Clearing CIF !! What is your best (worst) story ?

Not in the same class as many of these, but when I went to CIF to leave Ft. Leonard Wood, MO after Basic and AIT, I was standing in line holding my duffel bag against my chest like a hundred or so other brand new combat engineers waiting my turn after days of cleaning kit. A bird flew over and crapped on my duffel bag.

PVT Robert Gresham - As a company commander at Ft Benning, I noticed that a soldier rarely was able to clear CIF on the first visit because something would always be rejected as "dirty" or something. That required the soldier to have to report back on another day, after having applied the corrective action required (at times, only to have another item that had previously been deemed OK to now be deemed "dirty").... We tried to implement policies to ensure soldiers had no issues at CIF, like having their gear inspected by an NCO before going to CIF, but that was only partially successful, as the civilian CIF personnel obviously had a different opinion about what was clean and serviceable than we did.

I complained about the CIF process to the Ft Benning DOL and even suggested that my company was being treated differently than others because we were MPs. I got no satisfaction, so I decided to do something to prove my point.

We took the CIF issue of the next two soldiers reporting to the unit and gave it to two soldiers to turn in (without it being touched by anyone since it was issued). When it was being turned in, both soldiers failed the turn-in because of "dirty and unserviceable" items (items that had just been issued from that CIF and not used). I brought this to the attention of the CIF Manager and the DOL, both of whom just basically blew me off. I then went to the IG and they launched their own investigation and it was eventually cleaned up, although I had already changed command and PCS'd before seeing it come to resolution.

It appears that troubles with CIF go all the way to the top too! ;)