What's the most ironic task you ever had to complete for your unit?

1LT Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 09:09:23 -0400

Mine might be cleaning one, singular rock. My friend and I had to thoroughly wash and scrub the company "rock". This was a 500 lbs. boulder that had the company insigina on it. Command team brought it to Afghanistan. So, of course, we had to make sure it was clean and prepped for customs (Europe - Germany) before we put that sucker back in the connex for transport. Ironic, stupid, wasteful - pretty much all around foolish.

Response by Lt Col Charlie Brown made Apr 8 at 2024 9:11 AM

Lt Col Charlie Brown — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 09:11:25 -0400

We had this go on daily at Officers Training School in the 1970s....the rock got painted with the squadron colors and stayed that way for 24 hours until another squadron got to it...and then we had to salute the damned thing...

Response by SPC Toni Hogue made Apr 8 at 2024 9:13 AM

SPC Toni Hogue — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 09:13:28 -0400

I had a Sgt that had us scrub a 5ton for show, but he wasn't happy with the shine

Response by SSG Laurie Mullen made Apr 8 at 2024 9:40 AM

SSG Laurie Mullen — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 09:40:03 -0400

When we were getting ready to redeploy from Iraq I was one of the S3 personnel tasked with helping the Chaplin move stuff out of his quarters and to the connexs. This man had a LOT of stuff. What ticked me off was that he wanted to bring back his five pound bucket of laundry soap! Cheap laundry soap! If I'm on deployment I prefer to have only what I need because I know that at some point that stuff is going to need to be packed up and moved. Five pounds of cheap laundry soap.

Response by SGM Mikel Dawson made Apr 8 at 2024 9:46 AM

SGM Mikel Dawson — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 09:46:16 -0400

Was on cigarette butt burial detail in Basic Training. While on P.C., the DS, following after us found a butt, so we had to bury it. After it was put under, the DS asked the PVT in charge what type of a cig butt it was, he couldn't say for sure, so we had to dig it up, find out what it was, then rebury it.

Response by CW4 Anthoney Lowry made Apr 8 at 2024 10:15 AM

CW4 Anthoney Lowry — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 10:15:13 -0400

many moons ago before i started flying, our platoon, and by platoon i mean E-4 and below, had to sweep the frost off of the parking lot at the officers club. this was in Germany, in the middle of winter, so the frost did not melt. had to bag it up and throw it in the dumpster. Oh, and we had to do it in MOPP-4.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Apr 8 at 2024 11:08 AM

MAJ Ken Landgren — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 11:08:47 -0400

I was commanding a Finance Unit and we got hit hard with Spring Cleanup. I had no soldiers in the office, so I decided to do Spring Cleanup with the soldiers. I also liked to roll up my sleeves and get dirty with the soldiers. I was the weed whacking guy and it threw a rock into a soldier's vehicle as he was passing by which broke a side window. I told him to contact base claims office. A couple weeks later I get a call from some civilian asking who I was and went over the claim with me. I could hear it in her voice that she was having a hard time understanding and grasping a CPT was weed whacking during Spring Cleanup. lol

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 8 at 2024 1:21 PM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 13:21:30 -0400

Alleged to have been involved in scaling the 34' tower @ Zero Dark Too Early during ground week @ BAC @ Fort McCoy and affixing a makeshift California flag and a sign that stating: "Surf the 34' Wave." At the AM formation, said performance art provided all the other candidates with a well-received chuckle and moral boost to help jump-start the day's training. Ironic that the Black Hats felt otherwise and ordered everyone from California to fall out, remove the display and report to the gig pit for some *quality time." AATW!

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made Apr 8 at 2024 3:45 PM

CAPT Kevin B. — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 15:45:07 -0400

I had a number of O-6s working at my direction when I was an O-4, but it made sense. We used to have Fleet Hospitals which were containerized everything. To put them up (1000 beds, OR, Lab, Pharmacy, Galley, Laundry, etc.) my Seabee detachment would take a couple weeks. We'd get it done in two days with every hand from Hospital Skipper, Docs, Nurses, etc. turning to. Turned out to be a handy thing during DS-1. BTW, the med types said they enjoyed the hard work being so different than what they normally did. Now turning the water treatment pool into a hot tub is a different story...

Response by SFC Kevin Childers made May 12 at 2024 3:23 PM

SFC Kevin Childers — Sun, 12 May 2024 15:23:46 -0400

I didn't attend, but at the 7th Army NCO Academy at Bad Tolz FRG, the students kept the AUTOBAN, an asphalt strip down the center of the student barracks hallway Spit Shined. Everyone was warned under threat of {insert capital punishment of choice here} to never to step, scuff or otherwise maar it's mirror like surface.