Did you get an Article 15? What was yours for?

One I should have gotten. I was stationed at a medical detachment in Frankfurt Germany during the 80s . Now being a young dumb E 4 I decided to take a few new troops to the Bierhaus in the old red light district to break them in. We were having a good old time on the second floor slamming biers and watching fights when a group of young tankers decided we didn't look manly enough to be in kstrasse. Being outnumbered and truth be told All 3 of my medic buddies that I was with couldn't punch their way out of a wet paper bag when sober much less 3 sheets in the wind we retreated. Unfortunately the tough guys wouldn't let us leave blocking us from our car so I took the initiative and struck first breaking 1 arm and 1 nose. Seeing their 2 bigguns layed out in 1 minute took the fight out of the rest and we headed out too the barracks. No worries right... Well I reported the next morning at HQs and guess who had the MPs waiting to arrest him. The boys who wouldn't let us leave because we were wimpy medics until we fought had taken down our tag numbers and reported us to the MPs while in the ER.
Good thing was I was the commanders driver ( full bird Col.) he chased the MPs away and sat me the CSM and him in his office so I could tell him the real story. Both he and CSM were good old boys from Texas and let me slide with some anger management and extra duty. Basically was let off for defending the unit honor.

We went to JRTC in Fall 2003, to prepare for OIF II. We had two barracks; first platoon (to include me) was in one and second in the other. The commander and first sergeant were staying in first's barracks.

So I thought.

I made an MRE bomb in second platoon's bay in the middle of the night while I was on shift. Not the "boom" kind. The CS-gas kind. Someone else who didn't have the stones to do the deed left a coffee can, large bottle of hot sauce and several powdered heaters in the bushes. I left in the middle of the night, locked up my van and checked on my subscribers so I'd have an alibi in the log book. Then I made my move, and ran back to site at light-speed once the coffee can started smoking, hidden under an empty bunk.

My friends later told me that smoke poured out of the building when everyone exited, that all but one Soldier left their weapon behind in their haste to evacuate and that, most importantly, the first sergeant, whom I thought was residing in my barracks, was sleeping there too and had just gotten settled when I did my dastardly deed.

They actually never could prove I did it, but they were reasonably certain. Apparently, the battalion XO caught wind of it and was calling it an act of terrorism. I didn't get an article for that, but there was some other infraction shortly thereafter that I got a company grade for. I honestly don't remember what stupid thing it was after thirteen years. But totally worth it.

No Art !5...but last overseas Assgnment was a leg Sig Bn in Karlsruhe Ger...my first and only non SF or Airborne Assgn. So I was constantly doing something to show that paras and 'snake eaters' were a crazed mass......got wind that the Co was taking an unannounced walk thru of the billets..I had my own room as an E6, which normally wasn't imspected.....went to the motor pool and found 4 ea 2 foot lengths of chain and acquired 4 metal cable clamps for poles (resembled wrist manacles) spiffed my room up to high standard, made my bunk to bounce a quarter and hooked each chain to a bed post and brought the manacled ins to dress right dress standards in the middle of my bed.....'liberated' two sets of sexy looking ladies panties from an unnamed source and proudly pegged them to the wall adjacent, and left for the day....seems the good Cpt and 1SG did come in...Seems Cpt Blacks remarks were.."what the hell is this" to which the 1SG replied"This is SSG Moore's room...you know hes an ex Green beret"....Last words of the commander was ...'Yeah, shoulda know,....and shoulda asked".....and closed the door smartly......1SG bought me a drink in the club that night, he thought it was funny as shit.....

I have had 1 Summarized, 1 Company Grade, and 2 Field Grade Article 15s under my belt.

My most memorable one took place in 2005. I slapped a white, male, PFC on the hand with my hand because I got tired of him repeatedly sticking his hand in my face claiming that he could do anything he wanted and I could do nothing about it. When he popped my nose, that is when I slapped his hand.

I was charged with Assault; reduced in rank to Specialist, and given 30 days extra duty. 45 days before my ETS and 14 days after my 10 year mark. As a result I automatically hit RCP (Retention Control Point) from active duty and received a $56K severance package upon leaving the Army.

The kicker, one year later I was involuntarily recalled to duty, placed in the Reserves, promoted back to Sergeant and made an MOS instructor.

I have been Active Duty twice and in the Reserves twice (I am still in the Reserves) and have just over 20 years combined. Moral of the story...It is possible to recover from an Article 15 and don't ever let someone who never had one tell you that you cannot recover from one. I am currently a Staff Sergeant, much to the dismay of many in my MOS field, and I am not yet finished.

I never got one..

But I had a couple of brown nosing SNCO's who demanded that I back them up in covering up something they were doing wrong and they tried shift the blame to me which would have resulted in me getting one. I never backed down and fortunately, my immediate commander recognized the conspiracy... he put a stop to it.

I did not get the Article 15.. but I was not exactly in a good position.. I tried to get an early out when they were offering them in then 1990's.. but never qualified. One of the SNCO's got one.. the other one ended up getting a general discharge after the AFOSI investigated.

The officer in question who helped me convinced me that I should stay in and he wanted the two "trusted" SNCO's out... I am glad I took his advice to this day.

Anyone ever been stationed in Korea? Well from 1999 to present the safety brief was changed to stay off the roofs, or don't fall through them. I was that guy that changed the safety brief for an entire peninsula.

As an EO Facilitator, I learned that SHOCK value was the best teacher from my Fort Bragg EO Instructors. They said if someone is talking about things that are in clear violation, hatred, or disparaging, use a simple statement of shock to get their attention, then state why it is wrong.
This ill taught buck was saying how Afghanistan is the perfect place to build a fence around(this WAS oefvii) and put all the dykes and fags in so aids would not be an issue. Then he said, yeah, and we can add the mentally disabled too. Now at this point, I look at this guy, and go, "Ah, so like Hitler, the next step is Kike's, Mick's(both my own ancestry), and along with the dykes and fags, may as well take the spics niggers and crackers, right? DO YOU SEE the wrongness of your statements now? Do you see the path of failure this has? Do you see the wrongness of your(in the background)[did he just say nigger?](from a sleeping guy who was always in trouble, and totally missed everything). So off to work we go, and the guy is saying how he saw the wrongness in his statements, and we had a pretty decent discussion on how to stage a statement that is not derogatory. Next day, I get called in front of the CO. He has a written complaint from the guy who was sleeping, and offers me an article 15 or EO investigation. I smile and say,"Sir, get your uniform pressed" He process to, in writing, tell me I have, from this point on, a GAG order. I can speak to NO ONE about this. "Sir, NO ONE?" NO ONE, and that means you do not speak to anyone about this at all.
BNCO tosses it out. Once. Twice. THREE times.
Three months later we gt back to the world, then another two months and here he is again, same article 91 charge, same gag order conditions.

I let him charge me, and do his thing, smiling the entire time, for he forgot one important thing. By not being able to talk to anyone, no one, he forbid me to even speak to legal aid. He forbid me to speak to people who knew what was said, and were awake. I took all of this to base legal, and they called battalion legal, and made them remove it for in stating I could speak to no one, he had made a strong violation of subsection, paragraph B by violating my rights. The entire case was thrown out, and the CO was told to cease, and desist, and me, I was granted three days off for having to waste my time trying to fight this ignorance.
Since then, I pretty much do not use shock value as I find too many people get butthurt, and in the civilian world, that equals the unemployment line.
Society, both civilian and military have become far too soft. Maybe I need to make a million then go off grid.

While I was in, on deployment, a captain was out partying found a local girl schmoozed her, got her to leave with him, he went to her trailer, had some fun drunk-off-his-ass. After the fun he got up to go pee, needless to say, he was SOOOOOOOOOO drunk he went out on her deck, peed off the side, fell down. When he got up he was so disoriented that he started wandering around the trailer park buck naked, peeking into windows, cause he couldn’t find her trailer and needed his clothes.

Someone saw him called the local police, who promptly came out and arrested him. The MP’s were called, him buck naked and all, with a towel wrapped around his waist, he was brought back to base, marched in to the Div CDR’s office for a simple powwow with the 2 star. When it was over the Chief of Staff got a piece of him as well.

The next morning the Chief of staff during officer and senior NCO call stood up, berated all the officers present, then spoke the most idiotly harsh thing I’ve ever heard; “I would expect this from enlisted not from Officers”….

You have to know my old SGM, he was pushing 60, old, gravely voice and mean as a viper, smart as all get out, when my SGM promptly stood up in front of about 50 officers and 60 or so senior enlisted, with his very gravely voice barked out very loudly so all could hear and told the CoS, “Sir, with all due respect enlisted personnel don’t lose their POA, this is what you get for having college edumacated idiots as officers”. The air in the room was sucked out immediately our pucker factor went tight, when everyone and I mean EVERYONE including the CoS broke out laughing so hard… The CoS never replied to SGM Baugh, he simply walked off the stage and left the room wiping tears from his eyes.

Summary, that Capt got transferred and soon left the Army as his career was over.

I also should have but didn't....

We were scheduled for a training exercise where we were told there would be an aggressor force. Historically we were always under equipped when it came to training materials and were getting a little tired of OPFOR running around like our actions meant nothing so I decided to teach them a lesson with trip wire flour cannons to blow flour on them during their attacks.

I bought a pound of theatrical flash powder, a package of pull string party poppers and procured about 20 pounds of white flour from the mess. I collected paper towel tubes and fashioned these flour cannons by loading them with about 3 ooz of flash powder around the pull string popper and then packing them with flour. The thought was that when they went off, that they would blow the flour all over the OPFOR.

Unfortunately, the result was an improvised Dust Explosion Initiator where the flour exploded into a 25 foot fireball! It was the amazing. I never even considered the explosive power of household flour until I schooled on grain elevator explosions afterwards. Luckily only one went off, but since we were having this exercise on an air base, the whole base shut down.

I got lucky, because our platoon leader was all for this at the time and since I was a short timer, I agreed to take the heat to save him from possibly having a reprimand on his record.

Never got to an Article 15, but it was threatened.

We're in the field for our ARTEP in 1988. I'm about 45 days from hitting my DEROS and terminal leave, and I'm an E-4 flight engineer. I have this like "my shit don't stink plus I'm short" attitude going.

We have a problem with the helicopter that is a safety of flight issue. We need to fix it in the field, we can't fly it back to the rear. This is a relatively serious problem that could cause catastrophic destruction of the aircraft. I write up the issue in the book and down the aircraft with a the dreaded "Red X."

CW3 PIC is also the company QC officer (QC are the tech inspectors who sign off all the serious work) and he has a tech inspector look at the damage. After 2-3 tries with the inspection tools, the TI, under the withering glare of the PIC, declares the damage to the component to be on the "borderline" of the maximum allowable damage criteria. The PIC says "See! Not a problem. I'll just sign off that Red X for a one-time flight to the airfield." (our home airfield was about a 30 minute flight away)

Mind you, this is a pretty serious problem, one that I wouldn't fell comfortable flying the aircraft *anywhere* with unless there was like a risk of capture of something.

"Sir, I'm not flying on this aircraft in this condition, one-time or not. I'm pretty sure the commander is the only person who can authorize a one-time, and he's not here."

"This aircraft is safe to fly."

"Sir, we can't fly this aircraft like this. No way."

"Specialist, you will get on this aircraft and crew it back to the airfield. Or you can take an Article 15."

I reached inside the cabin door, grabbed my flight gear off the seat, and started walking toward our sister ship.

"Where are you going?"

"Sir, respectfully, this aircraft is not safe to fly. I'm going to over that aircraft over there, and you can fly this aircraft back to the airfield. By yourself. And by the way, I'll waive the Article 15 and request court martial proceedings. Nobody in Army Aviation is going to give an enlisted crewmember an Article 15 or a court martial for refusing an unlawful order to fly on an aircraft that has a known grounding deficiency. Especially when there is absolutely no overriding reason to do so."

I walked away. The guy who was my crew chief grabbed his flight gear and followed me.

3 hrs later we had the component in hand, replaced, signed off as correctly installed and we flew back to the airfield so some additional cosmetic damage could be fixed.

I later stood in the commander's office answering for my actions. No NJP was even hinted at. He wanted to know my side of the story, and what I told him jibed with what my crew chief, the TI and the co-pilot said. I think that CW3 wasn't the QC officer after that, but I was short and didn't give a crap at that point.