into the first finger of my off hand which was on the way up to help, slicing all the way to the tendon. Being a good Lt, I cleaned the blood off my knife, put it away, and looked around to see if anyone had seen what happened. Nope, I was safe. I wrapped my finger and held it at my side, slightly behind me. I called my Sgt over and told him I had some things to go take care of. I told him to finish up here, get the guys to the armory to clean the weapons, and I would check in on them later. He said he had it covered, and I turned around and left. I went straight to sick bay where the Corpsmen and flight surgeon figured out that I had only nicked my tendon and not severed it (thank you Lord!). As they were stitching me up, my guys burst in. Red-faced and embarrassed, I asked them how they found me. Sgt Hines looked at me with that little crooked Copenhagen smile of his and said "Sir, you were standing in a puddle of your own blood. I'm from Georgia, I just followed the blood trail."

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Perhaps I should share my story from Germany in 68.

Nah. Not again. ;)

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Way back when I was stationed in Spain another tech and I were changing the HF coupler on an A-3 during our duty weekend. Maintenance Control was hot to have it done so we could all call it a day.

We rounded up a B-2 stand and parked it next to the tail of the aircraft, grabbed our tools and got to work as we were eager to be gone as well.

We were about 1/2 way through the job when the squadron duty officer started to climb up the stand and check out our work. He was an Ensign and had been in the squadron only a few months. He was basically a nice guy but already had a reputation for being where officers usually didn't belong.

Well 2 ATs, 2 HF couplers, and our tool box made for a really full stand even before he got to the top. We politely said hi and proceeded down the stand because it was obvious that the stand was over loaded and neither of us felt confident in telling him he was where he didn't belong even though we knew he didn't.

As we were passing through Maintenance Control the Maintenance Chief asked if we were through. We told him not yet and he wanted to know why we had stopped work. We pointed through the window at the Ensign still up on the stand checking out our work in progress.

Well the Maintenance Chief let out a string of colorful words which brought the Maintenance Master Chief out from behind the partition separating his desk from the rest of Maintenance Control. He was not in uniform and we had no idea he was within a hundred miles of the squadron that Saturday. He never said a word to us but headed straight out to the plane.

 

Poor Ensign never knew what hit him. As the Master Chief was verbally kicking him across the ramp we hi-tailed it back out and finished the job. We heard enough to know that he was basically forbidden to enter the ramp without the Master Chief's prior permission and that unless he had a good reason the permission would be denied.

 

Never saw him on the ramp again and not sure where in the squadron he ended up.

Our squadron was huge with 12 aircraft and over 600 officers and enlisted. The world was a busy place in the early 80's and that meant we were busy keeping an eye on it. We had at least two and often 4 aircraft deployed all the time. Until now I never gave much thought as to whether or not he made it to Lieutenant.

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brought the Maintenance Master Chief out from behind the partition separating his desk from the rest of Maintenance Control.

 

 

You just know that when a Master Chief gets irked it isn't gonna end well for someone.

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I can think of a number of stories, but one that comes to mind immediately is one 2LT who would straighten up and extend the fingers on his right hand any time he was approaching enlisted personnel, anticipating a salute. It didn't matter if it was an area appropriate for a salute or not. It struck us all as odd, but humorous. Of course, that described him as well.

 

We had another 2LT, a good guy, with the last name Luka. Some of you may be familiar with the song "My Name is Luka." Well, based on the song we always referred to him as "the Lieutenant who lives on the second floor." One day someone made that reference, not realizing he was right behind us. We looked around, expecting him to give us grief. He shook his head and laughed, saying "I went through Basic Training when that song was popular." So help me, it seemed he wore the nickname with some pride until he transferred out.

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Perhaps I should share my story from Germany in 68.

Nah. Not again. ;)

Go ahead. A Bad Tolz story?

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I can think of a number of stories, but one that comes to mind immediately is one 2LT who would straighten up and extend the fingers on his right hand any time he was approaching enlisted personnel, anticipating a salute. It didn't matter if it was an area appropriate for a salute or not. It struck us all as odd, but humorous. Of course, that described him as well.

Well at least he was thinking ahead. That's a part of leadership. ;)

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Way back when I was stationed in Spain another tech and I were changing the HF coupler on an A-3 during our duty weekend. Maintenance Control was hot to have it done so we could all call it a day.

We rounded up a B-2 stand and parked it next to the tail of the aircraft, grabbed our tools and got to work as we were eager to be gone as well.

We were about 1/2 way through the job when the squadron duty officer started to climb up the stand and check out our work. He was an Ensign and had been in the squadron only a few months. He was basically a nice guy but already had a reputation for being where officers usually didn't belong.

Well 2 ATs, 2 HF couplers, and our tool box made for a really full stand even before he got to the top. We politely said hi and proceeded down the stand because it was obvious that the stand was over loaded and neither of us felt confident in telling him he was where he didn't belong even though we knew he didn't.

As we were passing through Maintenance Control the Maintenance Chief asked if we were through. We told him not yet and he wanted to know why we had stopped work. We pointed through the window at the Ensign still up on the stand checking out our work in progress.

Well the Maintenance Chief let out a string of colorful words which brought the Maintenance Master Chief out from behind the partition separating his desk from the rest of Maintenance Control. He was not in uniform and we had no idea he was within a hundred miles of the squadron that Saturday. He never said a word to us but headed straight out to the plane.

 

Poor Ensign never knew what hit him. As the Master Chief was verbally kicking him across the ramp we hi-tailed it back out and finished the job. We heard enough to know that he was basically forbidden to enter the ramp without the Master Chief's prior permission and that unless he had a good reason the permission would be denied.

 

Never saw him on the ramp again and not sure where in the squadron he ended up.

Our squadron was huge with 12 aircraft and over 600 officers and enlisted. The world was a busy place in the early 80's and that meant we were busy keeping an eye on it. We had at least two and often 4 aircraft deployed all the time. Until now I never gave much thought as to whether or not he made it to Lieutenant.

 

Please pardon my ignorance. I understand a Master Chief is feared and revered next to God but isn't a MC an NCO and an Ensign an officer or an officer wannabe. I've heard that a MC doesn't outrank most officers but most officers don't give MCs many orders. What is the protocol here? Thanks

BTW, I love your stories.

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Please pardon my ignorance. I understand a Master Chief is feared and revered next to God but isn't a MC an NCO and an Ensign an officer or an officer wannabe. I've heard that a MC doesn't outrank most officers but most officers don't give MCs many orders. What is the protocol here? Thanks

BTW, I love your stories.

Master Chiefs and Sergeants Major are the highest ranking of NCOs. Their decades of service and military knowledge far exceed that of junior officers. They understand they are not commissioned officers. But woe betide the Ensign or 2Lt who attempts to pull rank.

They will follow, advise and respect good officers. But that respect must be earned.

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