Posted on Apr 27, 2015
MAJ Multifunctional Logistician
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Good idea fairy
We have all been touched by the Good Idea fairy and every once in a while it is a legitimately a good idea but most of the time it is a failure. What are some of your experiences with ideas in the military?
Posted in these groups: Leadership abstract 007 Leadership
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Responses: 8
MAJ Multifunctional Logistician
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Edited >1 y ago
While stationed in S. Korea under the 2nd Infantry Division, the outgoing General wanted to do his chain of command in full battle rattle with weapons and bayonets affixed in the middle of the day. Korea is humid and on top of everything else, it poured rain on us that day. Soldiers were dropping out everywhere, due to locked knees or the humidity, and either stabbing themselves with the bayonets or stabbing their buddies when falling. They stationed an entire company of medics behind the division to run up and grab Soldiers and drag them back to patch wounds and to give IVs.
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Capt Richard I P.
Capt Richard I P.
>1 y
MAJ (Join to see)...that story baffles me. What criminal idiocy.
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SGT Animal Care Specialist
SGT (Join to see)
>1 y
....just.. wow.
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SSG Financial Management Technician
SSG (Join to see)
>1 y
Someone didn't do a risk assessment.
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SSG Roger Ayscue
SSG Roger Ayscue
2 y
When I was in Korea, I was working G-5/CMO. My very first week there, we had a ceremony on Camp Casey where it seemed that all the VIPs in the ROK Army were there. I do not read or speak Hangul and I was assigned to seat the ROK dignitaries. There were also several US Forces Pacific officers there, as well as USFK and UN Command. One of them was a USMC three star with no sense of humor.
As I said I was there less than a week and had no idea that Kim, Pak, and Choi were the most common names in Korea and I could not read POK ranks yet, so When I got the guest list it said Gen Kim, Gen Kim, Gen Pak, Gen Kim etc. So I sat the first Gen Kim that cam in the room in the first Gen Kim seat, totally messing up the protocol of this Gen Kim was the Chair of the Korean Joint Chiefs while this Gen Kim was an ADC. No one was very amused, aside from my boss, a LTC and really great guy. The USMC 3 star lost his presence of mind and let me have it, storming off to find my boss, who seeing the exchange, told me to get lost for a few days, and handed me a Warrior Pass for the weekend, I used it to get out of town while it died down.
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SGT John Rauch
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Edited >1 y ago
while in afghanistan, we knowingly drove our truck through a mine field. the locals told us it was a minefield, we all suspected it was a mine feild because it was a patch of flat ground with green grass, but nothing had been planted on it and the locals wouldnt go near it. I was the gunner for our LTC and told him not to go through, he said we are going through and threatened the driver with UCMJ action if he refused. luckily we were not blown up
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CDR Director, Fmmtc And Tfmep
CDR (Join to see)
>1 y
Words fail me...
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CW3 Network Architect
CW3 (Join to see)
9 y
I talk to Vietnam vets who tell me crap like this is why officers got fragged.
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SGT Retired
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I was in charge of setting up a memorial ceremony for a unit on Ft Campbell. The detail i had was hard at work setting up one of our 20x40 tents, they were in the process of pulling the canopy tight and ratchet strapping it down. One of the corners didn't have quite enough slack to reach where it needed to, I turn my back for 2 minuets and here comes the good idea fairy with a sledge hammer in his hand, he proceeds the get his handy assistant to let him climb onto his shoulders chicken style. With the head of the hammer he proceeds to press against the canopy which isn't doing anything, he then proceeds to drop the hammer almost hitting his trusty assistant in the head. Then here come trusty sgt highspeed suggesting we get a broom and get two people doing this. I had to put an end to this before something bad happened.
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