What are your biggest "Lieutenant mistakes" that you made as a Lieutenant?

I had a 2LT that got "removed" from the JOC in Afghanistan for showing a female officer porn he had on an external drive plugged into the NIPR or SIPR computer. After he was "reassigned" to the company TOC (night shift OIC), he spent his time honing his Guitar Hero skills. To cap it all off he got to go to Germany because he was lifting weights in the Motor Pool's makeshift gym and ripped his bicep from the bone.

Staying a 1LT longer than necessary in the ARNG. The ARNG is sometimes a good ole boy military unit. I was selected to Captain in early 2003 yet I should have gone in the IRR and taken my Captain instead of just hoping to get ahead in the pecking order. If you are a 1Lt and your command climate does not favor you to get a vacancy promotion anytime soon, Go into the IRR and get your Captain and then immediately go back in the Army Reserve or National Guard. I was activated 3 months later for title 32 mobilzation with the CAARNG under Operation Noble Eagle III to be a QRF Platoon Leader at Dugway Proving Ground and they would not overslot you to O-3 and same a year later when I joined the ID ARNG and I volunteered to go to Iraq under title 10 in 2004/2005. I know the active Army can have you be a Platoon Leader and still be a Captain for short time. In the Guard it does not work that way. I had put in a 3 year promotion delay letter instead of going in the IRR and in February, 2006 I was in the IRR transferring to the USAR and I contacted my Military Police Branch manager and took my Promotion. Just my 2 cents worth!

I had been taught that mission accomplishment was job one. I found out the hard way that job one did not include jumping the chain of command. My military career was cut short for my repeated offenses of bullying senior officers while accomplishing my missions

To my knowledge, I was the only Reserve Officer called to AD into the 7th Infantry Division (during their COHORT time) and since I worked for a Federal Agency, and they had to let me go. This was many years after Vietnam (where I was enlisted) and over 10 years after OCS (I was an O3E), and had to learn a lot of things again. I thought Light Fighter indicated electricity conservation...it made sense. But the men in this great Division had their own way of greeting officers, and one morning a young PFC saluted me and proudly exclaimed "Light Fight Em". I was lost...so, I fighured the best way to Light Fight em, was to "Gut Beat Em". Poor kid must have thought I was a little off.

As a 1Lt in Korea, I was TDY to a very remote location with minimal manning. There was just me and a LTC with a few dozen Es to fix fighter jets. Within days, the unit deployed for a few weeks in Philippines but one of the jets wasn't ready to go, so I was told to stay behind, fix the jet and send it to the unit in the PI. I had only a half-dozen guys--just the "sick, lame, and lazy" non-deployable stay behinds. Together we managed to fix the jet's many problems. Finally, we needed to install a classified radio that was locked in a vault. Problem: the guy with the key to the vault had deployed to school at an unknown location! We were crunched for time: the flight schedule demanded we launch within the hour or else be delayed another two days.
Being a gung-ho problem-solver, I asked if anyone knew how to get into the vault. A guy said he knew a way, so I said "do it" and walked away. We succeeded in deploying the jet that afternoon. But an hour later, a captain called me to her office and read me my Art. 31 Miranda rights for ordering a burglary of classified equipment!

Lieutenant mistakes?
I should've kept a diary

Back in the summer of 80 somewhere just an hour and a half drive south of Cairo Egypt there we wuz with a communications detachment, Medical and Red Horse team together with 4449 MOBSS at an abandoned Russian Air Base for Operation Bright Star. The communications commander Major 35-10 arrives ordering us to be clean shaven and hair within regs by next morning even if we must go downtown Cairo. SMSgt Ross the real Boss of it all directed nicknamed Starky a Star Trek fanatic and the wizard for our power production shutdown all power to communications living areas. Yep! Major 35-10 got the message and within days learned when you’re in BFE you quickly learn how to survive in that environment. By the way, it was the Medical Folks who directed us not to shave and definitely under no circumstances go downtown to the local Barber Shop for a trim. As for Major 35-10? In two weeks he looked like he was ready for Woodstock!
By the way at this time the 4449 MOBSS was under the direction of the Pentagon not under any other Base or Squadron commander

At one time in an Air Force long ago (LOL), there was a parking spot at the Officer Club's next to the Wing Commander and Vice Commander marked "Any 2nd Lt". This was started when General Curtis LeMay became CINC. He said when he was a 2Lt he could never find a parking spot at the O-Club and he wanted to have one for his 2Lt's. Now days we have one "All Ranks" club in the AF as the Airman, NCO and Officer's Clubs have been absorbed into one. Last time I looked there were probably 10 spaces for Wing King's, other commanders, and Chiefs at the "All Ranks Club".

I worked for a Major that said he wanted honest opinions without any icing on it. I made the mistake of taking him at his word.

Are non- LT's allowed to tell the story?
I had a great, gung ho, young LT who had a couple of moments.
The first one involved the acquisition of some .223 blanks, Smoke grenades, and simulators. He needed a place to store them and chose the Squadron Battery Locker. Would have been completely inappropriate, but unnoticed, had the CO not performed a weekly safety walkdown with his Staff every week. As the Unit Safety NCO with the Safety Officer deployed, that was a fun day as I was the one who opened the locker only to display the unfortunate combination of contents.
The Second one involved an issue of not listening to the Troops when they gave Safety pointers ( I was in the general area but not on scene for this one). We had a pintle hook trailer with a generator set we used to power an experimental Comm set-up. The whole thing required repeatedly moving from one site to another and dropping & loading the trailer.
It is supremely important to keep ones fingers and thumbs out of the Donut ring of the pintle, a fact which was repeatedly explained to and ignored by this really nice guy. It was a shame to medivac him and lose the potential he represented.